Just a Pinch of South

For those of us who grew up in the South but have moved elsewhere, we love our roots and all they have provided. There's a lot that I've come to appreciate about the South. But let's be honest, most of us don't want to go back to "full Southern." We're happy with just a pinch here and there to add flavor to the life we live now. If you are not a Southerner, perhaps you'll come to better appreciate the little gifts the American South has given and continues to give our culture. This blog is written by Elizabeth Bloodworth. Photos are not mine unless specified. Email me at justapinchofsouth @ gmail dot com. I tweet at @apinchofsouth and my other tumblr is called "everythingthatdoesntfitelsewhere" which is just what it sounds like.

Posts tagged Southern

May11

Apr23

Continuing with my occasional series of interviews with people who embody the concept of “just a pinch of South” I had the opportunity to interview Micah Whitson from The Old Try a few weeks ago. He and his wife Marianna are Southern expats living in Boston, Massachusetts. Micah was raised in Alabama, but has also made his home in Mississippi, Georgia, and North Carolina before moving to Boston in 2007. That’s what I call Southern ecumenical. Micah and Marianna have day jobs, but you may know them from their unique Southern inflected letterpress posters. I first fell in love with their work when I saw (and immediately purchased) their manners print. It turns out that one is Micah’s favorite, too. Micah and I talked books, faith, and barbecue (As Micah says, “Alabama barbecue is my jam.”), but there’s just too much to include it all. Here are some highlights. JaPoS: What do you miss about living in the South? MW: I certainly miss the food of the South, but I think the main thing I miss is that even if it’s really, really busy back home, there’s always this feeling of the possibility of fellowshipping around the corner.  You know you could just roll into someone’s house, or call up a friend, and could actually do things with them. Boston is such a scheduled and regimented place. Our best friends here we see three times a year, maybe.  If we don’t work with people then it’s really hard to get time to see them. There’s just that feeling of harried-ness here. When we go back home I can call up friends in Alabama and I can say,  “Hey, do you want to get a beer tonight?” and they are like, “Sure I’m not doing anything.”  Here I feel like it is tough to do those things and be neighborly because you try to do it, and nobody’s got the time for it. JaPoS: How do you think living in New England has shaped or changed you? MW: I think the biggest thing comes from living with people who have different kinds of backgrounds. I can be a pretty judgmental person and think, “This is right and that thing is wrong,” and there isn’t any grey area.  But living in New England has really allowed us to realize both as Christians and as human beings on the earth that there is a place to speak truth, and there is a call to do that with love, but at the same time, it isn’t really my place to judge. I can try to live an example, but I don’t think it is really my job to force that example onto everyone else.  Living here has made us a lot more accepting. Not necessarily that we have just thrown the baby out with the bathwater, but a lot of our lives are lived in that grey area. It’s a helpful thing to have to grow and think about that and wrestle with those ideas while not being surrounded with the “group think” that says, “This is just what we do, and if you don’t do it you can just move to a different state.” Instead, by living [in Boston] we’ve really had to confront those things and live with people who believe different things.  Because we are all just people, it’s our job to love one another. I think too another thing that has changed, in part the main genesis for Old Try, is living somewhere else and then realizing that there can be a lot of shame in being a Southerner. I grew up just regular old guy in Alabama, and I feel like because of the stories that we are told and the things we read we think, “Oh man I guess we as Southerners are not as cultured as other people.” Then by moving elsewhere I’ve seen that there are just as many rednecks in Connecticut and Massachusetts as there are in Tennessee and Alabama.  You get somewhere else and you realize that there are all the same kind social problems and issues that happen in the South. I’ve realized that I don’t need to be ashamed of my Southerness.  I think now I can go toe to toe with a person who thinks something negative as to what being a Southerner is.  I can talk about it with some amount of realism because I’m living elsewhere. What was the inspiration for The Old Try? MW: Several things came together. Marianna made me a letter sweater which I wore to an Ole Miss game, and everybody was kind of fired up about it. They said, “I have to know where to get one.”  So Marianna and I said, “Well, let’s make some stuff that really connects people to what they are really about and where they are from.” For instance, I went to Ole Miss. But that won’t work for everyone. Let’s say your grandad went to Davidson. If you were to wear a Davidson shirt, that actually has a connection to you beyond just an arbitrary brand. But [because of the difficulty of collegiate licensing] and not knowing what the heck we were doing with fashion, we tabled it. Our name came from “the old college try” because of our original idea.  So [The Old Try] sat around and languished. Then the Tuscaloosa tornadoes came through 2 years ago. Being here, away from home, seeing helicopter footage of Athens and Limestone county, and seeing buildings that had been there for years disappear, it made me miss home. After that I saw a lot of Southern designers who were living outside the South doing different designs to show their solidarity and that they were thinking of home. I was on the bus thinking of that one day, and I realized while we didn’t know anything about clothing, I knew a heck of a lot about print design and how to do that. I walked home and ran the idea by Marianna. So the iteration of Old Try as it is took place in about five minutes on the bus. Since then, The Old Try has made numerous letterpress posters (and now t-shirts) referencing a wide range of Southern places. To create them, Micah researches history and takes little details to create something unique. No “Hey Y’all” prints from these folks. Most recently, Old Try has partnered with Union Press to produce a print with proceeds going to victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. To get one of these limited edition prints click here.  Photo Credit: David Salafia

