hi y'all

I've realized my posts are leaning towards a bit of a theme at times, my "Southerness" and how it plays out in this Yankee town. Funny how I never meant for this to happen. My only goal of this blog is to record my summer, update everyone back home on how things are going in the city, and generally journal my way through this passage in my life (trying to be as honest as I can on a public blog). So I'm guessing that means that the part of my identity that is defined by being from the South has never truly gotten a chance to reach out and feel its boundaries until being transported to a place so unlike where I was raised. It's the little things that I've become acutely aware of, how appreciative I am when a guy opens a door for me, or how many strange looks I get when I say yes ma'am to the cashier behind the Starbucks counter, or even how excited I become when I bump into a woman on the street and she remarks, "Excuse me, dahlin." (Finland laughed when he noticed the extra skip in my step after hearing her drawl, oh yeah did I mention I made friends with an artist from Finland? Real neat guy, bit of an awkward lunch date) What any of this has to do with my day yesterday you may ask? Well, as I was googling, yes, B, I was googling, up things to do last night I stumbled upon a cool little venue in Chelsea that happened to be featuring Corey Smith at 8. What?! My immediate response was to look up how far away it was, to text S, wait for her exclamation mark filled response and then hurriedly put together my plans for the evening. Which turned out to be wonderful. I may have happened across two different promo parties since I've been up here (one for the movie Killers, and the other for Lady Gaga's sunglass designer), but neither of those nights turned out to be near as fun as last night, hanging with S, and listening to some sweet Southern boy sing. Maybe it was because of who I was with, or where I was, or how it reminded me of home, but it was definitely a great night.

Even though the night was filled with sweet Southern comforts the day consisted of very New Yorkerish things. Lunch with Finland at an Indian restaurant, window shopping along Broadway, reading in Washington Park, dancing to a band playing under the arch, and joining in on a group of strangers decorating the sidewalk, chalk in hand, till finished with my contribution I walked away iPod plugged in my ears ironically playing Belle and Sebastian's Piazza New York Catcher. Then dinner with A at Kimmel and the show and bed and morning and work and now I'm back, and who knows what tonight, tomorrow, or the rest of the summer will hold?

-Mandy

P.S. Much later, just now realized that my computer was still up and hadn't posted this whoops.