southern discomforts

I'm having some issues writing these days. There's a part of me that feels if I think it, I should be able to write it. But then there's the part of me who is still very Southern and would hate to hurt anyone's feelings. Or, for that matter, give them any fodder for gossip about me to talk about with others who know me. I also learned that in the South. Small town livin' teaches you things.

Did I ever tell you guys that I was 15 the first time I got pregnant? Believe me, I was as shocked as you. Plus, no one knew who the daddy was. I was pregnant again around 17 (after I got through that bout of crabs in '86. The result of attending a Motley Crue concert, no doubt.) -- this time we knew who the father was. Curt. I talked to Curt about it.

Me: Curt, I just heard that I'm pregnant with your baby.
Curt: But we've never done it.
Me: Yeah. That's what I thought.

The craziest part was that I was a virgin until I was 19 and very drunk in Atlanta.

Him: You smell like rum.
Me: I imagine I do.

I'll save the rest of that story for another post.

Anyway. You can see where I might be suspicious of others talking behind my back and going so far as to create an alter-reality for me. And now, after living in New York for almost ten years, I've learned that "small town" is based on relativity not on population counts.

When I was growing up I believed that it was the fact that only 5,000 people lived in Fitzgerald that made it a small town. I've now realized that it was just my first experience in life, so I assumed. Turns out, the fact that there was a low population was simply a coincidence.

New York City -- one of the most populous in the world -- is actually just an enormous bunch of small towns crammed into a five-borough area. For native New Yorkers, their neighborhoods are their small towns.

Say someone asks Joey the Native New Yorker where he's from. He will answer based on his position geographically.

Joey's answer to, "Where are you from?" if he were in;

China: America.
Texas: New York
Albany, NY: The City (New York State code for: New York City)
Manhattan: Brooklyn
Brooklyn: Bushwick
Bushwick: Between Melrose and Jefferson on Knickerbocker

And let me tell you. Everyone who lives within a 10 block radius of Knickerbocker between Melrose and Jefferson knows all of Joey's shit.