Continuing with my occasional series of interviews with people who embody the concept of “just a pinch of South” I had the opportunity to interview Micah Whitson from The Old Try a few weeks ago. He and his wife Marianna are Southern expats living in Boston, Massachusetts. Micah was raised in Alabama, but has also made his home in Mississippi, Georgia, and North Carolina before moving to Boston in 2007. That’s what I call Southern ecumenical.

Micah and Marianna have day jobs, but you may know them from their unique Southern inflected letterpress posters. I first fell in love with their work when I saw (and immediately purchased) their manners print. It turns out that one is Micah’s favorite, too.

Micah and I talked books, faith, and barbecue (As Micah says, “Alabama barbecue is my jam.”), but there’s just too much to include it all. Here are some highlights.

JaPoS: What do you miss about living in the South?

MW: I certainly miss the food of the South, but I think the main thing I miss is that even if it’s really, really busy back home, there’s always this feeling of the possibility of fellowshipping around the corner.  You know you could just roll into someone’s house, or call up a friend, and could actually do things with them. Boston is such a scheduled and regimented place. Our best friends here we see three times a year, maybe.  If we don’t work with people then it’s really hard to get time to see them. There’s just that feeling of harried-ness here. When we go back home I can call up friends in Alabama and I can say,  “Hey, do you want to get a beer tonight?” and they are like, “Sure I’m not doing anything.”  Here I feel like it is tough to do those things and be neighborly because you try to do it, and nobody’s got the time for it.

JaPoS: How do you think living in New England has shaped or changed you?

MW: I think the biggest thing comes from living with people who have different kinds of backgrounds. I can be a pretty judgmental person and think, “This is right and that thing is wrong,” and there isn’t any grey area.  But living in New England has really allowed us to realize both as Christians and as human beings on the earth that there is a place to speak truth, and there is a call to do that with love, but at the same time, it isn’t really my place to judge. I can try to live an example, but I don’t think it is really my job to force that example onto everyone else.  Living here has made us a lot more accepting. Not necessarily that we have just thrown the baby out with the bathwater, but a lot of our lives are lived in that grey area. It’s a helpful thing to have to grow and think about that and wrestle with those ideas while not being surrounded with the “group think” that says, “This is just what we do, and if you don’t do it you can just move to a different state.” Instead, by living [in Boston] we’ve really had to confront those things and live with people who believe different things.  Because we are all just people, it’s our job to love one another.

