So, I digress.

These past few days, Podunk has been a quiet place. Who am I kidding? It’s always a quiet place. I lounge around all day in my underwear barely able to force myself to take a shower. In fact I don’t think I showered today, before I left to drop off my resume at a local “alternative” medical practice. Luckily, I received an email that I can’t drop it off until tomorrow because they are only accepting resumes during certain hours. Thanking the Gods of Technology for being able to receive my emails via my phone, I turned down a side road hoping to be able to drive back to the House of Solitude, without making a U-turn. I was successful in this but I also drove fifteen minutes out of my way, passing several old men going out to get the mail in unbuttoned plaid shirts, beer bellies hanging out proud and eager over their khaki shorts. I say eager because southern male bellies have a mind of their own. The men let their belly lead them, similar to them taking Cujo for a walk. Like it knows that as soon as it gets to the mailbox and back it will be rewarded with a Natty Light. “Good Belly!”

Continuing my journey off the main road, I noticed several for sale signs, “House for Sale, please before we face foreclosure,” “Car for Sale, runs like new even though it’s a Pinto and hasn’t been driven in 20 years, and needs new tires, new belts, new AC, we only want 2400 dollars,” “Tractor for sale, how else are you gonna cut your grass?” “Goat for sale” wait what Goat for Sale? Are you kidding me?

I found my way back to Mainstreet, Podunk and eventually home to change into more comfortable clothes. A pair of Gap Jeans no less, it’s been years since I’ve been able to fall into the Gap. Not that I really wanted to, Gap and Old Navy are the higher end K-mart of fashion. Sure, it’s completely acceptable to wear Gap or Old Navy in a social setting, but I always find that within months I have to replace my clothes due to wear and tear. Seriously, they need to hire more skilled Mexican factory workers to sew the buttons on my pants. I can’t count the number of times my jeans or shirts from these stores have decided that they didn’t want to be worn in public anymore. Even their pajama pants always end up getting a huge hole in the crotch. Thankfully, I’ve almost entirely grown out of the wearing pajama pants in public stage. I’m sure my friends and family will agree with me on that one.

Anyway, I digress, which if you haven’t noticed 90 percent of anything I write is a digression of some sort. I used to get in trouble all the time for this. “Get to the point, Sara.” “Do you really need to discuss why you think, that Porcupines are the vein of society? This is an essay about Socialism.” “It is completely unnecessary to add anecdotal evidence from your own life into a biography of Martin Luther King, Jr.” My personal favorite is the time when I wrote an essay on the Stigma of Mental disorders and was told prior to starting the assignment and several times during the course of the class that we were not to include any kind of personal touch. I ended up writing 32 pages, 15 of which were about the Stigma of Mental disorders and the rest was a personal biography of my experience with therapists. The response “this would have been a higher grade if you had focused on the topic instead of your own life”.

I left Casa de Solitude in search of interactions with people, even if it is only as much as a greeting from the bank teller, and a drink order from the Borders barista. Thankfully, Borders has more tables available today. Last time I was in here there wasn’t even a comfy chair open. I also feel it necessary to not visit the same locations too much, or they’ll start to think I’m strange, although, the Starbucks in Podunk probably appreciates my business.

I settled into my seat and began continuing this project and in walked this guy, dressed like a pirate. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Should I have asked him where he left his parrot and peg leg? Maybe he left them on the Jolly Roger. He had a fucking satchel! Better than any satchel that I’ve ever made. It was leather and adorned with some kind of pirate-y logo. An honest to God Satchel attached to his belt, I bet it has a treasure map and a compass, and possibly his eye patch; I mean why keep it on the boat if you can have it so handy. I really want to know what’s in this satchel. I’m in love, with crazy pirate dude. Not like actual love, but like you’re my hero love. Like I think that you’re the coolest guy in this joint kind of love.

The people of Podunk are an interesting variety. The longer I stay here the more I notice that this is America. It is a melting pot of people of all ages and backgrounds. I mean they’ve got pirates, hot Asian dudes, spicy Mexicans, middle aged Mom’s, funny Preachers, and sweet old ladies.

I’m starting to appreciate my new homestead, although not enough to stick around longer than I have to. I think that I’m surprised by the diversity of this place. When I was growing up these area were filled with rednecks, and blacks. Now it’s grown into this different entity. It’s weird for me to hear languages other than redneck and street talk when I’m out and about. I know that as far as podunk towns go, Podunk is actually pretty advanced. But after years of living in either college towns, suburbia or major cities, Podunk is still podunk to me.

It also still has its backwards elements: interracial dating is still taboo, people who live alternative lifestyles (i.e. homosexuality) are still not openly accepted, etc. I am kind of problematic in that I support gay rights, and well, my ratio of relationships with white guys to non-white guys favors non-whites. I’m into the ethnic thing, I guess. I actually blame my dad for this because he told me I could never date Manuel Rodriguez when I was little, and ever since then I’ve almost exclusively dated guys of every ethnicity except white. It’s funny though because even my friends from outside of Podunk, are not entirely comfortable with interracial dating. They’ll get over it soon enough.

I’m excited to realize that the more I get out of my house and interact with the people around here, the better I feel about the situation I found myself in. I guess I can’t be angry forever. I shouldn’t be angry at all. I’ve always been the type that believes everything happens for a reason. I mean if I hadn’t been threatened by one of my first Tallahassee roommates I would have never met my Canadian best friend, and if I didn’t transfer to FSU, and if I didn’t overreact at my first summer camp job, I would have never found my favorite camp to work for. It makes me feel better living under these pretenses, otherwise what is the purpose of putting me in this town where I am so out of my comfort zone other than to amuse the powers that be.