This is a response to my last blog post, which asked “To Remote or Not to Remote?” I admit; I did struggle with this decision. The thought of completely escaping my current life was so seductive. The thought of leaving all the things and people I love was so unnerving. I rode the roller coaster from very positive to “No way, Jose”, often in the same day, and landed on a compromise.
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Help! The public sphere is being flooded with TV screens that are drowning out everything else. They show up everywhere, obtrusive and unavoidable.
They demand attention; trying to block them out and do something else can be mentally exhausting. Whether they are large or small, whether they broadcast a public station or a closed circuit network, their continuous distraction of moving images and background noise discourages people from interacting, reading, writing, or just sitting quietly and thinking. I really dislike it. Skip the life preserver and someone please throw me a remote!
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I was born and raised in New York and, until I reached my 40s, I had never lived more than 90 miles from the heart of “the city”, also known as Manhattan. Then, I followed my job to Durham, NC and found myself naively unprepared for the culture shock; language being one of the most immediately obvious differences. Growing up, I had seen episodes of the Andy Griffith Show, so I knew they spoke differently in the south. I just didn’t expect they would still be watching that show and still speaking that way.
Over the (20+) years I’ve lived here, I have come to appreciate many things about this area. The genteel ways have won me over and I now enjoy many of the southern colloquial, linguistic quirks. Mind you, I actually never find myself saying them — all my attempts at “y’all” still come out as “all you guys” — but I like these funny and sometimes corny phrases; they make me smile when I hear them. Here are my favorite “southernisms”, things that would never come out of a New Yorker’s mouth. Continue reading
accidental goddess 