I just moved a few weeks ago and I'm finally feeling settled in my new house.  Don't get me wrong, I still have unpacked boxes and I don't know where a lot of things are, including most of my pots and pans.

In fact, the spare bedroom looks more like a rent-by-the-month storage room than a place actual people live.  The mattress is leaning against the wall, boxes are stacked one on top of the other, and the closet has become a shove-everything-in-it space.

But my pantry is stocked, my fridge is full and my computer is hooked up.  I'm a single man and we're simple like that.  Give us the basics and we're generally happy.

I've even changed my address with my bank and my credit card.  Unfortunately, the bill people also have my new address.

I’m sitting in the company boardroom, listening to a presentation about something I don’t care about for a job I hate. The Power Point slides flash across the screen as the speaker drones on about departmental procedures. Like anyone gives a fuck. My brain is starting to shut down and evaporate through my ears.

My working life wasn’t supposed to be this dull. At junior school my friends and I would sit around the lunch table chattering excitedly about our future jobs when we grew up – writer, airline pilot, lap dancer. And that was just me. Why do we resign ourselves to crappy uninspiring jobs? Apart from the desperate need for money. But are dream jobs really that great after all?

(continued ...)

I remained standing.  "Your Honor, I present myself as amicus curiae."
   
The judge arched an eyebrow, clearly impressed, "Jurors do not qualify for that role."
   
"Your Honor, at this point I am only a prospective juror.  Therefore, I beg the Court's indulgence.  I believe this trial is a totally unnecessary waste of our precious time.  There's no doubt in my mind about the defendant's guilt.  We're all guilty of something.  You know it, I know it ..."  I gestured grandly around his courtroom.  "They all know it.  And I'm proud to live in a country where the guilty have the opportunity for a jury of their peers to proclaim that guilt to the world."  His mouth was agape; my brilliance had stunned this patriarch of justice.  Not to mention my own surprise at having gotten this far.    

Ten things I’ll probably never know:

·       If when purchasing a Lexus you really do get a little card to place in your wallet which entitles you to drive in the furthest left hand lane on the interstate while going 8 miles below the posted speed limit.

·       What I will say at my Academy award acceptance speech.

In the South, we do things a little bit differently.  We move at a slower pace, for sure, but only because we choose to do so.  We talk slower but we leave out unneeded syllables so we actually say things in the same amount of time.  (It's true, I've actually measured it.)

Visiting folks is Southern pastime.  Like baseball and fishing and chasing fireflies.  It's encoded into our genetics.  It's part of what makes us Southern.

We love fried chicken and sweet tea and banana pudding.  We crave the first sweet watermelon of the season and can't wait to shuck that first stalk of silver queen corn.

We can sit outside on a warm summer night and listen to the crickets chirp and be perfectly at peace with the world. 

Southerners aren't that hard to figure out.

But that waving-at-strangers thing; that one's always had me puzzled.

And now we continue with our next installment of Formerly Fun's BlogOpera.

BlogOpera  (pt 11)

I woke up first, noticing the sun edging its way down the horizon. I quietly got up from the bed leaving him to sleep for a while. I made myself some ice tea and thumbed through the day's mail enjoying a brief moment of solitude.

In my bedroom Dylan was still sleeping, the sheet only half covering him. He was an attractive man who definitely fit into what I would physically call my type. He was tall and lean, but not gangly or heroine-sheik thin.

He had strong arms that must have come from something other than hefting lattes and espressos. He had a mess of sandy blonde hair that was not long, but looked as if he had missed the last few haircuts allowing it to grow just enough to look tousled.