Stranger in a Strange Land

Hey, remember me? I used to blog here pretty often. And then one day I stopped. I don't really know why--I think I got tired of the sound of my voice. Does that ever happen to you? You'll be halfway through the telling of a good story--speaking with verve and enthusiasm and then suddenly you hear yourself talking as if you're a stranger and you find yourself utterly bored. And you think--oh, my god, just listen to her--UGH!--listen to the droning, the nasal vowels, the incomprehensible sentence structure--OH MY GOD THAT WOMAN SOUNDS JUST LIKE SARAH PALIN! And you curse your Midwestern vocal chords and stop talking as fast as you can.

One quick question--have you noticed that bloggers are being referred to as "citizen journalists" these days? I really like it. It's unwieldy and has a faint militaristic ring to it. It says, prepare for battle, y'all. Heavy shit is about to go down across the land.

Also, I was in the strange land of northeastern Florida last week. My ears popped on the airplane and, since we took an afternoon flight and the sun sets by five o'clock even in the southern United States, we drove from Jacksonville to our rental in St. Augustine in total darkness. Couldn't see, couldn't hear, went out to dinner at a tiny French restaurant run by three handsome but somewhat drug-addled college boys. They kindly gave us the table in the front window and I always like that, except passerbys kept coming up to study the menu taped right there on the other side of the glass. Oh, and then I felt kind of sorry for one extemely stylish couple--stockings, necktie-- who walked in and announced they had made reservations "just for dessert". The restaurant was ninety percent empty but the glamorous duo insisted on a table right next to the only other diners --t-shirts, flip flops--and downed their espressos and spooned up their creme brulees in complete silence. Well, not much going on in St. Augustine on a Thursday night.