sexy sadie

Okay, so maybe a little more on the furball and a little less on the sexy. (But of course, cool points to the first commenter who can tell me what "Sexy Sadie" is. Lots of cool points. That are later redeemable for my respect and admiration.)




Sadie is pleased to meet you. She assures me that the pleasure is entirely hers.


cheers,
elizabeth

the cardinal rule of science lab

By the time I went to bed on Saturday night -- more like Sunday morning -- I'm pretty sure I had a residue. I think that's my new qualification for whether or not an evening was ridiculous. Did I come home feeling coated in a residue? Even more points if I also have to brush crusted beer out of my hair. Which I did. REDIC.

Saturday until about 2 in the morning I was at the Hi-Tone for GonerFest 6, taking pictures and taking it all in for Live From Memphis (blog post still forthcoming). Turns out taking it all in also meant getting moshed on, crowd-surfed over and beveraged on. Yes, beveraged. It's a verb, and it includes any manner of alcoholic drinks that get thrown, slung, sloshed or spilled during a variety of activities in large crowds. Beveraged. Look it up.

Anywho.

I'll hash out all the bands I saw fully in my post for LFM, but no doubt I was impressed. And recalculating my budget to figure out if I could afford a trip to the record store. (Mostly because of these guys - 100 percent homegrown.) But by the time I got home, around 2:30 a.m., I was exhausted and starving and fantasizing about eating something over the sink, where calories don't exist, putting on my fleece jammies and hitting my bed like it stole something. And I finally pulled in the driveway, and I unlocked the backdoor and just when I inhaled deeply to breathe that sigh of relief, it hit me. The stench. The undeniable, impossibly specific odor of poop.

I should probably back up here.

You know how sometimes you talk about something for a while and hem and haw, but when it finally does happen it's all of the sudden? That's what happened at our house Saturday morning, when I woke up and my mom told me that she was going to drive to Olive Branch to look at puppies.

With my oldest brother Noah in town for the weekend talking about being ready to get a dog, and me basically NEVER shutting up about Otis Redding the Mythical Weiner Dog, ever, even when I'm sleeping or my mouth is full of food or if perhaps I came down with a very instantaneous case of TMJ, even then I would STILL be talking about him, my mom apparently just couldn't take it any more. It was time.

And so when I got home Saturday afternoon, there was a fuzzball in the kitchen named Sadie. Fast forward to 2:30 a.m. Sadie is yelping her little furry ass off. My nostrils are being invaded by the doo doo patrol. I stand there for a few minutes wondering what I should do, knowing that if I even went close to her crate to see if she DID poo that it'll cause a serious situation that could potentially wake the neighborhood. And we live across the street from a crazy man who talks into the back of his hand while pacing his driveway shirtless. Not a person I want to wake up in the middle of the night. So I leave her be, and head for the fridge. Mmm, leftovers.

Luckily, my mom is up just a minute later to check on her. Not so luckily, we discover that she has done a monster poo ALL up in that crate. And since little fuzzball Sadie is a standard poodle pup who's yet to have her first hair cut, there's poo in a lot of places. Like in her paws and around her chin and all in the hair around her butt and let me tell you she REEKS but son of a bitch, if she still wasn't pretty damn cute.

The poo sitch was resolved, but not before I unknowingly put my nose way too close to her little paws and almost gagged. I had violated the first rule of science lab, that apparently applies to finding out if something is poo or dirt. WAFT. For God's sake, waft.


cheers,
elizabeth

oooooooooh, listen to the music

Remember a while back when I decided to become the world's foremost authority on Memphis music? I wish this post were to tell you that the task had been completed and you could all bow down at my vast knowledge, but mostly I have done nothing to further this cause since then besides listen to Otis Sings Ballads on vinyl. Whoops.

