You won’t need directions.

Truth be told I want to blog here as prolifically, intelligently, bravely and with as much wit as my Aunt B.

Tomorrow night I am making dinner for a handful of boys on Winfield Street. Here’s the menu I’ve planned:

Vegetable and shrimp pot stickers (frozen, no muss, no fuss)
Miso soup (instant and easy)
Mixed baby lettuces with red pepper, heirloom tomatoes, olive oil and balsamic vinegar
Snap peas sauteed in butter
Steamed jasmine rice
Tuna, albacore and ahi

I have two thick frozen cuts of each kind of tuna. Now. What the hell should I do with it? it (Note: Would rather not bake it.)

DROP SOME SUGGESTIONS. Make my dinner party a success!

“Georgia, right?” … “Are you from North Carolina?”

My southern accent is a regular source of conversation and outright amusement amongst those I’ve met since moving to the Bay Area. People try to pinpoint where I’m from, but usually only those who are also from the South. No one ever guesses Tennessee, but I’ve gotten Kentucky a few times.

What is funny to me is how when I waited tables in Murfreesboro and in Nashville I was often asked from the locals where I was from. Because my Southern drawl wasn’t as pronounced as every one else’s. And I called it soda.

Then I went to work for a TV station that doled out a little charity and let me be on the air. I learned, or tried to learn, even more how to hide my Tennessee twang, though I’m not sure I ever succeeded. However, when I hang out with the good folks of Cheatham County, where I went to high school, the vocal divide is readily apparent. I have nowhere near as deep an accent as my Ashland City and Pleasant View friends.

I drop more g’s when I’ve had a couple to drink, and I snap into a slower lilt when I’m on the phone with my terrificly twangy Mom, but on the whole I do not have a strong southern accent. Which is why this blog post from Honest Lee made me laugh:

i follow three people on twitter (via their xml rpc api via rss via newsbeuter). defectiveyeti (matthew baldwin), dooce (heather armstrong) and brittneyg. and i had no idea brittneyg had a southern accent

He’s referring to a video segment I did for CBS 5 in San Francisco. And frankly, I don’t really hear an accent. So, I want you to do me a favor. Watch this video and weigh in with your comment: Do you hear a Southern accent? I am particularly interested in how the answers will skew based on location.

Y’all come back now, ya hear?

I wear a tiny pin on my backpack that bears the words Burrito Eater. There is a mustache on it. I wear it because it is true. Minus the facial hair.

Charles Hodgkins, writer of BurritoEater.com gave me that pin. His site is an exhaustive website about, yes, burritos, but more specifically San Francisco-style burritos. Which didn’t even know was a thing before I moved.

Before I moved a burrito was a thing that laid on a plate. It was never portable. It was almost always wet with sauce, mostly red, sometimes green. Burritos, back then, were filled with meat, cheese, maybe vegetables, but definitely meat and cheese. The tortillas were bland on their own, and frankly a ladle of sauce didn’t improve matters much. Often burritos came with rice and beans on the side. This was a dish, back then, that I rarely ordered.

Now you can catch me eating a burrito on the regular. That is because, out here, the burrito is an institution. It is San Francisco’s fast food. A proud, noble beast of a thing that can stand erect for hours on end. Which is a good thing, it might take you that long to defeat it.

Wrapped in aluminum foil and big enough to cause major damage if thrown directly at a head, a Mission-style burrito is an epic adventure in your mouth. Meat eaters have the hell of deciding on everything from el pastor to tender tongue. Rice, beans, cilantro, crema, cheese, avocado, sometimes lettuce–they pile all that shit on there and wrap it up in a fresh flour tortilla big enough to substitute as a blanket in a pinch. The deliciosity is undeniable.

My friend, no slouch at master the Mission-style slab, taught me the intircacies of pulling off just the right amount of foil. You see, I have never finished an SF burrito in a single sitting. There is always, as this friend calls it, a nub. You can have the nub tomorrow. Maybe for breakfast. The key is estimating how large of a nub will be left and pulling off the proper amount to be able to re-wrap your feast. I’m getting there.

It goes without saying that I’ve never had Mexican food like the Mexican food I’ve had since I moved to California. The tacos, tamales, quesadilla (there is this thing called a quesadilla suiza that blew my mind one beer-soaked night)–all of it is incredible. Less cheese and cream, fresher herbs and salsas, ridiculously ripe produce. And most importantly, no sauce.

I never knew what a burrito could be. Now I wear a pin.

