Moving Abroad

As I finally accept that I am coming to a crossroads in my life, the idea has set in that I have to choose where I will reside for the near future. Originally, I have mainly just assumed that I would just stay here in the Northeast, happy amongst my blue state compatriots. But I keep getting the premonition that I should really pack my bags and step into the great unknown. That's right people. I'm talking about the Southern United States of America.

I have already begun to explore the types of papers and vaccinations that one needs to make such a journey and have found that it is not such a painstaking process. Alledgedly one does not even need a passport to come and go as you please. It must be the work of some free trade agreement I must have overlooked.

Seriously though, the South has always had some allure for me I figure. In my frantic pre-college days, I was an ardent University of North Carolina basketball fan. As I advanced and realized they didn't have my intended major (biomedical engineering, funny isn't it), I did the unspeakable and switched my allegiance to Duke. If I didn't get into Duke, I was set to go to the University of Virginia. Even though the restaurant we visited had its music literally stop as soon as my family walked in the door, I appreciated the feigned hospitality of that diner waitress. Even though the racism still permeates, there's still that hospitality and etiquette thing that draws me in.

Plus it seems that they have a much more relaxed pace of life, an unhurried motion that really speaks to the inner lazy man in me, which tends to bitch me around on a regular basis. And my friends point out that I slip into some fabricated Southern lilt in my speech on a more than normal basis for a man who never spent much time below the Beltway in D.C. The only other accent I slip into with approaching regularity is some form of British thing, and I'm not ready to actually get papers ready to go there. That would require work which goes against the whole Southern thing that looks so good. Plus they don't like Americans that do bad British accents. That's why they were so scared when Renee Zellweger did Bridget Jones' Diary. And they're great cooks, that love to barbecue. Ribs! Did you hear me?!?! Ribs!

Maybe this freezing weather (one more day of cancelled school) is affecting me. Maybe it's the endless barrage of Southern hip-hop videos I willingly subject myself to. Somehow Atlanta, Texas, and Florida are on my list of possible destinations despite the redness of their politics. And that's just peachy keen with me.