I've Got Friends in Low Places* - Goodbye South Pt. IV

Well folks, this gal here is now a college graduate.

Before you ask me how I feel about this (which I know you're gonna ask me because EVERY SINGLE PERSON I MEET DOES), I'll go ahead and tell you: meh.
At the moment I just feel like I'm on summer vacation despite the fact that I did the whole graduation ceremony thing AND had a righteous graduation party. And while I feel good because summer vacation is awesome, I don't quite feel especially jubilant or however people expect me to feel.
I give you permission to ask me again when I'm all settled in Massachusetts and working a big-girl job, which is when I assume this all will have finally sunk in.

Anyway, speaking of graduation parties, I had one on Saturday. A whole slew of my family came down from Massachusetts, some other people wandered in, and we generally had an awesome time. It being a party with all my family and all, it reminded me of something else I'll miss about NC: beer.

Yes, everywhere has beer, I know. But the south--or at least my little corner of it--has a bit of a reputation for craft beers, many of which I love, and many of which I will not be able to get in MA.
I mean, the nearby city of Asheville was voted BeerCity USA for the third time in a row last year. A new brewery has just opened up in Brevard called, unsurprisingly, Brevard Brewing Company (I haven't had the chance to go yet, but I can't wait to try the Munich Dunkel). And three more awesome nationally-recognized brewing companies have their eyes on opening a brewery in the area.
My bit of Western North Carolina, for those who don't know, is inundated with hippy-ish individuals and their obsession with local, all natural, handmade products. Though I would not describe myself as a hippie by any means, I definitely benefit from their desire to consume only that which is thoughtfully made, especially in the beer department. Below is a visual representation of my favorite breweries/beers that I'll miss not having access to:

Pic from the Highland website, linked below.

Ahh Highland Brewing Co. , how I love you, your motto of "Just a Wee Bit Different" and, most importantly, your Gaelic Ale which is my go-to brew in most bars, as it is always comfortingly on tap around here. Sometimes I'll mix it up with St. Terese 's Pale Ale though.

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I generally think of Lexington Avenue Brewery (aka LAB) as more of a restaurant that happens to serve beer it makes instead of a legit brewery, but I thought I'd mention it anyway because I REALLY love their Belgian White Ale, despite the fact that its the girliest beer in their selection. I can't help it- it's all carbonated and delightful and it's a perfectly refreshing beer to drink after you've been wandering the streets of downtown Asheville all day in the summer.

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I included Green Man Brewery because not only do I enjoy the Pale Ale but I super love their bar Jack of the Wood as well (who doesn't love an Irish pub). In fact, the first (legal) beer I had on my 21st birthday was Green Man Pale Ale in Jack of the Wood. Sentimental attachment, whaaat.

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Speaking of sentimental attachment, I couldn't make an NC beer list without mentioning Natty Greene's- a pub & brewing company out of Greensboro (where I went to college). I LOVE Natty Greene's. I have yet to meet a brew co. where I like--nay, love--ALL the year-round offerings. My favorite is Old Town Brown Ale. I assume (meaning I could be wrong) Old Town Brown is named after Old Town Draught House, an establishment I frequented throughout my UNC Greensboro career quite often.

I could keep listing NC beers (find a complete list here) that I'll miss all day, but I suppose I'll stop here. I guess when I get to Massachusetts I'll have to find some local replacements, but they won't be the same.
NC beer- I will surely miss thee.

*Linkity Link. Enjoy.

The Bumpy Road of Life - Goodbye South Pt. III

After people have established what I'm doing after graduation and how I feel about it, the first thing they make sure I'm aware of is that I will be encountering more snow and general coldness up in Massachusetts.

This is my general reaction to that statement:

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Let this be an announcement to the world (or at least the part of it that I'll be encountering between now and the time I leave): I know that the North is colder than the South. I know this. Trust me, I think about it every time I'm trudging my way to class in the sweltering heat...IN OCTOBER. 

People, I love the cold. Love it. I'm happiest in layers of clothing, I'm happiest when I don't have to enact a makeup ban for like 4-5 months of the year (sweating + makeup = not a good look). Yes, I like lounging by the pool as much as everyone else, but I generally don't have the pleasure of spending my entire summer there; I have to fill up the rest of the time figuring out the best possible way to not be uncomfortable during my transition from one air conditioned place, to another.

So yeah. It gets cold up there. Big deal Lucille. 

That being said, the biggest drawback of the cold would have to be the roads.

For those of you who do not know (probably the ones who insist on telling me that it snows in Massachusetts when I tell them I'm moving there), the roads up north are The Shittiest. Now, I generally try to not go all language-y on you guys because my mom is one of the few people that read this, but there is no other way to describe the roads up there. Why are they The Shittiest you ask? 