• I went to the Giants/Dodgers game in San Francisco on Friday night, and that shit was kinda scary. I’d been told they were rivals, but I didn’t know it there would be actual threats of violence and people being removed.
• I saw Pineapple Express and Burn After Reading. Pineapple Express is funny, but weird and incredibly uneven. I zoned out plenty during overly long, horribly choreographed fight scenes. Burn After Reading I really liked, but I won’t love it til I see it a time or two more. Too much going on. Also, I did my first movie hop where you sneak into something else after the film you paid for is over. Somehow in three decades time I’d never broken that rule. Here’s too late bloomer rebels.
• I went to San Diego, and it ranks as one of the best weekends of my life.
• While in San Diego I attended a birthday party for a seven year old that was, in a word, awesome. It was Hairspray-themed. The kids made protest signs and picketed. Most were about wanting more money, like the one that said, “More Money for Jack (that’s me).” A little GOP protest. There was also the excellent “Gum for Too Years Old.” Then we all marched down the streets of Mission Hills chanting things like, “What do we want? CANDY! When do we want it? NOW!” This was, obviously, great fun.
• I had a blogger party at work, and it was a hit.
• San Diego has a lot of poser dudes in cars with giant rims who play very loud music. As if its 1997.
• I haven’t been home since Friday.
• My traveling companion for the weekend is one rad individual. I am one lucky lady.
• Tomorrow is my birthday month.
• Hooray for short weeks.

“I used to think I didn’t want children because I’d be too busy with my big time career in some big city…,” I said, before stopping in my tracks.

San Francisco has an Indian summer they tell me. It gets warmer in September and October before winter, otherwise known as the rainy season, sets in. I arrived in the Bay Area to live and work in November. This means I haven’t seen anything resembling a summer season in a full year. And I’m not going to, I don’t think.

It was broiling hot a couple of weekends ago when I attended an outdoor party in the middle of the day, for which many people from the East Coast flew in, and the conversation largely consisted of, “It’s so hot. I can’t believe how hot it is. It’s never like this. Everyone is usually wearing jackets. Oh my God, I’m sweating everywhere. Hold my sangria, I’ve got to take this off.” But those handful of days came and went, and now fall is setting in.

The air lately carries the smell of crispness that happens that time of year when, in places that don’t have palm trees, leaves turn hillsides into a kaleidoscope of warm colors. Autumn is here, sort of, but in a way that seems far away.

I’ve been waiting for summer. Patiently waiting for that season that feels like pulling on wool socks after a long night with no blanket. I’ve been waiting for the sun to tan my forearms and lighten my hair. Waiting for September or October, for that late breaking warmth. But again today, like days in January and July, I wore a coat and a scarf.

I came knowing there weren’t four distinct seasons in San Francisco, like there are back home, where I lived my entire life. Logically, it all adds up. But my body expected sunshine. My skin expected sustained rays that paint on tiny freckles.

I wonder if when it rains again–it hasn’t since March–if it will feel like winter time.

Camping is great fun. I’m not the first person to observe this. Hiking out for miles, pitching a tent, then sleeping beneath nothing but a thin layer of vinyl between you and the heavens–is nothing short of terrific.

But rarely are tents more fun than when you were a kid. Even better if the tent was set up in the backyard. It was always an unexpected adventure just feet away from the back door. This photo reminded me of how magical tents could be when one is very young.

You can watch it anywhere in the world via the magic of the web.

I’m in Nashville. It’s the first time I’ve been back since I left. And it’s so very strange.

The air conditioning is odd to me now, and the overwhelming number of white people jumps out at me. I’m confused as to why everything is so spread out, why we drove 25 miles from one shopping center to another that looked exactly–and I do mean exactly–like the first one. With almost all the same stores. All the neighborhoods pretty much look the same; I haven’t seen red brick homes with columns in front for a while.

People seem to move a little slower than I remember them moving. And the number of baseball caps here in Tennessee, worn by women and men alike, is astonishing. People are kinder, at least outwardly. The syrupy Southern drawls are as plodding and charming as always.

I’ve noticed I’ve become much more direct in my conversations with people, especially family. The way Southern people, especially ladies, tip toe around what they want with their words has become an annoying attribute I now mostly eschew. My frank comments to my mother and sister about various things has left them each slack-jawed at least once.

The rolling hills and buttermilk biscuits and late afternoon showers are all like warm hugs from long unseen old friends. The lack of diversity, however, is striking. Moving to California has been 9 months of constant blur, and being back has been just about the same. Everything old is new again, and I’m relearning Tennessee’s curves like I’ve returned to a former lover. It’s been exhilerating and a little unnerving, but I’m glad for the experience.

Have to admit, though, despite that it happened while listening to crickets, when I saw photos of San Francisco on my Flickr stream just now, my heart whispered “home.”