I finally went to the Citadel today.

And it was pretty but I didn't get out of the car, as it was 100+ degrees and I wasn't driving. It's very pristene and there are people around in uniforms. It's a different world. The "barracks" were the neatest part. I wish the weather was better.

I have about as much anxiety about leaving Charleston as I did moving here in the first place. I didn’t think that would happen.

I’m going to miss the friends that I was able to make. I’m going to miss participating in my ideal work environment. I’m going to miss Harris Teeter, the best supermarket ever. I’m going to miss being 15 minutes from three different beaches. I’m going to miss the slight tan I was able to achieve and that I’m certain won’t last very long. I’m going to miss that every place I went to I was going to for the first time, and all the places I won’t get to go to for the first time. I’m going to miss being near bodies of water and the breezes that came with them. I’m going to miss the farmer’s market and its $1 hand-cut pasta. I’m going to miss never having to pay $4 a gallon for gas.

I’m not going to miss living alone. I’m not going to miss seeing cockroaches in my kitchen at least a couple times a week, and sometimes in my bathroom. I’m not going to miss fickle bootleg internet. I’m not going to miss working at Cinebarre and all the bull shit that came with it (though I will miss a lot of the people that work there). I’m not going to miss how expensive everything is and how everyone else here seems so well off. I’m not going to miss trying to find my way around poorly marked streets that don’t work on a grid system and are really too thin to be two-way.

I am very glad I came here. While I don’t think this city completely matches my personality, it was a wonderful place to live for three months. I got to be in buildings that George Washington was in. I got to stand on the ground where the Civil War started. I got to be around people that say y’all unabashedly and without irony. And I think that if for some reason I was staying here permanently, I would have found my place in this strange society.

And I miss Florida. I miss my town and my friends and my house and my room and my porch and my hobbies. But I didn’t miss the bull shit and drama that occurs when you‘re involved in such a small social crowd. I didn’t miss the lack of newness that occurs when you’ve lived in a small town for three years.

This summer went by faster than I wanted to believe.

It’s over.

Ghost cats!

This entry will be short. My parents will be arriving in Charleston soon and I want to get in an episode of Freaks and Geeks before then.

This past weekend, Meg and Stephanie and myself met up in Savannah. I think my personality is more suited towards a city like that compared to the one I’ve spent my summer in. The neighborhoods there are beautiful and I love how there are squares everywhere. I like that there’s an art school. We exhausted ourselves from too much walking, so we didn’t do much but we did go on a disappointing ghost tour and bought forties and mixed them with lemonade. They came up to Charleston on Sunday and we went to brunch, explored a little bit of King Street, went to Sullivan’s Island and almost got caught trespassing at a mystery building, ate dinner on Shem’s Creek and saw a movie at my workplace. Wall-E is too freaking adorable. It was a fun, exhausting weekend. I’m so looking forward to going home to my friends.

Like I mentioned earlier, my parents will be spending a week with me and I look forward to being un-partially employed and getting to be a tourist. And not having to cook.

It feels like my leaving is so far off, but it’s so close. I have so much I want and need to do before then. I don’t know what to think about it all. What worries me most is leaving people. It didn’t matter leaving Gainesville because I would see everyone again in a few months. But I’m leaving here and may never come back.

This townhouse was built on top of a graveyard. No joke.

I hate people who go to the movies. I especially hate people who go to see a movie on its opening weekend. I especially hate everyone that has gone to see The Dark Knight or Mamma Mia at Cinebarre. I really need my Savannah trip on Saturday. I need a therapeutic break.

This past Saturday, at the redneck luau, I ate a Luther. A Luther is a burger that is on a Krispy Kreme doughnut instead of a regular bun. It was named after Luther Vandross, who wanted a burger but didn’t have any buns. It may sound disgusting, but it is actually one of the most amazing things I have ever eaten. Seriously. Incredible. Then today I had a Grand Marnier burger that was also unbelievable, except for its $11 price tag (but I split it with one of my bosses). A part of me feels guilty, because I’ve been trying to make the move in my life towards eating (or at least not personally purchasing) less meat (besides fish). The plan is not working. But I think that food is a big part of experiencing a culture or place and when am I really ever again going to eat a burger on a Krispy Kreme doughnut?

I have this anxiety about “growing up” and moving past college life that involves my fear of not being able to relate to people who are significantly older than me. I’m not going to be able to meet kids through school or part-time job environments anymore. Even now, except for the other interns and the editorial assistant and a few others, I am surrounded by people who are married and have had entirely other lives before coming to this paper. But after the party on Saturday, I really see that I am capable of having serious conversations with this kind of people. And they are mostly devoid of awkwardness. This is a good feeling. I feel less like a kid.

I found out that those suspicious noises that I heard in the street (that I mentioned last week) were actually a kid getting robbed at gunpoint. My landlords sleep with a police radio on and they told me about it.

Jesus Christ. If I wasn’t leaving so soon, with most of that time spent with other people in the house, I would be in a very neurotic place right now.

They're having a Batman costume contest at my work on Friday.

