you can take the girl out of the south...

but sure can't take the South out of the girl...

(I know, I know... technically DC is still the South. However, for those of you who have been to my former residences, be it Alabama or Mississippi... it's a whooooole different kinda south. If every restaurant ain't serving sweet tea honey, you ain't in the South!)

So yeah, I digress... at long last, I'm ready to shed my MySpace wings and put this out there to the general public. The Fashionista I were discussing this over the weekend and I figured what the heck. Why not? I do realize that this is pretty public. But it's not (hopefully) likely to lend itself to anything more embarrassing than my foray into the online dating scene. Which, now, I can definitely look back upon and laugh (yes, random UA guy, I was at the movie theater in Chinatown. Contrary to popular belief, I am more than a smattering of pixels on your monitor...).

I'm sitting here at work, a bit brain-fried from a looooong night of number crunching. Now though, with all that behind me, there's nothing but vacation time straight ahead. I splurged for a cab this morning, and was fortunate enough to have I think one of the most friendly and sincere cab drivers I've yet to encounter. We ended up in this long discussion about being single. He praised my single-dom at my age, telling me all about how he'd married before he was 18 and never completed college. "Live your life", he said. "It'll always be there when you're ready and you'll have no regrets". Right on, cabbie. I surely don't feel like I've missed out on anything. In fact, I think sometimes it's my tendency to not want to turn down experiences that perhaps lead me to some difficult places, but I love being able to look back and say I tried. And there's always something to learn from taking those chances... even if it's how to be graceful in falling.

So yeah, I'm hoping that I have everything I need for the trip... I wasn't planning on cramming my suitcase at 1AM. I'm such a planner, so this last minute packing thing is definitely not my forte. The bad thing about our house (besides the ghosts that must be what keeps our iron gate from ever being anything but temperamental) is that it creaks and squeaks at every turn. It's definitely not your friend when you've had a late night out and want to hide it (not me though) and it surely wasn't last night when I was rummaging through my closet trying to find that perfect mix of clothes for the trip home. Sorry roommates... I didn't plan on moving in at the office yesterday.

I'm missing the big feast. The Domestic Goddess herself is cooking her finest this evening, complete with Cornish hen. Question of the day: does anyone know if there's multiple types of hen that are commonly used in cooking? Seems like you always hear about Cornish hen. If anyone cares to enlighten me, that would be superb.

Back to impending travels... I haven't been to the 'vegas since May, when I was en route to Italy. I'm looking forward to the trip... nothing but downtime ahead. It is so strange still to think I'm coming "home" to a different home for the first time in my life. Also NMC, who usually is the ringleader for all things reunion-esque is going to be with her in-laws. On one hand, it'll be nice to have no reason to head out. On the other hand, it means that much longer before I see my AL posse.

I'm signing off to wrap up those lose ends here, before I have to hop on the train and fight what has promised to be a massive horde of people at the airport. This time, though, I've left all my crazy liquids at home so I won't have to dump any of my precious goods (sniff sniff... I still miss that Duane Reede hand sanitizer... ). Miss TX Dem, if they go for my MAC, they're going down ;-)