I think too another thing that has changed, in part the main genesis for Old Try, is living somewhere else and then realizing that there can be a lot of shame in being a Southerner. I grew up just regular old guy in Alabama, and I feel like because of the stories that we are told and the things we read we think, “Oh man I guess we as Southerners are not as cultured as other people.” Then by moving elsewhere I’ve seen that there are just as many rednecks in Connecticut and Massachusetts as there are in Tennessee and Alabama.  You get somewhere else and you realize that there are all the same kind social problems and issues that happen in the South. I’ve realized that I don’t need to be ashamed of my Southerness.  I think now I can go toe to toe with a person who thinks something negative as to what being a Southerner is.  I can talk about it with some amount of realism because I’m living elsewhere.

What was the inspiration for The Old Try?

MW: Several things came together. Marianna made me a letter sweater which I wore to an Ole Miss game, and everybody was kind of fired up about it. They said, “I have to know where to get one.”  So Marianna and I said, “Well, let’s make some stuff that really connects people to what they are really about and where they are from.” For instance, I went to Ole Miss. But that won’t work for everyone. Let’s say your grandad went to Davidson. If you were to wear a Davidson shirt, that actually has a connection to you beyond just an arbitrary brand. But [because of the difficulty of collegiate licensing] and not knowing what the heck we were doing with fashion, we tabled it. Our name came from “the old college try” because of our original idea.  So [The Old Try] sat around and languished. Then the Tuscaloosa tornadoes came through 2 years ago. Being here, away from home, seeing helicopter footage of Athens and Limestone county, and seeing buildings that had been there for years disappear, it made me miss home. After that I saw a lot of Southern designers who were living outside the South doing different designs to show their solidarity and that they were thinking of home. I was on the bus thinking of that one day, and I realized while we didn’t know anything about clothing, I knew a heck of a lot about print design and how to do that. I walked home and ran the idea by Marianna. So the iteration of Old Try as it is took place in about five minutes on the bus.

Since then, The Old Try has made numerous letterpress posters (and now t-shirts) referencing a wide range of Southern places. To create them, Micah researches history and takes little details to create something unique. No “Hey Y’all” prints from these folks. Most recently, Old Try has partnered with Union Press to produce a print with proceeds going to victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. To get one of these limited edition prints click here.

 Photo Credit: David Salafia

3 notes #The Old Try #south #southern #print #art #poster #manners #Boston #boston marathon

Mar2

You may not be familiar with the TV show 1600 Penn. But episode 7 (“To The Ranch”), which I watched today on demand, features a scene between Bill Pullman, who plays the US President, and his son Skip, acted with charming cluelessness by series co-creator, Josh Gad. As they watch the film Fried Green Tomatoes Skip says: Dad, have you ever eaten fried green tomatoes? I ate like a million of them after I watched the movie - just trying to immerse myself, and to be honest I did not love them. I liked them - did not love them. I wonder why the tomatoes have to be green? Why not just “fried tomatoes”? You literally never hear about those. Kinda weird, right? Kinda weird. Maybe it’s a flavor profile thing… I’ve had enough bad to mediocre fried green tomatoes myself to wonder the same thing. The green-ness is meant to give the tomatoes enough body to handle the frying and a tartness to balance the fried-ness. But more often than not, they are tough and flavorless. Thoroughly disappointing. FGT’s are sort of this emblem of Southern cuisine, but I’m not sure they really deserve it. Maybe I just haven’t had great ones, but I have to give Skip (or perhaps episode writer Bridget Bedard) credit for bringing up a valid point.