Frost heaves, that why.

See, as you so astutely point out world, it gets cold up there. Stuff freezes. This includes the water that seeps under roads. And what happens when ice freezes? It expands. It expands and pushes the pavement up, creating frost heaves* which in turn, create Really Shitty Roads. I mean, pothole-dodging is almost a sport up there. 

Frost heaves.

This is why one of the things I'll really miss about the South is its roads. Southern roads seem to be smoother than a freshly shaven leg by comparison,** and for that I will sorely miss them. I will miss them every time I find myself having to go to the bathroom really badly while I'm driving, and the bumps and potholes make my agony 10 times worse.

Some people (mainly visitors from the North) might object to this. You live in the mountains! They'll say. The roads are so curvy! 

Well, for someone who learned to drive on those roads, those curves are nothing. I will take curves over bumps any day (Please tell me I'm not the only one who thought this could apply to people too).***

*Excuse this science lesson if you took that Environmental Sciences class in high school and actually still remember this.

**Too weird? Sorry, I actually shaved today.

***Curves > Herpes, amiright or amiright?

I am being so weird today.

Agony-O's

I just noticed that according to my little label cloud thing on the sidebar there, "Paintbrush" is the most common. Second is "not breakfast related." For a blog that is basically about breakfast, that's probably a little silly. How do I deal with this discovery? MOAR PAINTBRUSH! (and a quote!)

At least it has something to do with breakfast I guess.

I don't know how to say it, but I love it all the same - Goodbye South, Pt. II

Hello friends, and welcome back for the second round of my Goodbye South miniseries!

Incidentally (and completely irrelevantly), it's pretty cold today. Like, I'm wearing a tank top, sweater, hoodie, and blazer and I'm STILL cold when I walk outside. I, as I have said before, am a creature that is most at home/functions best in the cold so I'm pretty pumped about this. I'm not sweating and the day is ideal for sitting inside with hot beverages doing things that may (or, more likely, may not be) productive? Awesome times!

Luckily for you, this means I'm more inclined to write a post--especially since I'm wicked bored with job searching (bored? depressed? same thing). 

For some reason I was having a hard time thinking of something to write about for the second series (I really should've planned this whole thing out ahead of time). But then I remembered a recent conversation with my mom about potential places to eat before/after my graduation next Tuesday (why they have it 5pm-7pm, I do not know. My grandparents are coming and since it starts during prime old people dinner time, it complicates things) and then it hit me: Jack's Corner Mediterranean Deli.

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I live literally (and when I say literally, I mean literally) right across the street from Jack's, which is dangerous, as this place is stupid excellent and I am lazy (if I die young of congestive heart failure or coronary artery disease or any other fancy heart disease terms I can dredge up from the memory of my medical terminology class, it's because of by proximity to Bojangle's and this place). 

Source. See that big brown behemoth of a building? Well right across the street is another behemoth, which is where I will be living for another 8ish days. Don't stalk me though, not cool.

I even suspend my irrational and ridiculous fear of sounding stupid in public to order things I cannot begin to pronounce (it's irrational/ridiculous because it is inevitable, not because it doesn't happen). Baba-Ghanouj bi-lahm? What?! LOL WHATEVA IMMA EAT YOU! I just humbly accept the polite correction of my pronunciation like a boss from the Middle Eastern lady running the cash register and await my meal while looking at the family photos they have hanging up in this tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant.

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I'm sure I could find a similar eating establishment in Massachusetts, but not only will it not have the sentimental attachment that Jack's has for me, I won't be able to walk to it. Oh Jack's, your Shawarma will haunt my dreams for years to come.

Botoxicated - Goodbye South, Pt. I

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I was going to hold off on starting this mini-series until after 4pm on Wednesday when all my classes and, subsequently, my classwork, will be done, because that would be the responsible thing for me to do. I was going to make this The Most Productive Day Ever. I was going to Get Stuff Done.
Obviously, that's not going so well for me.
I started off getting up pretty late, which is always a bad sign for productiveness. I stayed up late last night making a thank-you card for my internship supervisor (because I am crafty, considerate, and a little bit lame) and when I woke up this morning I discovered that my roommate had turned the AC off (it's supposed to be 84 today! What the what?!) so it was all hot in my room and I was more lethargic than I normally am in the mornings.
And to cap it all off, I watched Murder She Wrote (because I love nosey old people solving crimes) while eating my breakfast of oatmeal with craisins and coffee. The particular episode I watched (season 4, episode 15. Thank you Netflix) had some seriously horrible fake Southern accents. I mean, they said "I declare" a lot. They were the kind of Southern accents that people who have never been to the South think people have because they've watched too many Antebellum-era movies so they think everyone here speaks like a wealthy old plantation owner's wife in Georgia in 1800.
I assure you this is not the case.
Anyway, those accents sort of reminded me about my whole "goodbye South" posts I want to do so I thought I might as well go ahead with the first installment. Because I don't have anything better to do I guess.*
I was going to make my first installment be something a little more... grand I guess, but I had this for dinner last night so I'm feeling especially inspired to write about....