Yesterday I hit the library and picked up three books which should get me started in the right direction -- one on the history of music making in Memphis, one on the history of STAX and one on Southern rock in general. And I'm diving in to a more hands-on education this weekend by attending my first GonerFest. It's an annual rock festival from the folks at homegrown Goner Records, and I'll be blogging about the bands I see Saturday night for Prodigal Girl, my presence on Live From Memphis. I'll also be live-tweeting, so you can follow along at home! HOORAH!

I'll see y'all when I recover.

cheers,
elizabeth

my parade, and how it gets rained on

In case you don't follow my tweets, or you don't live around here, or you don't watch the news, it has been raining here since approximately the day before the birth of the Christ child and current forecasts predict it should stop raining some time after we are all dead. All of us. DEAD. Dear sweet God, the rain.

There was a time when rainy weather made me pine away for England -- as if I needed an excuse to do THAT, I know -- but at this point any level of nostalgia or happy feelings whatsoever has been completely expunged from my system. Partly because even on the Motherland it did not rain THIS much, and partly because when you are quite this soggy it becomes difficult to associate positive feelings with just about anything. I'm shocked we're not all seeking immediate therapy for intense seasonal depression. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen the sun in the last week. It is that bad.

But I do have a bit of news to share that has effectively lifted the theoretical rain cloud of poverty in my life -- I've got a job! A real one! With paychecks and money and regular hours! WHEE!

I'm doing social media/blogging/marketing/PR/jack-of-all-trading for a local web development company. It's not a newspaper or a magazine, but it looks like it's going to be a diverse position that'll play on my skills (and things I enjoy doing), let me grow and prepare me for just about any kind of job, whatever the next step might be after this. Plus, did I mention that they have promised to pay me? Because they did. So far I have decided that this is my favorite part.

I had been considering building an ark, but that plan's been put on hold so I can go to work Monday morning. Although, when Holly and I were on the GART we did see an actual ark on the highway -- well, an ark in process with a very large sign letting us know that it was either the biggest or the only or the oldest ark in the world, or maybe all three, I can't quite remember. It also appeared to be made of metal beams and was severely rusted. Just maybe not totally sea-worthy, is all I'm suggesting. Maybe just make sure you have a life jacket before you board that thing. Or maybe just take your chances swimming.

Anywho.

So it's going to rain until we die, but I got a job. Where they're paying me. Did I mention that yet? Elizabeth: 1, Poverty: 0. Praise. Be. To. Allah.


cheers,
elizabeth

local charm

Some promising things have been brewing on the job front recently, and I've been spending a fair amount of time imagining what my life will be like when I have a place that's not across the street from a crack den and when I only eat hot dogs by choice at county fairs and ball parks.

Mostly this involves two things: looking at pictures of sweet little puppy faces on the Humane Society web site and trolling Craigslist and The Flyer for apartments and houses. And sometimes looking at pictures of shoes in the Sunday newspaper ads. Because oh my God, SHOES.

Apartment hunting in Memphis can get interesting, because (like Jersey City) really great, young, kitsch areas or old, wealthy, gorgeous neighborhoods back right up onto the projects. You're surrounded by huge trees and big ass houses one minute and decaying apartment complexes and 24-hour check cashing joints the next. It makes deciding what you'd consider a safe place to live kind of a tricky proposition. And safe is a relative idea anywhere -- people have been murdered and robbed right here in super-safe Bartlett. You're never immune to the crime, but there are definitely areas of Memphis that I think my dear old dad would not be keen on for potential digs for his daughter.

This weekend I was at the Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering doing some freelance work as part of Social Camp Memphis, an un-conference on all things social media. As we were breaking down at the end of the day Saturday, I pointed out some apartments across from the campus and commented on how cute they were. But, I said, the chances of my dad letting me live on that part of Jefferson Ave. are slim to none. And slim just left town.

And let's be real -- this is not the worst neighborhood in town by a longshot. But each and every time I drove up and down that street this weekend some old dude or perhaps some old dude(s) were wandering around fairly aimlessly in the middle of the five-lane street. Sometimes fully clothed, sometimes not. Sometimes probably drunk, sometimes I couldn't have been sure. Sometimes maybe stoned, sometimes maybe, well, less stoned. Almost all of the time? Not totally in their right mind.