You may not be familiar with the TV show 1600 Penn. But episode 7 (“To The Ranch”), which I watched today on demand, features a scene between Bill Pullman, who plays the US President, and his son Skip, acted with charming cluelessness by series co-creator, Josh Gad. As they watch the film Fried Green Tomatoes Skip says:

Dad, have you ever eaten fried green tomatoes? I ate like a million of them after I watched the movie - just trying to immerse myself, and to be honest I did not love them. I liked them - did not love them. I wonder why the tomatoes have to be green? Why not just “fried tomatoes”? You literally never hear about those. Kinda weird, right? Kinda weird. Maybe it’s a flavor profile thing…

I’ve had enough bad to mediocre fried green tomatoes myself to wonder the same thing. The green-ness is meant to give the tomatoes enough body to handle the frying and a tartness to balance the fried-ness. But more often than not, they are tough and flavorless. Thoroughly disappointing. FGT’s are sort of this emblem of Southern cuisine, but I’m not sure they really deserve it. Maybe I just haven’t had great ones, but I have to give Skip (or perhaps episode writer Bridget Bedard) credit for bringing up a valid point.

6 notes #fried green tomatoes #tomatoes #1600 Penn #tomato #Southern #south #movie #television

Jan16

Nov6

Sep23

The antithesis or perhaps the antidote to yesterday’s post about Honey Boo Boo.

Miss Nancy runs a summer “manners camp” out of her antebellum home in Hertford, NC. I love her accent, the fact that the children wear whites on the tennis court, how the boys, you can tell, don’t quite know when they will ever need these manners - but learn them, they will. It’s just so… civilized.

Just as Rednecks are part of the fiber of the South, so are Southern blue blood ladies like Miss Nancy. It’s a funny contradiction that both of these parts of Southern culture exist practically side by side. And I appreciate them both. High and low brow. It’s part of what makes the South what it is.

I went to manners classes growing up. They taught me to set the table properly, which fork to use, and I think we had something on thank you notes as well (though my mother had already deeply ingrained that into me as soon as I could write).

I’d like to imagine what Miss Nancy could do for Honey Boo Boo. She’d have her work cut out for her, that’s for sure. In fact, someone needs to pitch that for a reality TV show. I should pitch that… hmm… gotta go…

11 notes #honey boo boo #Miss Nancy #Southern #etiquette #manners

Sep18

Sometimes when I hear people with southern accents, I almost wish my own were stronger. It’s not because of a desire to sound southern so much as because I don’t want people to think I’m intentionally trying not to.
“Oh you’re from Mississippi! But you don’t even have a cute little southern accent! I’m so disappointed!” the Brown University yearbook photographer said as she rearranged my hair.
“I can fake one if you’d like,” I offered.
I wonder how differently you’d treat me if I sounded like my sister. I wonder if you’d take me seriously if my accent were as strong as my father’s. There have been several times when my mother’s called the university to ask a question, and the conversation has barely begun when the person’s tone of voice all of a sudden changes into something like fond amusement, a voice that suggests being on the same side of an inside joke. “Now where are you from?” they ask before the conversation ends.

From the article “Where to Go from Here” by Kayla Smith posted on Deep South Magazine.

I can relate. I was interviewed for a web commercial for the book The Help, and they were very disappointed in my lack of Southern accent, to the point where they asked me to add it back. I did, sort of, but that part was cut out. I guess they decided they preferred me as the sophisticated New Yorker who liked the book, over another Southern fan.

7 notes #accent #accents #Southern #Mississippi #Deep South

Sep6

Rob Amberg takes pictures of the people and happenings of his adopted home in Madison County, North Carolina. And he writes about them, too. Here’s an excerpt from his blog entry about the photograph above: When we was coming up, the old people would be sitting and talking and they wouldn’t want the children to sit and listen. They’d say, ‘go off and play.’ So, we didn’t know nothing, unless we asked them, and it was very little that we could ask them about. Read it in full, and check out his blog here. PS - He’s currently serving as a visiting artist at my Alma Mater, Duke.

Rob Amberg takes pictures of the people and happenings of his adopted home in Madison County, North Carolina.

And he writes about them, too. Here’s an excerpt from his blog entry about the photograph above:

When we was coming up, the old people would be sitting and talking and they wouldn’t want the children to sit and listen. They’d say, ‘go off and play.’ So, we didn’t know nothing, unless we asked them, and it was very little that we could ask them about.

Read it in full, and check out his blog here.

PS - He’s currently serving as a visiting artist at my Alma Mater, Duke.

