For some reason

[pywacket]

I'm just really wondering what Fayetteville, AR (my hometown) is like right now. I'm missing Restaurant on the Corner, the Grill, The Dream Merchant, Flying Possom Leather--ok so all of Dickson Street and Hugos (where I used to work).

Is it all still there? Would I recognize any of it? What is the music scene like? What about the friends still there I've lost touch with--we're all getting up there now.

I haven't been back in about 9 years. I did visit in Xmess 1999, but that was the year I didn't get to see anything, to show James anything and instead fought with my family in hotel rooms and ended up back with friends in Tulsa, not having that macho nacho at Hugo's and their fake cappuccino or the submarine sandwich at ROTC.

It's because I realized last night--Gypsy (Amy) is still with me--the way I make friends now--sort of running at new people like a friendly puppy --is just how she made friends...how she made friends with me. I miss her...has it really been so long? And I can't remember when she died, but it has to be more than 10 years now, around 1990...But I can remember how she lived and who she was.

Comments

[oblomova.livejournal.com]

Oaky, now it's making sense -- you're an Arkansas girl. One of my dearest friends (a totally great, feisty, funny, bright, compassionate person) is also from Arkansas. Well, by way of New Jersey. But still...

One other thing I always hated about the Bay Area was how people there were so surprised to find that culture exists outside of their twee little world. Like if I were in total Bay Area mode, I'd say, "You're from Arkansas? Of all places!" (Like, no one from there should know how to read or write or think or take challenging positions or whatever.)

I promise I can do more than bitch about the Bay Area and stupid people. Honest I can...

[oblomova.livejournal.com]

That was meant to be "okay," not "Oaky." My typing skills are for shit lately :)

[podle.livejournal.com]

And here's the part where I get to look like a total asshole. Ready? Here we go...I'm a native of the area (Bay Area), born and bred. I agree with you on the whole - its pigheaded to think that open-minded people can only come from one place thing. I also have to say that when I first exited the bubble that was home I was truly surprised by the empty-headedness of the general populace. Now - don't get me wrong - we have plenty of empty-headed people in the homeland - I've been beaten up by them and know. But at a certain larval stage my general assumption was that if the jocks from Novato were this bad then people from other places, say the mid-West, would probably be worse. The thing that messes you up about the Bay Area is that people (well, they used to anyway) come from all over the place to live there. So you start thinking that the place is generating the people rather than the reverse. I have definitely been guilty of the whole - wow, you're from Arkansas thing. Particulary with Pywacket.

And, once again I have to say, its my home. I still love it. Sure its full of stupid SUV driving butt heads who talk out of their asses. But I still love it.

On a different tack - I think its our job to remember our dead. Truly. They aren't dead if you take them with you and remember who they were and how they talked and how they held their cigarettes or acted like puppies sometimes or sang tunelessly or had this goofy habit of pulling on their ears when they were nervous.

There.
I said it.