My mind is officially in “moving back to Florida mode”. I can’t help it. Here is how my life over the next few weeks breaks down:

This Saturday: a “redneck luau” City Paper party. A whole roasted pig will be on hand.
Next Saturday: a trip to Savannah to meet with lovely Gainesville friends.
Next next Saturday: my parents will be here.
Next next next Saturday: I drive back to Gainesville and this experience is over.

I can’t imagine it going by slowly. I like it here but I miss the world I’ve created for myself in Gainesville. I miss going to shows! But I get to see Best Friends Forever before I head off to Miami for a week. And I absolutely hate living alone. I am almost at a breaking point. I am paranoid every time I go to sleep and it didn’t help that last night I was woken up at 2:30 in the morning, maybe only an hour after I was finally able to get to sleep, by shouting and running and mysterious activities in the street below my window. I need to be in a house with people again.

I’ve been going to the beach at least once a week, which is so weird to me. But it’s nice to sit and read and hear wind and water and it’s always cooler than it is inland. I went to Folly Beach, one of the more touristy beaches, and it had more of an at-the-end-of-the-world feeling than the beach I usually go to, where you can see boats and an outline of the city in the distance. And I found a beautiful waterfront park yesterday that I somehow missed every time I walked by. It was at the perfect spot on the Cooper River, close enough to see Fort Sumter, and had two fountains and benches. There was a puppy and I couldn’t resist it and then I ended up talking to two really nice girls that were from Florida. One is having a big art show Saturday but between work and the luau, I probably won’t be able to go.

I’m going to another art show in a little bit. I’ve been itching to get creative lately and I’ve been thinking a lot about the zine I want to make. I was going to try to block print a design for the covers but now I think I might do collages instead. I’ll probably make 10, keep one, give one to my friend/roommate Brian as promised, and then sell the rest at Wayward Council. I’m going to write a few essays and maybe do a few illustrations (I already have two in mind, but I’m worried they won’t turn out because I have no real artistic skills to speak of). And I want to have all of this done by the time school starts or pretty soon thereafter, maybe a September deadline.

Greenville wasn’t what I was hoping. It was nice to be in a place with varying elevation (the picture above was at a beautiful park with a lot of rocks and cliffs and falls, even though it was in the middle of the downtown area and surrounded by hotels and parking garages), but I had a lot of disappointments. The vegetarian restaurant I wanted to go to didn’t exist. The vintage stores I wanted to go to didn’t exist and I got my ear talked off by some girl that’s starting a DIY art collective, which is cool but she ignored everything I was saying as she went on and on about how she’s giving up on the city. The record store I went to was really overpriced - fuck spending $20 on the new Les Savy Fav LP.

The downtown was cute and historical, but it felt really different from Charleston. It was a way more metropolitan city, as there were actual modern “skyscrapers.” It felt younger and more middle class than here, where everyone here lives in $1 million houses that have been passed down for generations. But I drove through a residential street and the houses were brick and beautiful and the streets were rolling. I have to live in a hilly or mountainy place when I get out of Gainesville.

Speaking of getting out of Gainesville, I applied on a whim to a job at the Willamette Week in Portland. My dream employer. They’re hiring now for a music editor, so I sent an inquiry e-mail and the hiring editor told me I should send in my stuff because they might be hiring an assistant music editor later in the summer, which I would be better for. I’m not going to think about it, but if I were to be so lucky, I wonder if I would quit school if an opportunity came up. I’ve grown out of Gainesville, but not out of my friends. The degrees will always be just two semesters away.

My grown-in wisdom tooth is causing me problems.

I love that Target is using Dolly Parton in their commercials.

Tomorrow, I am going to Greenville for the day. Because that will make for a much more interesting post than I am sure I would write tonight, I am going to be a day off this week.

I got lemonade at a real-life lemonade stand today.

How is it already July? When did that happen? I was driving home from the beach yesterday and I remembered how much I was dreading coming up here, but now I don’t think I could possibly have made a better decision. I’ve even finally managed to create a small social life for myself. Who knew that would ever happen? I got visited by a few friends this past weekend and it was nice going out with them, even though I wish I could have been more available. But I got out of work pretty early the whole weekend and we went to a bar, a weird hippie art and music show and even a house party.

I really need to make a list of places I need to go to. I still haven’t seen the Citadel and I really hope I’ll get to go to Fort Sumter with my parents. And I think my next solid day off - the movie theater is seriously giving me hours upon hours, at least five days a week - I want to drive to the mountains. I think. That means Greenville, which is a little more than three hours away. I definitely want to do a day trip somewhere.

I’m doing an art gallery guide for the City Paper. This afternoon I went into the galleries on Broad Street and they were all almost exactly the same. So many galleries here just exhibit “Low country scenes” of the old streets or the marsh. It is so redundant. I’m also going to be doing at least one book review, maybe three (I am currently in possession of the new Chuck Klosterman book that doesn’t come out until September. Fucking sweet.), but I’m nervous about it. I don’t really think I’m cut out to review things necessarily. I never know what to say and I think I’m incapable of finding a middle ground between loving or hating something I’m supposed to be critical of.

I wish I could be going to Gainesville this weekend but I have to work. Basically all I do now is work. I worked 20 hours in only three days. Nuts.