I don't understand at best...cannot speak for all the rest

Ok. I'm going to try and make this quick, because I have so much homework to do.

So, Alabummer.

I actually went and saw a few really neat things. Like, who can forget a brief but illuminating visit to the KKK headquarters, Montgomery Chapter? And the mall in Birmingham, where I had awful mall japanese food (I didn't make that a proper noun, because the japanese part of that equation is imaginary) and met my little sister's "boyfriend". A term I use very loosely for very good reasons. I was dragged through Johnson and Murphy's...I think that's what it's called...to look at upscale fellow clothes...very boring.

Really, though, I did see some nice things.

We went to the Farmer's Market, and I people stalked the entire time. Someone asked Derek if he was with the newspaper as he went around taking pictures of everything. I'm not sure how he responded. But nobody asked me. I must not look as professional and distinguished as he does...probably because I was wearing my Michigan hoodie and yoga capri pants with flip flops. Anyway, my mom, Eric, and Syb bought their stuff, and Derek and I milled around taking photos of people. Here's what I got at the farmer's market:

I'm not terribly pleased with them, but I don't hate them enough to hide them. I did love the way it smelled in there, though. And I made four omelettes out of the farm fresh eggs my mom bought. She bought six dozen of them. I don't feel bad about my egg usage.

That day was a fairly lazy one. We also went to the bread store, where my mom spent literally 100 dollars on carbs (I don't hate that. I love carbs), we went to Costco, where I magpied over sparklies and my mom bought a shitload of meat, and then my mom took Derek and I to the old cemetery in Birmingham. First, though, we drove through the old part of the city, and went to the riverfront to see a big paddleboat. Derek set himself up with his tripod and tried in vain to get a picture of the big bridge that was about a mile away, even with his extend-o lens. I opted to take pictures of a couple that was PDA-ing so hard they were pretty much fucking. I don't mind that sort of thing, though. It's lovely to see people being in some form of loving contact. Once they were done with that, they walked off hand in hand, and the smaller girl would occasionally stop to peck her girlfriend on the cheek. I didn't realize until they walked away that they were lesbians, but that didn't really matter. I just really thought the other girl was a dude. I felt bad for that. Oh, well! She'll never know.

They looked happy. That made me happy.

We walked around the city for a bit, and came upon a church with pomegranate trees all about the thing. My mom yelled at me for trying to steal pomegranates from Jesus, and I told her he wouldn't  be eating them, and he liked feeding the hungry (though it takes about twelve hours to eat a pomegranate. Good going, JESUS. Thanks for the free, impossible to eat in a timely fashion food). They were unripe, anyway, so I guess my mom wins that round. The church itself was closed, but my mom fell in love with the doors. She asked me to take a picture of them for her, even though I thought the picture wouldn't be very good. As it turns out, she fucking loved it.

I'm fairly sure I'll be blowing it up and framing it for her for Christmas.

Then came the cemetery. It was so fucking cool. The three of us wound up playing "Find the oldest grave". My mom won with a grave dated 1709. I think Derek took a picture of that. I didn't, because my mom's head was in the way, and I didn't want to get up out of the car and into the humidity any more than I had to (a hoodie and yoga pants? Not so great a clothing choice, if I'm being honest). I did get out to take pictures of the field of sisters (religious, not ethnic), but none of those came out. We found a lot of confederate soldiers, and I had a lovely conversation with the groundskeeper about the proud south, and how it will rise again and make its fallen kinsmen proud. Wait. I spelled awkward l-o-v-e-l-y. How silly of me. I did snap this picture, though, and after about twenty minutes of fiddling with it, I really like it:

Most of these graves were families, and a lot of them had kids under the age of ten. It made my mom really sad. There was also an entire graveyard full of kids. I've seen that before (St. Augustine is pretty much comprised of two things: Forts, and dead kids from hundreds of years ago), but it never stops being startling and sad. I'm really not one for kids....I'm not even a passing fan....but still...other people are, and it must be fucking AWFUL to live with that emptiness when you expect your six year old to live far longer. Anyway, I don't want to be depressing. Moving on.

We did go out to dinner for my mom's birthday, and I had a bowl of vinaigrette with a leaf on the side, Derek had a gorgeous steak with some sort of decorated tuber (and now I can't stop picturing a potato in a hat and glitter), my mom and Syb shared a prime rib that looked like it was cut off of an angelic cow and sent here by some sort of god that clearly wants the world to be happy, and it was served with green beans that I'm pretty sure had zip codes, because they were god damn enormous. Eric had ahi tuna steak with ginger and black sesame seeds, and he loved it so much he no shit ordered two plates, and an extra plate to share. I was the only one that didn't have any, because I filled up on salad dressing soup. That's a lie. My salad was fucking awful, so I ate the perfection personified as sourdough bread they just kept giving me. I fucking love bread.

I just read that to Allen and told him I should be a food critic. We agreed to disagree.

The last day there, we went to the museum (there's culture in Alabama that isn't racist!!!!! WHO KNEW?) to see the Lethal Beauty exhibit (it was incredible). We couldn't take pictures, but my mom DID buy the Lethal Beauty Exhibit book for me to take home to Allen. Photos were allowed in the permanent exhibits, though tripods weren't allowed. So I took a few very shaky pictures in the other galleries.

I had been walking around the museum in heel for hours, so I left and walked across the street to the park. There was a gospel festival going on, so I used my skills of a creeper. It proved effective. I wasn't very happy with the photos, though the subjects did make me happy. Until one of them made me sad.

Happy:

They were having such a nice afternoon together. She was laughing, and he was smiling. They were, by all superficial accounts, happy.

This ridiculous fellow:

He's just silly with his fisheye lens.

And then, there was this gentleman. His eyes made my heart hurt. I spoke with him, very briefly, and he was so cordial and polite. He even called me ma'am.

When I initially encountered him, I was taking pictures of a mom playing with her daughter, and I wasn't paying any kind of attention to how I was hogging up the entire (narrow) sidewalk. I heard someone say, "Excuse me" so I looked up, and there he was, and my heart ached. The picture doesn't really do justice (a fucked up word to use, really) to how dingy and unloved he looked. So I smiled at him, and apologized for being in his way. He said, "Not at all, ma'am." So I asked him how he was enjoying the music. He said it was just noise. I agreed. He commented on my camera and asked me if I was a photographer. I said I was, in a manner of speaking, though I'm not very good. He said ok, and then turned around. I told him it was nice to meet him, and I hoped he had a good day. Which felt empty and hollow, and I felt shitty about it, but I didn't know what else to say. He walked away. When my mom and Syb and Eric were done with the museum, I walked across the street to meet them at the parking garage, and I saw my sad eyed man sitting next to the entrance of the park. Perhaps I misread his situation due to his appearance, but even if that's the case, there was no mistake about the look in his eyes. The were red, and far away, and sad. I wanted to hug him hard enough that maybe he wouldn't look so sad, but I didn't, because I don't think that's possible. I thought about him all day.

Anyway, the trip itself was fairly uneventful. It was relaxing, though very, very humid. My family greatly enjoyed Derek's company. So much so that my mom doted on him more than she doted on me. We drank every night, we chatted long into the early morning hours, and I took many, many naps. I needed to sleep, so I did. The best part?

NO CAR ACCIDENTS.