Damn Mississippi!

[thesummerqueen]

The south isn't THAT bad. The religous ordeal sucks monkey balls but i love the south. i love being southern and being around southerners, until the religion pop its little ugly head in. City doesn't sit well with me.

Southern cities aren't that bad either. I love living in Charlotte. I love the land. I just don't love the greater proportion of its people.

It doesn't get much more beautiful than the Appalachian mountains from the Shenandoah Valley down. I defy you to find a place in America more evocative of all that Celtic legend and myth could yield. Then in the summer when we've had enough rain, the plant life goes wild - lush and rich, the cloying sweet scent of gardenias and magnolias and honeysuckle heavy in the humid air. Right now the crepe myrtles are bowing on the sides of the streets, over-laden with white and magenta flowers. In uptown, Elephant's Ears wave lazily, interspersed with flagrant hibiscus and prim little begonias. It's sunnier here but the weather is mercurial - we get thunderstorms most evenings that drift away after only a couple hours, so you're left with large fluffy clouds reflected in the glass of the skyscrapers, painted like a watercolor landscape in the sunset. The nights are warm and breezy, and after a few beers people forget their political alliances and their religious needs and all they want to do is share their joint, or beer, or appetizers or whatever they happen to be doing at the time along the main streets in the city. People sit outside playing music - sometimes for money, sometimes for shits and giggles - and street magicians rouse of roars of laughter and surprise.

Even the "religious" are fun to be around some days - I used to go study on Sunday mornings at breakfast at a Cracker Barrel that must have been next to a old black church, because all the older ladies would come in with their big hats and big smiles and they were absolute peaches - hugs for everyone, a kind word or inquiry for surrounding patrons, a little chuck on the cheek and 'bless' for anyone they thought was cute. When the religious feel good, they're full of love and jolly southern kindness.

I have been yelled down in the street by women - women! - so they can compliment me on my outfit. That never once happened up north.

And don't get me started on the food. If you've never had Carolina BBQ, you haven't lived. I don't care if your beliefs demand you don't eat pork - if God had a favorite food, it was surely a slowly smoked pig doused in a vinegar sauce. Holy fuck. And that love translates to everything else - don't let Paula Deen fool you, it doesn't all have to be fried and fatty. In the more ethnically varied areas, we have all kinds of cultural food, and it's all fucking amazing - from the pizza all the way up to the Thai to the Ethiopian to the hippie vegan stuff. We take food SERIOUSLY down here. Presentation must be good, but above all it must make people exclaim about how good it tastes, so they sit a while and come back often. It's too bad the chain food places are so pervasive around the country, because the one-off restaurants here are fucking amazing. Cajun, bistros, diners that are way better than Cracker Barrel or IHOP, little Italian joints and restaurants devoted to hot dogs (with anything you could want on them).

I'm sure Rhythm could wax lyrically about FL and other areas where the swamps are primeval pits of mud and extant dinosaurs, with ancient plantation homes surrounded by ghostly Spanish moss.