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Yes Bojangle's, I'm gonna miss you dearly. You are only in 11 states (the farthest north being Pennsylvania) and Honduras (what?) so I when I leave the South I leave you, Bo. 

Sure, every time I go to your establishment (one of which is located a convenient 2 minute walk from my dorm) I feel like your food has taken a year or two off my life but that doesn't stop me from going. Sure, you stopped carrying those cinnamon biscuits, but you do have Bo-Berry Biscuits which I believe are the spawn of a biscuit and a blueberry muffin that someone put icing on. And there are those Seasoned Fries...

Whenever I'm up North, craving a delicious/cheap/horrible for me biscuit with something on it (Biscuitville has nothin' on you), I'll remember you Bo, and how I used to walk to you when I was feeling especially lazy or when it was raining and I didn't want to walk all the way to campus (or both), and I'll remember bringing that yellow box o' treasure home where we would have a lovely dinner in the romantic desk-lamp light while watching something ridiculous on Netflix.
I may be leaving you Bojangle's but just remember- in my heart, it's always Bo-Time.
Love,
Ashley
PS- Please enjoy this montage of Bojangles-inspired memes I found here. I know I did.

Probably my favorite.

I will now be using the phrase "Bo real" in everyday life, especially when referring to something that is bad for me but still seriously awesome and/or delicious. Like.... Bojangle's.

I think the definition of "Bomergency" would be 1) to crave Bojangle's food (duh), and 2) when you're suffering from the digestive aftermath of eating Bojangle's.

*HAHAHAHA

What time is it?*

Oh yeah. Hey. Wassup?

How am I? Oh you know, pretty good, pretty good. I've just NOT BEEN HERE FOR 4+ MONTHS AND AM ABOUT TO GRADUATE COLLEGE, NBD.

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Sorry about the yelling you guys but for real. In 18 days and 16 hours I will be graduating. I'll be walking across the stage, getting my Bachelor's of Social Work diploma, officially ending my 18 year school career (until I want to punish myself some more and go to grad school anyway), and saying "well damn. Now what?" 

It's gonna be pretty awesome.

I'm sure you're wondering what's next for ol' Ashley. I'm sure of this because there are two things people ask me constantly nowadays and that's "are you excited?" (no, I earn college degrees all the time) and "so what's next?" To the first question I'm generally not snarky and will instead say a nearly incomprehensible version of "yeah" and then laugh maniacally while spouting off some random medically terminology prefixes I feel like I've been studying since the beginning of time (the exam is Wednesday- it's been a long week). 

To the second question, I tell them I'm moving to Massachusetts (where I am from originally, as you may or may not know), and then I'll mumble something vague about how that's where I want to go to grad school but I'll probably have to get a job until that happens I guess. I'm pretty psyched about the move since my MA home has significantly more of my three favorite places per capita than my NC home does: Donut/coffee shops, liquor stores, and diners. Also, my extended family is all up there. Also, I am totally unprepared for the move HAHAHA[TACHY-]**HAHA.

Whoa. 

Aaaanywho, as the big day aproacheth, I find myself getting getting more and more sentimental about the place I've called home for most of my life (that would be North Carolina if you don't know who I am and/or why you're here). There are so many things I'm going to miss! And guess what! I'm going to tell you what those things are! Yay!

That's right folks-get ready for a Breakfeaster mini-series! I figured doing this will not only be fun for me as I wrap up my time here but also a good way to get back in the swing of blogging, which I want to continue as kind of another way to keep my NC family in touch with my shenanigans. The first official entry to this mini-series will be up shortly. Just to let you know, the title is a hint- a pretty easy one for those of you in the Southeast (and Honduras oddly enough).

I can't wait- can you? 

Yeah, thought not.

*Bo-Time, that's what time.

**Tachy-, prefix, "rapid or fast". Ex) tachycardia- Literal meaning: rapid/heart/condition, Actual meaning: abnormally rapid heartbeat (over 100 times per minute in adults). Boom! Knowledge!

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Really though, I've paid enough in tuition to have earned these things...

I know it's been a while, but give me a break- I've been busy.

Ok, not really. I guess it'd be more accurate to say I've been lazy. I'm actually busy now though what with my finals starting tomorrow and all. That explains why I drew this:

Woo woo! Train now pulling into Procrastination Station.

At least those last 2 things have something to do with breakfast.

Anyway. Back to studying I guess mumble mumble don't wanna mumble mumble...