It's the charm of the neighborhood, just like getting "Ay mami'd" around Journal Square in Jersey City. And it is so, so charming. But I think for now I'll just visit.


cheers,
elizabeth

she's gotta be from out of town

Recently I made a very dramatic confession on Twitter. Ahem.

I like Miley Cyrus. I hope we can still be friends.

Now I do need to clarify something straight off the bat, which is that I don't necessarily LIKE Miley Cyrus, because in fact I find her, as a person, only mildly tolerable. But when it comes to her catchy little songs? Her pithy little teen pop anthems full of fun melodies and chorus lines that lend themselves to being shouted at the top of one's lungs while driving with the windows down? Those? THOSE, I LOVE.

So, I like her songs. So, I sing them. So, I'm now securely part of a fan base that is mostly comprised of seven-year-old girls. I am not totally unlike them. We all have ovaries, some of them just aren't quite functional yet. DETAILS. The point of all this, this embarrassing confession, is that I realized something today while listening to my current favorite Miley song, "Party In The U.S.A." There's a line in the song that reminds me of something that happened to me way back when I first got to New York last fall.

Pretty much as soon as I got off the plane in October I was working for The Tripwire and helping to cover one of the city's biggest music festivals, CMJ. The very first story I ever wrote for the site talked about the things I learned on my first night of my first ever CMJ. Of course at that time I imagined there'd be many more to come, so it was probably a good thing I got all these life lessons in on the first go. Anywho.

One particular lesson learned ended up being pulled and used as the headline for the story: "Only people from Tennessee wear flip-flops to rock shows."

Indeed I had felt reeeeeal out of place in my sparkly flops since everyone else was wearing high heels or biker boots or flats or shoes crafted out of newspaper and old recycled baby diapers and worn by someone who was constantly equalizing his own carbon footprint simply by existing because he was so green that his very farts were probably ozone-friendly.

And Miley feels my pain on this one. In "Party In The U.S.A." she sings "Everybody's lookin' at me now, like who's that chick that's rockin' kicks? She's gotta be from outta town. ... It's definitely not a Nashville party, cause all I see are stilettos. I guess I never got the memo!"

Sing it, girl, because I didn't either.


cheers,
elizabeth

come, rot your brain with me

I've spent the better part of the last, well, two years really, without cable television. Or at least regular access, and honestly for much of that time I didn't even have network TV. I had a laptop and a semi-reliable connection to a Japanese web site that allowed me to stream grainy episodes of The Gilmore Girls with subtitles, in Japanese, in orange puffy bubble letters. JEALOUS?

I'm telling you all this in hopes that you'll forgive me what I'm about to tell you, which is that since arriving home almost exactly one month ago I have consumed so many hours of television that I think I can once and for all put to rest the myth that it rots your brain because by God, if it did, mine would be PEA SOUP by now. There are just so many shows, and so much happening, and the colors and the shiny things and OH, THE CHANNELS! The hundreds and hundreds of channels and the flipping and the choices, and do I want to watch an America's Next Top Model marathon or an episode of The Rachel Zoe Project that I have watched every day for the last week or perhaps the 37th episode of Dateline on Investigation Discovery I've consumed in three days and scare myself out of being able to sleep for a month? IT ALL SOUNDS SO GOOD.

I've been justifying most of it by reminding myself that I am making up for lost time, catching up on old favorite shows, getting reacquainted after what has seemed like a two year lovers' quarrel. And in this reacquainting, I have made a few observations that I need to share. Disclaimer: If you don't watch a disgusting amount of TV, you may never have heard of any of this.

1. At the end of the commercial for the new Elmo Tickling Hands, probably around the time when you're trying to figure out what these damn things are for other than providing a very natural segue into the "good touch, bad touch" conversation, all the kids make B-Boy poses and Elmo says "YEEEEEEAH BOY!" Since when did Flavor Flav write TV spots?