(Source: mysteriesmanners)

7 notes #photography #North Carolina #NC #Madison County #old people #South #Southern #Duke University

Jul16

Today is my birthday, y’all. My mother always made me caramel cake on my birthday. I was allowed to eat it for breakfast with a Coke. Double decadence! The icing is sweet, rich, and addictive. It’s still my favorite. I have made her recipe several times. It does not disappoint. If you haven’t ever tried it, you might find that it replaces chocolate frosting at the top of your list. My mom would make a basic yellow cake or pound cake and then add the icing. It’s really similar to the one found in the Joy of Cooking cookbook under the title “Quick Butterscotch or Penuche.” Ingredients: 1/2 stick of butter, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1/8 teaspoon salt, 1/2 cup of cream (whole milk will do fine, but it won’t be as thick or rich), 2 cups powdered sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract. Heat butter gently in large saucepan (or double boiler) until melted, add in brown sugar and salt stirring until smooth. Turn down the heat and add in cream, stirring until combined (don’t let it burn). Let it cool a little bit and use a hand mixer to beat in the powdered sugar and vanilla right into the saucepan. It will cool too much/too fast if you move it to a bowl. If it’s too thick, add a very small amount of milk. If it is too thin, let it cool a bit. If it is still too thin, beat in more powdered sugar. Spread it while it is warm. Lick the pan, spoon, spatula, and any surface with icing on it, as it is delicious. (I’ve seen a lot of caramel icing recipes online that include things like corn syrup, shortening, buttermilk, condensed milk and other stuff. Totally not necessary, or, to me, accurate.)

Today is my birthday, y’all. My mother always made me caramel cake on my birthday. I was allowed to eat it for breakfast with a Coke. Double decadence! The icing is sweet, rich, and addictive. It’s still my favorite. I have made her recipe several times. It does not disappoint. If you haven’t ever tried it, you might find that it replaces chocolate frosting at the top of your list.

My mom would make a basic yellow cake or pound cake and then add the icing. It’s really similar to the one found in the Joy of Cooking cookbook under the title “Quick Butterscotch or Penuche.”

Ingredients: 1/2 stick of butter, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1/8 teaspoon salt, 1/2 cup of cream (whole milk will do fine, but it won’t be as thick or rich), 2 cups powdered sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract.

Heat butter gently in large saucepan (or double boiler) until melted, add in brown sugar and salt stirring until smooth. Turn down the heat and add in cream, stirring until combined (don’t let it burn). Let it cool a little bit and use a hand mixer to beat in the powdered sugar and vanilla right into the saucepan. It will cool too much/too fast if you move it to a bowl. If it’s too thick, add a very small amount of milk. If it is too thin, let it cool a bit. If it is still too thin, beat in more powdered sugar. Spread it while it is warm. Lick the pan, spoon, spatula, and any surface with icing on it, as it is delicious.

(I’ve seen a lot of caramel icing recipes online that include things like corn syrup, shortening, buttermilk, condensed milk and other stuff. Totally not necessary, or, to me, accurate.)

(via my-baking-blog)

25 notes #cake #caramel #caramel cake #birthday cake #Southern

Jun18

These are the cheese straws my friend MFG sent me today. I ate all of them. Every. Single. One. Lacking sweet tea, I went with a Diet Coke, which paired decently well. I asked MFG if I could post the recipe. No was her reply. Some family recipes gotta stay in the family. This one is tasty enough that I can’t argue with her. She’ll just have to make them for me on a regular basis.

These are the cheese straws my friend MFG sent me today. I ate all of them.

Every. Single. One.

Lacking sweet tea, I went with a Diet Coke, which paired decently well.

I asked MFG if I could post the recipe. No was her reply.

Some family recipes gotta stay in the family. This one is tasty enough that I can’t argue with her. She’ll just have to make them for me on a regular basis.

