All Aboard

Once, I sang "Midnight Train to Georgia" at Pieces' drag queen karaoke and a 60-something black man tucked a twenty in my pocket as thanks. As I was thinking today about how I could render the last two months, how best to take up blogging again, it occurred to me that I am both parties in the song. That basically, I've ridden that train twice. I'm the one who left to find the world I left behind (I lived in Athens for two years) and the one who followed because I'd rather live with the man in his world (Dan is currently a PhD candidate at UGA). This revelation felt metaphorically satisfying until I caught myself explaining to Dan that the man's midnight train ticket was cheaper because he qualified for an advanced purchase fare, whereas Gladys Knight, deciding to go last minute, probably just bought a ticket same day at the station.



After years away from the travel industry, I'm working again as a consultant for a local family-owned agency. Not only did I return to Georgia, but I returned to an industry I couldn't wait to leave. I'm doubling back, not to be confused with conceding. At first I wasn't so sure. I had to reaffirm that spendthrift intermediary time -- that lacuna of years I took out student loans and rode in cabs and occasionally wore a sparkly black lamé pantsuit. How could I have just ended up back where I started? When did I become Reese Witherspoon? But ya'll, I'm excited to wake up in the morning and help people see the world, probably because I saw it, too. I miss teaching, but I'm where I'm supposed to be right now.

Although I assist with all kinds of travel, I'm the certified Disney agent for our office (I have mortarboard graduation mouse ears). The summer I turned 19, I worked at Epcot, sweating through purple polyester and pulling pizza tickets from a printer. If we didn't fill orders fast enough, the machine spit the paper onto the floor, or more specifically, onto the caked rubber mat we hosed down every night at close. I have a very distinct memory of bending over to pick up a ticket and losing my balance, coming face to face with my own grimy regulation Reebok with its parmesan and sauce-encrusted sole, my visor obscuring my line of vision, my elastic waistband stretched to capacity, and sincerely thinking: "This is awesome." And in a lot of ways, it was. I'm practically dangling a lion cub over a cliff, my life is so circular.



In a few days, my agency launches a new website which features a section where I'll be blogging. My first foray into work communiqué happens October 23. I'm spending a week in Disney World and chronicling my daily adventures. I hope you'll join me for the month of October as I transition From Soho to Silo into a more travel-centric site.