Day 12: Birmingham, Al

I think I made Dr. Atkins proud these last couple days with the endless intake of meat that has nearly exceeded the challenge I proposed for my stomach following the end of lent. I have tried to disregard any food that wasn’t eaten lamb, steak, or chili hot dogs the last couple days. I still crave more.

Yesterday was very peaceful and relaxing much like the other 12 days have been. This road trip by definition can do little other than put my mind at rest. The only things even remotely close to resembling stress were the two phone interviews I had this afternoon. Both were with two insurance firms that needed to fill associate actuarial positions. I have no clue as to whether I would enjoy this line of work, only that I seem to be well qualified and that it would have my yiayia (grandma) be able to brag endlessly to all her friends about me. She’s in the other room as I write doing this right now. This job searching seems to be one main reason why I decided to go on this road trip. I don’t believe I am ready to grow up. Who is by the way? Does anyone actually grow up? I think I will be using this expression when I’m 70. I still played video games all weekend long and still cursed my horrendously bad golf shots wanting to turn a club into a walking stick for a midget on Saturday no different than I did 10 years ago. I still found myself wanting to beat the hell out of my brother when he was being beyond annoyingly difficult.

My mom bought me this little device used to locate a lost set of keys by ringing loudly whenever it hears a whistle (a la Jennifer Anniston’s (Shes half greek) key ring in “Along came Polly”). This silly thing doesn’t even have an off button. So once you find it, the sound never goes off. I actually thought it was a one-time use device and about to test swing the hammer in my toolset (another present from mom) until I unfortunately had the brilliant idea of taking the batteries out and putting it back in (kin of a fire alarm??). This wasn’t even in the 2 lines of instructions. Was this a joke to the user? Did the inventor of this wretched device never grow up either? I suppose if I had it my way I would just never grow up. Staying at 25 seems swell to me. Staying on the road trip indefinitely also seems optimal.

My family had left in the morning and then my cousin Chris this evening back to Philadelphia. Afterword I went with my uncle to his work place at City hall. He showed me his office where he was won about 20 distinguished awards for producing an exemplary budget scheme every year for the city. From here we went to one of the highest points in Birmingham to eat dollar hot dogs. B-ham is basically in a valley enclosed by small rolling hills. The diner we stopped at overlooked the western edge of the city which was richly laden by the newly emerged Spring greenery. extra

We also stopped at an adult book shop that used to be the proud building that housed my Papou's (grandpa) restaurant the Gold Star about 30 years ago.