Do the Whirlwind

I've been quite the man about town this week, y'all. I got a little dab of culture on Wednesday when, walking to the farmer's market in Market Square, I saw a sign for free admission at the Knoxville Museum of Art. I decided I'd make a detour on my way back from the market, and with a canvas bag full of white cucumbers, fresh peppers, and a $5 loaf of bakery fresh whole grain bread in tow, that's precisely what I did.

The museum has four galleries, so it's on the small side, but one of them is dedicated entirely to East Tennessee art, and I enjoyed that. Local art really helps me get the home-feel of a place, and Knoxville is feeling more and more like home for me. The collection ranged from folk art (which I proudly admit to admiring) to more traditional oil-on-canvas type stuff. I'm sure there's a more precise term for what I mean, but I don't know too much about art, and I'm moderately ashamed.

But only moderately.

There was also photography exhibit called A New Tribe which featured photos of local women of color and their bios underneath. Interesting photos, and I even knew one of the women featured, but the best part of the entire exhibit was Ms. Nancy Taylor Hawes' bio indicating her position as Deaconess at Zion A.M.E. Chapel and Licensed Exhorter. I thought I'd found my new calling until I did some research and realized these licentiates don't drive demons from the damned and suffering. Guess I'll stick with being an English teacher.

Since yesterday, I've been hosting an old college friend whose coming to UT for his Master's in English in the fall and an old high school friend who wanted an excuse to get out of Mississippi for the weekend in my cozy, one-bedroom apartment. Having house guests usually stresses me out, but these two are phenomenally easy to deal with, the types who don't constantly need to be entertained because they like to venture out into the city on their own. So that's what they are doing while I'm at work in the Writing Center for Athletes And Athletes Only (and they will kick you out if you are not one, dammit. Ludicrous). It's a pretty sweet job, though. I get paid to be available if a football player needs help with a paper. But they never seem to need help, so I blog. Or read. Or daydream about being a homeowner.

It's been a whirlwind week, and next week's only going to get twistier. But I'll just dance right on through with my best shoes on. You should join me.



P.S.-- Crazy Texas Mommy, when are you going to tell me about your jaunt in East Tennessee? And pix of you in the Dolly clothes ASAP!

Taking the Right Way Home

I got a little weepy when driving through Memphis back to Knoxville yesterday. At the I-240 interchange past the Brooks Rd. exit, the right lane takes you to eastbound I-40 towards Nashville, and the left lane takes you to westbound I-40 towards Little Rock. After resisting the temptation to give UT, my final (unfinished) papers, and the assistantship the finger and hightail it to Central Arkansas for better or worse, I chose the right lane, followed I-240 around to the the Nashville exit, and once again was presented with the same choice: West to Little Rock, East to Nashville, then on to Knoxville. I lost my bearings for just a second.

See, I'm one of those people who (halfway) believes in the power of signs. Not like stop signs, but signs from above (which is problematic for me because I really don't believe in god) that lure me toward a certain....something. Usually when confronted with the same decision more than once, I freak out a bit, nearly convincing myself that something out there is giving me another chance to make the right decision. However, I invariably stick with the choices I've already made, signs be damned.

I guess I can convince myself that choosing the Nashville exit, which was the right lane after all, was the right decision. I did make some significant progress on one of my papers today, and would have made more had I remembered to dress appropriately for the arctic environs of Hodges Library. Besides, I'd stand to lose a lot by giving up and going back to Conway: free school, teaching experience, newly budding friendships. And all for what? A memory of a perfect time in a perfect place with perfect people when I was perfectly happy. Only it wasn't, they weren't, I wasn't. I was a basket case for most of my undergraduate career, over-extending myself with classes and RSOs and student publications because I learned a long time ago that if I keep myself impossibly busy, I don't have time to think about what's bothering me. Repression has been a key factor in my coming of age, I tell you, and it took me getting away from what I know to realize that.

But nostalgia has a way of skewing the truth of matters. For a little longer than a split second, I thought I might actually go AWOL from McClung Tower and back to a time that will not exist again in a place with people that surely have changed since I made my departure that weepy day at the end of July 2007. Of course they've changed. I've changed. And I'm glad I had the good sense to realize these facts before I merged left.