Atlanta – My Other Home

I’m just back from a weekend in ATL, and everything about it was like slipping on an old comfortable pair of jeans. Not so long ago I was waxing poetic about how nice it was to come home to SF, and of course WV will also always be home (I’ll be there in a couple of weeks too). I’ve learned that despite my traveling, or perhaps because of it, I’m actually a bit of a homebody. More than a couple of days in a hotel room and I’m going to unpack. I’ll nest just about anywhere. A friend, who has spent far more days on the road than I, recently told me that he started to associate home with his stuff – when out at museums or wandering around he would start to think, I need to get home…to my backpack.

Anyway. So as I turned the familiar corner on Freedom Parkway where the city skyline suddenly comes into view, I though, Ah. There’s my city. I haven’t really lived all that many places (this is city number four, unless summers count, in which case I’m at six). But the thing about Atlanta is it’s the first place I both chose and liked. It’s the place where I figured out how to be a person. The place where I lost my shit. And then found it again.

This weekend was everything a visit back home should be – long, relaxed stretches catching up with old friends, without feeling harried or pressured to hurry up and get to the next visit. Just sitting and drinking and doing as little possible.

Plus! It featured a brand new friend! I had the extreme pleasure of meeting Heather – musician, fashionista, and soon-to-be scientist extraordinaire.

Books!

I am so remiss in these postings. Let’s play catch-up:

I finally gave up on the Wollstonecraft bio and started The Road instead. Oof. I've had the movie in my netflix queue, but after reading the book I'm not sure I have it in me. The book is excellent, but so disturbing that at two moments I actually had to put the thing down. That's some impressive writing.

Who Killed Retro Girl - I started reading this first entry in the Powers series while in Guatemala, and I was going to describe it thusly - "Oh Powers! You had me at 'What's a clitoris?' but does Deena have to be like every other woman in comics and wear shirts that show her belly button?" And then! They acknowledged it! "And shit. I wear these little belly shirts all day. That's gotta do something for you." It's better than nothing. I mean the acknowledgement is better than nothing. The book is better than lots of things, least of which is nothing.

The Well of Lost Plots and Something Rotten - I'm a total Jasper Fforde fangirl. In fact, Fforde was the cause of me finally using my various technological toys to their fullest potential. I finished Lost Plots while halfway back from Palo Alto on the Caltrain. I couldn't remember the name of the next one, so I used my smartphone to look it up online, then downloaded it on my kindle. I am a nerd. I'm also late to this bandwagon, so I shouldn't have to convince you about how awesomely entertaining Thursday Next and all her friends are.