Life lately: another April comes and goes

Motto edition

Finding inspiration in the everyday.

One of the best days in my life.

Six years after rolling into town at midnight on a random Tuesday, belongings packed into my tiny red Corolla, yesterday I got to fulfill a dream. Thanks to the world's most amazing friends for celebrating with me and making me feel so very special.

Hold on tightly to your dreams.

Dr. Reed

Day Three: Self Portrait and Vegan cooking

One of my favorite things about Athens is that I've made friends here who are passionate about their diet in a holistic way that inspires me. Recently I've been mostly vegetarian for the first time in my life, and I have to say my body looks and feels better! That said, I could never go vegan. I would miss yogurt in the morning too much. And cheese and crackers as my afternoon snack. I have such respect for my friend Nick, for example, who has been a dedicated vegan for at least a decade. I'm cooking for him tonight. I love that I live in a place where I hunt down recipes, shop determinedly for the very best veggies, and continually learn new things about meals I should be making more.

For this afternoon, here's a self-indulgent photo of me reading on a patio.

Day Two: Jittery Joe's Infinity

If someone were to write a love sonnet about Athens there would be a line in it about coffee roasting and orange straws. In an era of Starbucks (and I gotta be honest, I drink Starbucks too), for a town to have a local coffee franchise that is just as recognizable and just as good... Props. I have spent immeasurable amounts of time at the Five Points and Baxter locations. Parts of my dissertation owe a debt to kind baristas and iced lattes. This week I'm spending time on the patio enjoying the sunshine and reading in rotation: an hour with work, then an hour of pleasure reading. It's a little splurge I take right now unabashedly.

xo

Day One: Transmet and Annoying Sorority Girls

When I was a fresh-faced first-year graduate student a thousand years ago, my cohort ate at Transmetropolitan (Transmet to the cool kids) about two days a week.  Being poorer than dirt, we had quickly discovered that slices of amazing pizza and glasses of PBR could be acquired here for a handful of dollars.  Transmet is one of those college town-ish places that is simultaneously affordable and higher-end, a hang-out and a place you could take a date.  The existence of places like this makes me always want to live in college towns.  

One of my grad school colleagues once took some gossip-like flack for hosting her 10-year-old son's birthday bash on the top floor of Transmet, footsteps from the bar.  I was less worried.  The little guy was so mature that he actually preferred to be around adults.  A kid after my own heart.  I thought the choice was more a testament to how enmeshed this meeting place had become in our group of friends.  It was the site--at least for me--of tipsy evenings and football afternoons, business lunches and beer lunches, moving conversations and conversations I wish had never happened.  When you love a place that much, you end up having to step away from it after awhile.

I convinced myself that I was sick of the food, but that's pretty much impossible.  After a couple of years on hiatus, I returned in recent months to watch football and basketball with friends who kept me sane in the dissertation completion period (during which some days I wanted to puncture things with a nailgun). When I decided to write photo essays about my favorite Athens places, I knew this had to be first on the list.  I returned yesterday for a solo lunch on the patio and immediately remembered that they have stellar paninis I should be eating more of.

The problem with Transmet is that's across the street from the string of what I like to call "sorori-boutiques."  On Clayton Street, you will most likely always see at least a few young sorority ladies shopping around with their monied, jobless moms.  Yesterday I encountered about a hundred.  I saw a coral blazer I wanted so badly, but three minutes of witnessing vomit-inducing whining and I had to jump ship.  See, there are some parts of Athens that kind of suck.  Honestly, sometimes I wish it was possible to have a college town with no college students.  Har har.

xo

Athens in nutshells

So it looks like I will at the very least be spending the summer away from Athens. Don't worry, this is a very good thing for me personally. And while I may be back here in the fall to teach in the UGA history department (which would make me feel all fancy), it is just as likely that another job will show its face in another place. So I have decided to take the next month or so (graduation is mid May) and compose some photo essays about my favorite Athena spots. I love this town, and there is so much magic in it every day. Anyway, keep close watch here because the blog is about to go all "Athens in 30 Days" style ;)

Summer's early sway

The only way to host a dinner party in Georgia this time of year is to host it outside. Reading has moved outside as well. Athens hosted a foodcart festival this weekend--grand idea, not so wonderfully executed because all the food was from Atlanta. I have heard that some strange food service laws in the state prevent the food truck culture from picking up here. In other news, eating on a patio at a regular cafe is miraculously similar to eating out of a truck. Maybe better?

Athens comes alive when the warm weather takes over, and seriously I am thankful for good friends and lots to do during this slightly tense month of my life. More to come.