2. Pretty much every time I see one of those Foundation for a Better Life commercials I get choked up. Despite the fact that I honestly could not begin to tell you what the EFF the Foundation for a Better Life is or what it does, other than make me weepy at the little boy playing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" with the concert pianist.

3. No matter the time of day or night, I can ALWAYS find an episode of either Dateline, 20/20 or 48 Hours playing on at least one network and chances are, there will be two to choose from. What this facilitates is an unforuntate pattern in which I watch some horrifying hour-long saga about a family whose very father chops them up into tiny pieces and buries them underneath a shed in the backyard before buying season tickets to the Mets with the insurance money RIGHT before bed and inevitably I'm so unsettled that I can't bring myself to turn the TV off until I'm sure I'll fall right asleep as soon as I roll over.

4. I would be interested in speaking to someone regarding laws about truth in advertising, specifically relating to the newest NuvaRing commercial in which a women claims, and I quote, "I love this commercial!" in reference to the original synchronized-swimming black and white minute-long trip to the seventh circle of hell. I promise you, there is no one, NO ONE, in his or her right mind who would actually enjoy a commercial that implants a song whose words are the DAYS OF THE GOD DAMN WEEK so, so, SO far into your brain that it simply will not come out, no matter how many times you blast "Panama" at maximum volume because THIS JINGLE, it is the Manuel Noriega of television advertising.

5. I should not be allowed to watch "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant." I am extremely susceptible to irrational fear mongering, and am not totally unconvinced a baby won't come flying out of me at any moment.

6. Are there people who still watch MTV? I think every one of the programs on the network could aptly be renamed, True Life: I'm Skanky White Trash or True Life: No Really, My Mom Smoked Crack When She Was Pregnant With Me. Or maybe you could just call it the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Network. I want my FASN doesn't have the same ring to it, I guess.

7. TLC's latest show about pageants is about a gentleman who coaches young ladies on how to take home the glory. The show is called "King of the Crown," which is mostly hysterical because in fact he is a HUGE QUEEN.


Happy channel surfing.


cheers,
elizabeth

weiners in heat

As many of you know, no matter how many times my life's plan has twisted and turned and changed routes and gone on long scenic detours down Deliverance-like dirt roads in the past few years, one thing has remained constant: my dream of owning a miniature Dachshund named Otis Redding. On Sunday I hit up the annual Germantown Festival, which has a whole lot of stuff going on for a full weekend, like craft booths and demonstrations and food and music. But all of that is secondary to what I specifically went to see on Sunday: the running of the weiner dogs.

Every year since 1995 the G-town fest has held a weiner dog race for charity, allowing the phrase "Weiners in Heat" to be bellowed over a loud speaker in front of crowds of people dozens of times and still somehow be totally socially appropriate. As I watched those little dogs run -- well, some of them, while others wandered around unawares -- all I could think about was little Otis Redding, who hopefully by next year will be a real life dog and will run in the weiner race and will probably, because he will be such a smart dog, be just as amused by the announcer calling him a weiner in heat as I will be.



cheers,
elizabeth

the last crazy person i'll see in jersey for a LONG time

On my way to Bowling Green last Friday afternoon, I hit a few chunks of pretty heavy traffic coming out of both Memphis and Nashville. Traffic like come to a full stop traffic. Traffic like get excited when you start going 30 miles an hour traffic. Needless to say, we were wary of what kind of Labor Day weekend traffic might await us on the 790-mile stretch of road (and back) we had to cover on the GART.

But really, we lucked out. We NEVER hit stop-and-go traffic on the interstate, and only a few times were there so many cars that we couldn't cruise. And mostly, those times were in and around the New Jersey/New York area. Shocking.

