What my life is worth (last days in Atlanta)

I feel like I have a massive, mad amount of catching up to do, in terms with chronicling the Amazing Adventures Of Russ As He Moves To The North (TM). Fact of the matter is, though, I feel less "amazing" at the present moment (cue a Kanye West rant from his VH-1 "Storytellers": "Russell Stovers-AMAZING. Russ Marshalek-AMAZING. Russ, you know that company that makes the stuffed animals you buy at the greeting card stores? Are they not amazing?") than I do "in stasis". Things feel weird , because every activity I engage in in Atlanta is the "last". The "last" time I'll ever go to Your (mine?) Dekalb Farmers Market, aka the Greatest Damn Place On Earth. The "last" time I'll ever walk to the Decatur square and get angry about all the happy people. The last time I'll ever say "oh, dear, this is the last time I'm..." And really, what good does any of that serve? Basically, my brain is fabricating nostalgia at this point. "Hey, remember the time I ran into the Indigo Girls while I was shopping for coffee at Target?" No, because that didn't happen. I've run into an Indigo Girl ONCE in my entire time in Decatur (a city that they, like, own, or something. Shhhh. I'm trying to tell you something 'bout my life.). My "getting sassed by Michael Stipe" quotient is like eight times that, and Stipe lives in, like, an underground cave carved to resemble an independent coffee shop somewhere below the 40 Watt in Athens, GA, right?

Right...

Anyway, things feel weird. I'm four days from landing in LaGuardia, hopefully on-time, maybe even early (yeah, right, flying out of Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is like actually attempting to coherently make your way through all of Roberto Bolano's 2666: essentially, have fun with that and call me when it's over). My entire life (six boxes of books and four of clothes) has, thanks to the child-like wondrous unicorn magic of UPS,been assigned a monetary value.



My life is officially worth $177 dollars.

I think I spent that much on the high-gravity beers that I consumed far, far too many of at my going away party...which, um, you can read about here. Basically it looked like this

only plus or minus about another 20 people throughout the course of the evening, and me seriously embarrassing myself only thrice or four times. Oh, and not all squished up due to Blogger's size restrictions. That would have sucked, huh? 

(It's flattering, though, that every person I can point to in the peripheral of that photo was there for me. I mean, that's what I *think*. Some of my friends may have just been like "ooooh crap that's right Russ's thing is here....ooooooh we better say hiiiii.......dammit he saw us" etc.)

 

"So Russ: your life is en-route to Queens via UPS, you've had a going-away party where you basically consumed your body weight and your bank account in alcohol AND there's four days left of your time in Atlanta, what are you going to do now?"

Well, first I'mma watch Twilight. And I did. And oh, god, it was bad.

(For the record, that whole "dazzling" vampire-in-the-sun-glittering bit was WAY less impressive than it should've been. Less "dazzling", more "I think Henrietta in styling used too much body glitter on R Patz".

Also, the acting. Oh, god, the acting. There's more sexual tension in a nursing home on shuffle board day than there was between Edward and Bella.)

And second? I'm going to see one of my favorite Atlanta bands, Tealights, on Wednesday. I wrote a brief bit about that on Resonator. You should read it. There's a song there, too, It's incredibly pretty and about traveling and I am avoiding at all costs applying it to my (worth $177!) life because that would just end with me being stupidly emotional.

Too late?

Four days left and counting.