Go on and get me my box....

Morning all!

Morning FRIDAY! aren't you SOOOO glad- i know i am!

So i haven't posted at all this week and i feel that i must, at least, post weekly , but i really am having a bad case of writers block. So i will do something that has never (Officially) been done on this blog before. I Will stand on a soapbox and write. Here on the blog all Friday postings will officially be called:

Soapbox Friday:

SO here is my soapbox for the week

Working in Midtown:

for some reason i REALLY LOVE Midtown! I will drive around and just look at all the cool stores/restaurants/ coffee shops and want to visit each one b/c they just have.... character. i want to know their stories.

Midtown to me is like an artsy friend that i haven't known for a while yet feel instantly connected to.

Did you know that "Tennessee Williams wrote his first publicly performed play, Cairo, Shanghai, Bombay! while staying in the Midtown Memphis home of his grandparents, 1917 Snowden. It was first performed in 1935 at 1780 Glenview, also in Midtown." That deserves a wholehearted

"SSSTTEEEELLLAAAA!"

(for reference see his play A Streetcar Named Desire)

If that isn't cool enough you also have Cafe Ecclectic, Playhouse on the Square, Otherlands, Java Cabana, Burkes Used books (scored a used HARDCOVER copy of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince for 10 BUCKS after not getting it back from the person i let borrow it- cant remember who but, HELLO how can i not have the complete HP collection!!!) Cafe Ole, Bosco's, Memphis Pizza Cafe, Finos, India Palace (HELLO lunch yesterday!) Cafe 1912 (think Ernest Hemmingway in the beginning of his book A MOVEABLE FEAST). That isn't even half of it!

I really love these places. The people are quirky, entertaining, and fun. And it really, to me, has a New York feel to it (ok maybe not the city) but when i was little i would visit my grandparents every summer for the WHOLE summer -3 Months- in Brooklyn for a couple of years, in a little subdivision called Sea Gate

OMG i just googled it and here is the gate we would go through to get to their house:

AHH it takes me back!

We could take a little path from her house to Coney Island where we would walk the top of the boardwalk (where my adult cousin would pick me up and pretend to throw me off the top of it-how cruel?! I swear that is why to this day i am scared of heights!-this is before they filled the boardwalk with sand, so it was high up for me!)

We would swim at Brighton Beach, play in the park, visit deli's, eat in pizzeria's.... Ok while this trip for me down memory lane might have you wondering "How the heck did she get off on this topic?! I thought we were talking about Midtown in Memphis there are no beaches there" I say all that to say:

I loved New York it was so great and despite what they say about New Yorkers being rude that was never solely my experience they just happened to share their opinions without the southern censor we have here in Memphis ;) (lets just say, for starters, the f word was considered and adjective, even in front of children)

The people in New York are REAL. What you see is what you get- without excuse.

if you didn't know people they'd still talk to you, be it about the crappy weather, the governor, their kids or whatever, and, if you were lucky, you would get a fair share of opinions from them, however crazy they were- which is always fun! Plus... as well as cool people... midtown, like New York, does have their fair share of Freaks... and when is that not entertaining to watch?!

For example, the other day this cute, preppy couple were riding bikes (helmet and knee pads in place) and alongside them rides a bearded man in a tunic. He speeds up to them and then steadily rides with them at their pace (He's standing up riding so that makes for a more better visual, the tunic flaring up behind him)...you could tell the preppy man was a little weirded out, but they all three continue to ride at the same rhythm, down the street...quite entertaining.

And if that isn't a picture of midtown... i don't know how else to describe it....i just love it.