Update from the country...

Life definitely runs a lot slower down in the Blue Ridge. I got home around 8 on Saturday night and got extremely dee-runk with my friend Marybeth, who is married and lives in a part of town that I had never really navigated growing up - if you lived in that part of town, you went to Heritage High School, not E.C. Glass. I think it's pretty strange sometimes that I barely even knew this part of town, yet if it were the same distance from me in any other city I've ever lived in, I'd know it like the back of my hand.

Anyway, I got in and went to a couple of bars with Marybeth, her husband and a girl named Carrington, who went to high school with but I hadn't particularly hung out with before. It was fun, had a few beers and then I met up with some friends from my graduating class at a late-night party. One friend had gotten back from Iraq in February and I hadn't seen him since then, so I came to see him in particular, but ran into a guy named Chris. I've now concluded he is the Dick Clark of Lynchburg - he doesn't age at ALL. He and I are both those people that get carded for EVERYthing.

It's kind of weird how we've gotten out of touch with some people from high school days, then reconnected with others along the way. If you asked me in 1997 to predict who I would lose touch with for 11 years, it wouldn't have been Chris - I used to give him and his friend Courtney a ride to school every day my last year of high school, and the three of us took summer school together that year as well. But when I left for Georgia, we all lost touch, though not from any sort of argument or falling-out. Just never ran in the same circles. Fast forward 11 years, I show up at a party where I used to date one of the guests, and it's like a time machine back to the late '90s.

Yesterday, nursing a rather large hangover-slash-physical-exhaustion, I decided to go down the county roads and visit with my friend John, who I also hadn't seen since 1997. We had recently "friended" each other on facebook and got to talking a couple weeks ago, where I learned he's an artist as well and lives in this awesome little house in the woods a little bit aways from my mom's house. We had a couple of beers, watched the heavy rain let up for a while and he showed me the property, complete with a separate little party house (he's an electrician as well, so it's a pretty well-outfitted playhouse-slash-fort) and a massive studio in his basement. His artwork is a lot of handmade furniture - I wish I had the knowledge to do stuff like that. I'd post pictures if I had them, but that's kind of a scary thing - having someone photograph your studio. I rarely even let people see mine. Great little visit to see him though - I got to drive the back roads home when the weather was nicer and I sort of kicked myself for hating the area so much when I was growing up - you just don't see nature like this up in Philly.

I love my life, but sometimes it's nice to see things from that slower back-where-I-come-from perspective. I love hearing 10 radio stations of country music, seeing antique stores on every corner, getting beer in a grocery store for once, seeing mountains wherever you turn, and talking with people who just have less of a wall in them that's built as a result of city life. I don't think I've locked a car or house since I hit the Virginia line.

I'm going out to lunch with my dad right now, and then I'm finally hitting the western store to get myself a HAT. Not a baseball cap, not a stocking cap, but a real live cowboy hat. Mine got stolen when I threw a party a few years ago and I'm itchin' to replace it.