1 notes #cheese straws #cheese #baking #recipe #Southern

May23

Confession: If you met me in person you would realize that don’t have a detectable Southern accent. This has been true for most of my life. I remember my great aunt Nanine telling me to “slow down and stop talking like a Yankee” when I was in college at Duke. Perhaps it was growing up in Atlanta. Or going to private school. Or that I talk so very fast you can’t hear the vowels. Or from watching lots and lots of television, but somewhere along the way I lost my accent. It’s buried in there, however, as I learned, also at college. My roommate freshman year was from Pittsburgh. One day, after I hung up from talking to my parents on the phone she asked, “What just happened to you?” I didn’t know what she meant. Apparently, when I was talking to them my accent made a brief appearance without me realizing it. That is a rare occurrence. Most of the time, if people ask me where I’m from, I ask them to guess first. They never, ever say Georgia. In fact, the most guessed place, by far, is Connecticut. Connecticut? It must be some of the suburban preppiness of my upbringing slipping through. Or all those episodes of The Facts of Life I watched. I don’t sound Southern, certainly not Midwestern. So maybe a nondescript place like Connecticut. That mistaken identity is fine by me. I like being an undercover Southerner. I know who I am, and if I need to (not sure why I would, but If I did) I can resurrect the accent.

Confession: If you met me in person you would realize that don’t have a detectable Southern accent. This has been true for most of my life. I remember my great aunt Nanine telling me to “slow down and stop talking like a Yankee” when I was in college at Duke.

Perhaps it was growing up in Atlanta. Or going to private school. Or that I talk so very fast you can’t hear the vowels. Or from watching lots and lots of television, but somewhere along the way I lost my accent.

It’s buried in there, however, as I learned, also at college. My roommate freshman year was from Pittsburgh. One day, after I hung up from talking to my parents on the phone she asked, “What just happened to you?” I didn’t know what she meant. Apparently, when I was talking to them my accent made a brief appearance without me realizing it. That is a rare occurrence.

Most of the time, if people ask me where I’m from, I ask them to guess first. They never, ever say Georgia. In fact, the most guessed place, by far, is Connecticut.

Connecticut? It must be some of the suburban preppiness of my upbringing slipping through. Or all those episodes of The Facts of Life I watched. I don’t sound Southern, certainly not Midwestern. So maybe a nondescript place like Connecticut.

That mistaken identity is fine by me. I like being an undercover Southerner. I know who I am, and if I need to (not sure why I would, but If I did) I can resurrect the accent.

4 notes #accent #south #southern

Apr12

I was in Trader Joe’s on the Upper West Side last night in one of those impossibly long checkout lines. The girl in front of me asked me to hold her space while she grabbed some mushrooms. When she came back I made a joke and she said, “A New Yorker with a sense of humor!” What I think she really meant was, “A friendly New Yorker!” because there is no shortage of funny people here. Friendly is another story. I tend to get a little chatty at the end of the day because my job doesn’t have as much face to face human interaction as it turns out I need. So we chatted a little bit and it will come as no surprise that this girl is from North Carolina. No wonder she was happy to chat. She’s in New York to dance. Specifically “modern jazz.” I have absolutely no idea what that is, but I’m sure it’s awesome. I love people that come to NYC to chase a dream. That’s most of us, actually. It’s refreshing, and not shocking to find Southerners finding each other, even in the nightmare of a line that is Trader Joe’s.

I was in Trader Joe’s on the Upper West Side last night in one of those impossibly long checkout lines. The girl in front of me asked me to hold her space while she grabbed some mushrooms. When she came back I made a joke and she said, “A New Yorker with a sense of humor!”

What I think she really meant was, “A friendly New Yorker!” because there is no shortage of funny people here. Friendly is another story. I tend to get a little chatty at the end of the day because my job doesn’t have as much face to face human interaction as it turns out I need. So we chatted a little bit and it will come as no surprise that this girl is from North Carolina. No wonder she was happy to chat.

She’s in New York to dance. Specifically “modern jazz.” I have absolutely no idea what that is, but I’m sure it’s awesome. I love people that come to NYC to chase a dream. That’s most of us, actually.