As we were leaving New Jersey on Sunday morning we had a run-in with one of the angriest drivers I have ever had the displeasure of sharing the road with. His name was Greg C. I know this because he was courteous enough to put his name, Greg C., on his vanity license plate. Public Service Announcement: If you plan to drive wildly and erratically, it would be inadvisable to put your name on your license plate. The end.

Greg C. and his black SUV were racing and weaving through the south Jersey traffic -- not gridlock by any means, but enough cars on the road to make you nervous when you see Greg C.'s crazy ass flying through like a slalom skier. We see him revving and whipping all around us for a minute before he pulls up parallel to us two lanes over and we get a good look at his face. He had a cigarette sticking straight out of his mouth and every inch of his upper body was tensed and furrowed, including, I feel certain, the lobes of his ears. Even with two lanes of highway between us we could tell that this was a VERY, VERY ANGRY MAN.

Next thing we know, Greg races over those two lanes, zips into the left lane ahead of us -- at which point we take note of his helpful vanity plate -- and he disappears off into the distance almost immediately, because he is driving seven million miles an hour and apparently knows something about immortality that we do not.

We shake our heads over Greg C. for a few minutes, but just as quickly as he passed us he's forgotten and we're back to our chattering and GRE studying and DQ searching. Little do we know that once that DQ quest was done -- just past Nutter Fort, West Virginia, just as the sun was almost completely gone from the sky -- Greg C. would be making a second cameo appearance on the GART.

We're just toodling along on a mostly empty highway in West Virginia, finishing up our Blizzards, when I look over into the left lane ahead of us and see none other than GREG MOTHER EFFING C. Hours later. HOURS later, two whole states later, Greg Mother Effing C. I start shrieking, "Greg C! Greg C! GREG CEEEEEE!"

Naturally, at first Holly has no clue what the hell I am carrying on about, but quickly enough she looks over and realizes that we are in the midst of our second encounter with the world's wrinkliest, chain-smoking-est, angriest driver EVER. Not only are we shocked that Greg C. happened to be on the same path as our dear old GART, we were smugly surprised to know that not only did we catch up with Greg C. -- despite the 20 minutes we spent waiting on the legally brain dead employees at the Taco Bell to throw some ground beef in a god damn tortilla -- we were PASSING HIM.

All that huffing and cigarette puffing, all the swearing he was very clearly doing from the driver's seat of that SUV, all of the 90-mile-per-hour weaving through thick Jersey traffic, all of that so that two girls who can hardly get their Chevy Silverado to accelarate up hills can PASS YOU somewhere in West Virginia? WHY, Greg? WHY WERE YOU SO ANGRY?

Much like the requisite number of licks to reach the center of the fabled Tootsie Pop, we simply may never know. And though we considered getting ourselves parallel with Greg to try to "tsk tsk" him from the next lane, we knew that he would never learn his lesson. He looked about 50, anyway, and you know what they say about teaching an old dog new tricks.

Nonetheless, we did have a conversation following the incident about the dangers of Greg C.'s reckless driving that would've just made our parents SO, so proud.


cheers,
elizabeth

scenic nutter fort, west virginia

West Virginia, like most states, is just a-brimming with intriguing town names. You could, for example, live in Mink Shoals or Big Chimney! Though our favorite city in WV was by far Charleston (we even took the scenic route past their fine arts center when I blatantly ignored the GPS and decided to drive past I-64), we also had a chance to discover a little more of another West Virginian municipality known as Nutter Fort.

On Saturday, as we drove north, we passed the exit for Nutter Fort and I told Holly that one day, I would live in Nutter Fort. My kids would go to Nutter Fort Elementary School and we would attend the Nutter Fort First Baptist Church. And we would have a dairy farm, and we would make butter, and it would be called NUTTER BUTTER. It goes without saying that we were already a bit punchy at this point.

So on Sunday, as we drove south searching, PLEADING TO ALLAH for a Dairy Queen to rise up out of the mountains, we nearly lost our shit when we realized that a DQ was waiting for us in none other than Nutter Fort, West Virginia. We had been questing for a Blizzard since Maryland, knowing that we'd seen one on an exit sign on Saturday. But that mystical DQ was never to be found, not even through the whole of Pennsylvania.

