Home sweet home

Hiiiiii guys...

Okay. Don't hurt me.

I know I skipped two, three? days. I know I know I know and I'm sorry. I just wasn't feeling the blogging feeling. But that blogging feeling is back now so. All better!

I'm writing this from the couch of my mother's house right now. Exciting, right? Four hours away from my technical home.

I decided to make the trip on a complete whim, thanks to a case of wanderlust and an existentialist crisis. I came here to reorient myself, to remind myself of the size of the world and sort of get back in touch with my roots.

Those of you that have watched my videos or have heard me speak at any point in time know that I'm Southern. My accent is not as thick as it used to be, and I don't own a pair of cowboy boots any more but it's still there. People usually pick up on it when I say things like "fixing to" or "y'all" or "ain't", or when I refer to the remote control as the "clicker" or the toilet as "the pot". I have an iTunes full of indie and alternative rock music, but I know every single word to a great majority of the country songs released in the 1990's. It's what I was raised on. I was born in Florida, but after my parents divorced when I was two years old I moved to South Carolina with my mom, and that's where my earliest childhood memories come from. South Carolina, for those of you that didn't know, is also my favorite place in the world. My mom worked as a bartender until I was eleven or twelve years old, and I spent a good part of my childhood playing in a liquor store that was attached to this bar called "Cowboys" where she worked. Of course, at the time, I referred to it as "the candy store" because all the candy displays were at eye level with me, and the cashier, Miss Kim, would always give me Cookies & Creme Hershey bars while I sat behind the counter and played with my toys. There was also a back office/storage room in the hallway that connected Cowboys to the liquor store, where I would take naps. And during the daytime, before they opened, I would go inside the bar, and run around on the dance floor, play on the mechanical bull, or sit on top of one of the pool tables while watching my Disney tapes on the bar's big screen TV.

Okay. So maybe we weren't as much "Southern" as we were "white trash". But still. These are the things I remember. And even after that, we always stayed surrounded by these types of people. We moved to this tiny tiny tiny town in the middle of nowhere at the end of my eighth grade year, where cows outnumber people and the nearest Wal-Mart is forty five minutes away. And I stayed in this town until I moved out of my mom's house before junior year. And this place is about as redneck as it gets. I am not exaggerating. I can look out the window next to me right now, and, no lie, there's cow pasture, for as far as the eye can see. Of course, it's just past our super classy above ground pool and plastic target-practice deer.

My mom always knew I was the misfit. My other brothers and sisters love the hillbilly lifestyle. And of course, I do too- but in moderation. I can't live so far away from civilization all the time. But at times like this, I need to be. Suburbia is nice, but it can suffocate you. So I needed to get out, and come back.

This town may not be where I belong, but it's still where I'm from. And that's just as important.

My mom and stepdad, Richard (yes they're still together, he's in anger management classes and she's in victim's therapy so all is good I guess) showed up at my house to get me at noon today, in the tow truck (they own and operate a repo and towing business, and make really good money doing it), which was fun. While we were trying to leave my city, we got pulled over and Richard got a citation because his window tint was too dark.

We went and saw my step-brother Alex for a little while, he's my age and I love him to death. He was at this abandoned mansion with his grandpa and they were salvaging two old trucks that were wasting away there in the yard, so we were helping them. We poked around the house too, and you could tell it was really beautiful at one point in time. We went inside and up the stairs, and it was incredible. Stupid economy.

We ate lunch at McDonalds and ran a few more errands and things, and when we finally got to the house I was so exhausted that I had to take a nap. When I woke up, we went and got Chinese food and pie. And I got to spend time with my mom and we watched TV together and talked about everything and I'm really happy right now.

This is where I want to be.