2002-04-11 3:08 p.m.
Georgia, Day 1

The first moment it hit me was when I made it past the MARTA station platform on Howard Ave. onto a side street in Candler Park...the smell of earth, trees, life. All of the houses of varying vintages, some newish, some falling apart, some recently patched up with lots of love and sweat (one house, which I remember having only a chain-link fenced-in backyard, now has a deck with an entire level underneath).

I love this place. Nowhere else (and that's not saying much, I'm not well-travelled) do I feel like I'm walking on EARTH and nowhere else. New York, Miami, they could be colonies on another planet. But the hodge-podge deep South, in my mind, has no celestial sibling. Here, people have porches and hammocks and rocking chairs, and the crazy box-style houses from the 1970s run side-by-side on the block with pre-fab mansions and mock-Bavarian plaster jobs.

I got my hair cut, finally, at my old salon in Candler. Both of the hair stylists I used to work for remembered me and asked me all kinds of questions about New York, that mythical place I'd moved to. They're sweet, if a little artificial. Jessica (the owner of the salon) got married and has a baby. The amount of ex-stripper, well-tattooed moms in Atlanta always floors me (if you don't believe me, hit the Star Bar and the Clermont Lounge sometime)...though they're probably better moms for having had fun when they did.

I touched base with most of Theater Emory in about an hour and change, and my head feels swollen with memories. Talking to Pat (the managing director) felt wonderful. She's the amazing grandmother you never had (despite being young enough to be your mom) � kind, attentive, always interested in your life, always has news that you've never heard about past friends and collaborators, and always has an ear about new ideas. I had one when I made our lunchtime appointment. I told her about it. She wants me to front the idea. More on that another time, if it comes to fruition.

I got a new alumni ID card (for the sake of campus access) which lasts another two years, and spent a little while walking old streets and hallways. It's strange to walk back onto your college's campus, because the rush of familiar sensations brings with it the expectation...that you're going to turn a corner and see an outdoor production of "Mere Mortals" that Adam and Ariel were rehearsing last week; that you're going to bump into Dr. Flannery for the first time this semester, and he'll make that snort out of the back of his throat that you have to bite your tongue to keep from laughing at; that you're going to drop off your stuff at the house, change into workout gear and go back to the rowing machine like you're just coming back from spring break.

Then your mind grabs hold of the fact that you don't belong here any more.

Today I'm happy I'm not still in college or in my college town...because as nice a time as it was, as strong and nurturing an environment as Emory provided, I never would be where I am now without the life and wounds and heartbreak that my life since this place has brought. I would never have done improv for Dad's Garage, fallen as hard as I did for Mei, been the overzealous left-winger at Fox, shared hot dog and thrifting afternoons with Tabi, written comics with D...and never would have been (or still be) in love with S.

I don't regret any of it. My strange path just raises a few eyebrows when people ask me, "so, where have you been?"