During our trip I helped Holly in her studying efforts for the GRE, mostly by going over word definitions and synonyms. Somewhere in Pennsylvania on Sunday, I'd say around hour two of the desperate DQ search, I began using the words in a story about this quest. In the story, our car broke down and we had to ford a river -- ford being a GRE word that no one in our generation will EVER forget thanks to Oregon Trail and its many-a-dead oxen -- and we discovered an island on the other side that had a DQ, but also a feisty indigenous people. First we made peace with them, then they made us their queens, then there was a little rabble rousing from the locals and we decided it would be easier just to kill them all. And THEN we realized we killed all the DQ employees, too, so there was nobody left to make us our damn Blizzards. Then we forded the river again, realized our car had just been out of gas, filled it up and made it to the next exit, where there was, in fact, a Dairy Queen. The End.

ANYWHO.

So we finally see the glorious DQ logo shining at us from the exit sign, and we pull off into Nutter Fort only to see an arrow pointing to our right and the number 3.0. Who in their right mind thinks THREE MILES is OFF AN EXIT!? We are shocked at the gall of the people of Nutter Fort, but at this point we are committed. And so we drive. Through the rolling mountainy roads of West Virginia, into and out of civilization a few times and finally we arrive at the Dairy Queen. After relieving ourselves in the Nutter Fort DQ ladies', we get in line behind some kind of corn pone Cleetus who was probably ordering one of those freaky looking grilled cheeses. This was when we noticed that everything in the Nutter Fort DQ cost about seventeen thousand times what it would cost in a normal DQ. Being the HUGE nerds that we are, we had a quick discussion about the principles of supply and demand, using examples to illustrate our points -- like the multitude of Asian ladies in New York City willing to paint your toe nails, thus making the mani/pedi available on the cheap cheap -- before ordering our Thin Mint Blizzards with EXTRA Thin Mint and then forking over our first born children for the frosty treats.

The next 25 exits ALL seemed to have DQs that probably would've been two seconds from the highway, but by that stage we were high on Thin Mints and unable to process any emotion other than OHMYGODMINTYCHOCOLATE. Yes, that is an emotion. It happens to be one of my favorites.

cheers,
elizabeth

three mcdonald's iced teas, two blizzards, one dead squirrel

Walk with me.

It's Saturday afternoon. Holly and I are mid-GART, pit-stopped somewhere in Maryland to take a wee at the Shell station. We take a brief moment to admire the beauty of my parking job -- I considered getting the Chevy Silverado into just two spaces a total victory -- before hitting the bathrooms. The women's room is locked, so we check the men's room. Empty. Holly ventures in.

Not two seconds after she closes the door, the women's room door flings open. Out walks a toddler wearing nothing but her flower printed underoos and rockin' the gas station bathroom bare feet like a tiny Britney Spears, followed by her EXTREMELY pregnant mother and only slightly more clothed big brother. Mom has on white short-shorts, a bright green tube top and two-toned hair, and she is courteous enough to let me know that the toilet in the women's room is not flushing.

Just when I think things really cannot possibly get any better, and I am sending Holly silent subliminal best friend messages to HURRY UP AND COME OUT OF THE BATHROOM IN TIME TO SEE THIS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, the gas station attendant comes waddling out from behind her desk and if there ever was someone who qualified to be a contestant on Pregnant or Obese, it was this woman. Only she was clearly too old to be pregnant. And clearly just SO very unfortunately obese in all the VERY, very wrongest places. Yes, wrongest.

She tells Tina Tube Top that the reason the toilet is not flushing is because some lever has been pulled off the wall. She heavily insinuates that Naked Baby and her big brother did the lever pulling. Tina Tube Top seems distressed. So distressed, in fact, that she hangs around to follow the gas station attendant into the ladies' room to make sure the lever is fixed and THANK GOD she did because at that exact moment Holly emerges from the bathroom and is able to witness ALL the glory that is Maryland's very, very finest white trash.