It’s refreshing, and not shocking to find Southerners finding each other, even in the nightmare of a line that is Trader Joe’s.

1 notes #trader joe's #Southern

Apr9

“Hey there! Hope you had a wonderful Easter! Well, had the unexpected happen over the weekend. Met smbdy & we hit it off. I’m going to focus on that for now, but did want to wish you the absolute bestest!!! :-)” A Southern guy friend of mine received this today from a woman he’d met on Match. They’d hung out a little and been talking/texting etc. It wasn’t exactly a relationship, but really? I don’t need to tell you that this woman is a Southern belle. I don’t need to tell you where she went to college or whether or not she was in a sorority or whatever because you already know from reading this. I can picture her in my mind. I imagine she is Rose Byrne in Bridesmaids, but with a Southern accent. She may be beautiful on the outside, but watch out. Shark sandwich. I love how upbeat yet totally self-involved this text is. I’m afraid there are more than a few women like this in the land where I come from. I tend to avoid them, because you never know when they’ll bite. Sweet as pie one minute, forked tongued the next. Completely put together, goes to church every Sunday, rainbows and sunshine, yet ruthless. It will make your head spin. I read this text and it makes me glad I live in New York. Don’t get me wrong, New Yorkers can be ruthless and rude, too. But we tend to be straightforward. The message will not be coated in so much in sugar that makes you nauseated. I am perhaps unleashing more venom than this poor woman deserves. Let me read that text again. Oh, that’s right, she wished him the “absolute bestest.” Deserved.

“Hey there! Hope you had a wonderful Easter! Well, had the unexpected happen over the weekend. Met smbdy & we hit it off. I’m going to focus on that for now, but did want to wish you the absolute bestest!!! :-)”

A Southern guy friend of mine received this today from a woman he’d met on Match. They’d hung out a little and been talking/texting etc. It wasn’t exactly a relationship, but really?

I don’t need to tell you that this woman is a Southern belle. I don’t need to tell you where she went to college or whether or not she was in a sorority or whatever because you already know from reading this. I can picture her in my mind. I imagine she is Rose Byrne in Bridesmaids, but with a Southern accent.

She may be beautiful on the outside, but watch out. Shark sandwich. I love how upbeat yet totally self-involved this text is.

I’m afraid there are more than a few women like this in the land where I come from. I tend to avoid them, because you never know when they’ll bite. Sweet as pie one minute, forked tongued the next. Completely put together, goes to church every Sunday, rainbows and sunshine, yet ruthless. It will make your head spin.

I read this text and it makes me glad I live in New York. Don’t get me wrong, New Yorkers can be ruthless and rude, too. But we tend to be straightforward. The message will not be coated in so much in sugar that makes you nauseated.

I am perhaps unleashing more venom than this poor woman deserves. Let me read that text again. Oh, that’s right, she wished him the “absolute bestest.”

Deserved.

(via theportablefaulkner)

788 notes #phone #text #break up #southern

Feb16

I say y’all, ain’t, reckon, and afta’while. I hunt, I fish, I wear boots, I wear seersucker and bow ties. I have spent my fair share of time flying down dirt roads in a truck jamming country music. But listen to yourselves. Seriously. Especially you, Twitterers. You’re a caricature. I’m so proud to be from Alabama that can’t stand it sometimes; I’m serious, it’s often overwhelming how full my heart is of pride in my country, the south, and my home state. But when every word out of your mouth is Southern this, and sweet tea that, pickup truck here, and belle/gent there, you sound like a Sugarbaker sister, and not in a good way. Be proud of where you’re from, and be ye not ashamed to show it. But please find something else to tweet about…. don’t trade on played out symbols, expressions, and mottos of our Southernness. There are plenty of beautiful things that accompany living here and having a heart that is anchored here; utilize them.
Excerpt from A Gentleman’s Journal blog.

12 notes #Southern

Nov21