Does one capitalize the "s" in south?
I may have pulled off the ultimate 180 change. Well, I don't know if I "pulled it off" but did/am doing it, I guess..?
I've gone from LA and running around a bit glitzed up indulging in all of its stereotypes to Atlanta and some of it's stereotypes. It's funny how a place like LA can make you "cool" to everyone simply by living there. You don't even have to do anything but be there and spend money. Of course it's a beautiful playground that I still love, I'm just saying. My cool points took a nose dive and yet, I think I may actually become more me. So if A equals B and B equals C...yikes!
I've temporarily lost my identification as a dietitian. The one thing I've been trying to truly master and focus on in the past 5 years. The so called formative years. What are you when you are unemployed, living alone (correction living with a kitten named "bad cat"), without a group of friends or family, in a foreign city....? It's laughable on a lot of levels. The absurdity makes everything so much better.
I guess I will tell you what I AM or at least Am Doing.
Along with not working (sounds like a choice compared to unemployment. It's all about the attitude. Or connotation in my head. And I do have work coming...), I'm decreasing my exercise by 75% if not more, sleeping in, eating fried potatoes and pulled pork BBQ sandwiches, having beers in really annoyingly smoke filled bars, going to a Meryl Haggard concert and the Coco Cola Factory, killing cockroaches with a "I'll get you" attack attitude, finding a cat under my car and taking it in (for now), buying actual furniture and googling "LED vs LCD"...
It'll be my first TV, people. I'm not saying this in an "I'm so cool and hipster" sort of way. I actually just never owned a TV. Maybe as independent as I thought I was throughout my serial transitions, I've also depended on so much. Roommates furnishings, the city's direction of what to do and see and eat and think and dress, my job's schedule and perpetual drive to master it. This is my first place alone, my first time sans garbage disposal and dishwasher, my first kind of odd step back but maybe into place?
I'm wondering how much of my current life is just because I'm in an odd transition phase or p…æ¢∞∞∞???????^^7 (<-cat on keyboard. Absurdity continues. Add "youtubing Jackson Galaxy" to the queue of what I am/what I am doing. As opposed to "who I am?" hmm. I'd like to think that is always evolving) or because I'm living in the "South."
I suppose it's amazing how one can think they're open minded living in a place like Los Angeles and also be close minded to my current life. It's been good. Somewhat a struggle. I have scratches all over my hands from the cat and bruises in weird spots from moving furniture to prove the struggle.
I found an article this morning Why are Southerners Less Healthy? which stated that Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee are national leaders in preventable deaths from heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory disease, cerebrovascular disease (strokes) and unintentional injuries (such as car and motorcycle accidents).
This may totally dull you but I found this graph (at the bottom of the page) insanely interesting. But then again, I'm living alone without a whole hell of a lot happening.
It showed me that 18.9% of either deaths or preventable deaths in CA are due to chronic lower respiratory disease compared to 47.7% in GA. May I remind you that Santa Cruz banned smoking in 1987 and CA banned smoking in 1994. 1994! You'd think that GA would be a bit more progressive as it is on the East coast but it is in the South.
It is slow but I think the entirety of the South is having or will have gentrification with northern youngsters looking for better property value. If they don't die from second hand smoke first.
Anyways, that was one example. Of my 180. Of Coco Cola's presence and a potential attribution to heart disease in GA.
I feel similar in ATL as I did in STL. Both Monsanto and Coco Cola allow a presence and economy and jobs and some kind of solution to starvation.
Coco Cola seems to bring in much more pathos about the whole thing of course. And it works! The video they play in the theater before your visit begins makes you want to cry but never once shows coke or says coke. It's taken a "we unite the world and share in your happiness" sort of marketing sheme.
And it did!
There I was, howling over the outcry to the "New Coke" introduced in 1985 with my brother who randomly flew into my lonely town for business-as ATL has the largest airport in the US. Who knew that's why when they brought back "Old Coke" they called it Coco Cola Classic. A questions that has been plaguing me since 1986. Why the classic? What makes it classic!?!?!
I felt united! I felt happy! I was laughing with my brother in the Coco Cola Factory. And often thinking of my mother, who I am turning into. Cringing at how overwhelming and ADD the "world of Coco Cola" is and how I could not walk across the 5 continent tasting room without losing my ballet flats on the sticky floor. Worst nightmare realized.
And! on some level, forgetting I was a dietitian. A dietitian that believes that sugary beverages are the main culprit for obesity in the US. And feeling like a kid again. And then very quickly, feeling like my mother again.
The world of Coco Cola is a world. Just as city gives you a feeling.
Even if you don't know what the feeling is yet.
A desire to have a community.
To root for a basketball team.
To know the best way to get somewhere on the highway or subway system.
A way others can comprehend who you are so they feel like it/you makes sense to them. Living in a city can make you cool or down to earth or wear North Face or despise North Face or smoke cigarettes or drink wine or take the subway or go on hikes or know what's going on in foreign politics or know what's going on in Hollywood.
It gives you an identity. A stereotype. It's an odd thing.
But it makes people proud or allows them to be something even if they're not: To be strong enough to handle the NY attitude or be socially conscience enough for Portland or to be the most hospitable southerner yet.
Or maybe people just like to be where their values are and interests are represented the most.
Which perpetuates the stereotypes.
Which continues to make southerners unhealthy.
Which makes living in places you never thought you would interesting.
It's a little uncomfortable being where I am at. Losing an enormous sense of myself. Living in a place I never thought I would that has a lot of preventable deaths that I have dedicated to strive against. At least strive against on a personal level.
The weird part is I think I've gained a big sense of myself. Being a little lost by yourself is sometimes less lonely than being an actress amongst actors (don't read too much into the gender situation going on right there) in a beautiful city where sometimes rules don't apply to certain people and you can't tell if it's fall or spring. As humans, we have the capacity to love and hate something, for example a city, at the same time. We do a lot of comparing because then we can "place something" in our heads and feel better about it. More certain. When you live somewhere, you take a part of that city with you and that city puts a part of itself in you- your memories, experiences, bittersweet complicated feelings and your capacity grows. I'm pretty sure we just want to be the best and most honest versions of ourselves. And again, I believe cities give you an identity or push an identity on you. But the thing is, I'm not sure how much identity ATL has to give? Or I'm just so not even aware of it yet.
It has allowed me time to really consider what I do want, what I do think, how I can potentially make an actual difference, who I really am.
I said "think". I didn't say "figure out." As I said before, I'm always evolving.
My last stage in particular was an unbelievable amount of fun but I had this weird feeling that it was just one step. And I had to continue. To evolve. On some personal level.
When all the fun and glitz is laid out for your taking, the "taking" is what you're "doing."
At least I am "doing" or feel like I "will be doing" instead of just "participating in." It aids in real personal evolution.
And fingers crossed, a smoke free revolution. Which preempts the sugary drink revolution. Which is possibly all a product of gentrification. Which is all a product of saturation. Which is all revolving in a circle. As is life.
Which is probably why I'm turning into my mother...
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