We saw Tina et al again on our way out, after discovering that the drinks station in the Shell looked like someone had come in and stolen almost everything, leaving an empty swinging hot dog rotisserie and a fountain drink machine that only had Pepsi. Thankfully, the Golden Arches were next door and we picked up some $1 iced teas, took a final look at Tina and the kiddos and drove back out onto the highway. Somewhere between the McDonald's drive-through and the on-ramp of the highway, Holly said, "You know, I always thought of Maryland as a fairly educated place. Classy. Put together."

"You know, I did too," I said. "I guess that just goes to show no state is immune from white trash."

Not even Maryland, people. Not even Maryland.

More true tales from the GART coming soon, including a dispatch from Nutter Fort, West Virginia and the story of Greg C., subtitled "Reckless Driving And You: Getting There Faster Doesn't Help if You're A Road Pancake."

Thirty-five hours in a car will give you wicked back pain and major exhaustion, but it'll also bring you stories like these. And allow you to justify fast food, gas station snacks and a Blizzard-a-day diet.

cheers,
elizabeth

venturing into new frontiers

Yesterday I was doing a little research for a blog post I wanted to write about dating in Memphis when I came across this list of the best and worst cities in the U.S. for singles. And I don't really know why what I'm about to tell you shocked me, because cruel irony is a central part of my existence, but you will just never believe what city fell just shy of being among the top 10 BEST cities for meeting Mr. Right.

Jersey Effing City, New Effing Jersey.

The cities on the list were ranked based on a few different statistics, like the percentage of the population between 18 and 24, and the percentage of that demographic group who are single. Other factors included venues for meeting people, how expensive the city is and how the locales ranked in online dating.

Memphis ranked No. 66 on the list, not totally off the charts horrific for singles but not totally fabulous, either. Of course there are big differences (for me) between Jersey City and Memphis, the first being that I actually know a few people here. By virtue of that alone I'm more likely to meet people or be introduced to someone through friends. And there's also the fact that I actually care to meet a guy who lives in Memphis, whereas I did NOT care to meet really most anyone who lived in Jersey City. And I STILL got to know some of them a WHOLE lot better than I would've liked.

So here I go, diving into the (hopefully not TOO contaminated) dating pool in Memphis. Actually, this city hasn't had very good luck with pools in recent history so perhaps we should scrap that analogy. Scene. Dating scene. That'll work. A little less drowning, a little more drama? Probably fairly accurate.

I have no current plans for speed dating or singles nights or any other various forms of torture, but since I do so love to entertain y'all I'm not ruling anything out. For now this announcement is probably far less dramatic and exciting than it sounds, because really all it means is that I'm here and I'm single and I'm batting my eyes suggestively at cute boys in public and sending them subliminal messages to ask me for my phone number. So far no success on that route, but I promise you will be the first to know.

It's going to be interesting to date here, if only because I never really have. Save the Match.com fiasco the summer after my freshman year of college, but can you really call Donnie Drug User and Scottie McStares-At-Your-Chest DATING? Really? I'm not calling it that, because deleting them from the "Guys I've Dated" heading makes me feel less like I'm six degrees of Kevin Bacon from getting offed by a Craigslist killer.

I've dated in London, I've dated in New York, I've dated in the metropolis that bests them all -- Murray, Kentucky -- but never my hometown. I'm interested to see just what kind of shocking specimens of men exist in this city. And since I've recently decided that I'm basically looking for the male version of myself, EFF this whole opposites attract thing, I'm also wondering if any one place is really big enough to hold two people as ridiculous as me. If it is, we will probably find each other even from the farthest distance like high-grade magnets because like attracts like, and crazy most definitely attracts CRAZY.

I'll keep you posted.

cheers,
elizabeth