boyfriends September 30, 2005
Question of the day: what is your definition of the word “boyfriend”? When is someone a boyfriend?
Comment below.
happy birthday betsy
Betsy and me at a party in Bell Buckle - Spring ‘05
This Fall marks 25 years since the first day of 7th grade for me. On that first day, I met my friend Betsy. We have been friends every since - best friends. In middle school and high school, we were inseparable. When we each went off to a different college, leaving Bets was one of the things I dreaded most.
Two decades later, Betsy still understands me very, very well — along with my sister (also named Betsy) and my little brother, probably better than anyone else. She is the first person to call me out when I am being a drama queen or making no sense or heading off in an unwise direction. But even when she warns me against doing what I am doing, she never(okay, RARELY) says “I told you so.”
She’s an amazing person: hilarious, clever, warm, a great mama, the best drinking buddy, and the most fun to sing with (preferably old Loretta Lynn or Jackson 5 in the car, loud).
Happy birthday Bets 
(This is a picture of my daughter Jane with Betsy’s daughter, Clare Frances from Spring ‘05)
stacey campfield
I got to do a sit-down interview with the controversial Rep. Stacey Campfield today. It was very interesting.
He’s apparently going to be on The Daily Show and Tucker Carlson in the next few days.
horse shows
We are in the thick of horse show season around Casa Granju. Last weekend was the Fall show at our barn, which was a lot of fun, and this weekend is the first “A” rated show we have done in a few months. It’s at River Glen Equestrian Park here in East Tennessee.
It’s a big show, with 4 days of showing, two weekends in a row. It will be my 10 year old daughter’s first time riding in a regular pony division at an A show, meaning her first opportunity to qualify for the USEF National Pony Finals. This is a very exciting thing for her. Qualifying for Pony Finals is her big goal.
She’s going to be showing her friend Katie’s pony, “Joe Cool” in the Small Hunter Pony division, and I think she’s doing some equitation classes too. Jane has done really well in equitation this year. I think she’s the youngest rider in the top ten in the ETHJA pony medal division at this point.
On Sunday afternoon, there is a $50,000 grand prix jumper event, and my employer has bought a patron’s table, so a friend and I, and Jane will get to hang out in really good seats and eat some tasty food and watch some of the top jumper horses and riders in the country compete, which is basically my idea of an afternoon in heaven…
If you are looking for something to do this weekend or next, you should check out River Glen. It’s a gorgeous, amazing setting along a river, with beautiful views and beautiful horses. The weather should be lovely, too.
journalism (not) September 29, 2005
You know, there is something wrong when a “reporter” assigned to cover a particular beat publishes an op-ed column in the same publication in which he expresses blatant disdain for/biases within said beat.
That’s the case with this “reporter,” Brian Mosely, and his published commentary on the very important development controversies currently facing my hometown of Bell Buckle.
How can he even attempt to write straight news coverage of Bell Buckle government and development issues when he’s already laid out his personal, prejudicial views on the opinion page?
The Shelbyville Times Gazette now has an obligation to assign another reporter to cover Bell Buckle, someone who keeps his personal views to himself and out of what should be straight reportage.
brazilian girls t’night
This awesome Fall weather will make for a great Autumn on the Square tonight in Market Square. A free concert with Brazilian Girls and leaves blowing around sounds great to me.
falling
Today is the first really Fall-feeling day in East Tennessee and it makes me very happy. It’s a bit overcast and chilly and breezy. Leaves are blowing around.
I always have good things happen to me in the Fall. For one thing, I seem to fall in love in the Autumn and so there are pleasant associations there. This weather makes me want to wrap up in a big sweater and walk around Downtown-somewhere holding somebody’s hand.
When your children are really little, you worry ab…
When your children are really little, you worry about them pulling boiling water onto themselves or running out in front of a car. You worry about kidnapping and terrible childhood diseases. These are the secret concerns that haunt - primal fears that pop up in your dreams when you least expect them.
As they become teenagers, you start to worry about different things. It’s a shift that happens without any conscious recognition — your dreams just change. I have an eighth grade son now, and my dreams are changing.
Last night I had a terrible dream for hours in which my son — who is, in actuality, a great kid who has good sense, nice friends and has never gotten into any trouble to speak of — was arrested after being with a group of boys who accidentally killed another kid during a fistfight.
The dream was highly specific; I was hiring him a lawyer and dealing with the juvenile court system and watching my baby boy be led away from me in handcuffs to be locked up where I couldn’t get near him. It was horrible and I am still really shaken up by it today.
P.S.: I have an essay about becoming the mother of a teenage son in this new book
my neighborhood
URBAN RENEWAL (from Metro Pulse today….Thanks Matt - mention of my ‘hood is near end of column, but the whole thing is very interesting )
Inner city ’hoods offer cheap, chic housing
by Matt Edens
Downsizing, it seems, is suddenly all the rage. Hummers are out; hybrids are in. And even in housing there are lots of folks trading their McMansion for something more manageable. Well-heeled empty nesters, for example, comprise a surprisingly strong segment of downtown housing markets across the country.
Just the other day I was reading about a West Coast couple who ditched their five-bedroom house on a Los Gatos, Cal., cul-de-sac and bought a place downtown for half as much. It’s the same dynamic that’s occurring on an increasingly common basis in downtown Knoxville, but with one big difference. Los Gatos is in Silicon Valley, so the numbers involved are shocking. The couple’s 2,300 square foot suburban home sold for a little shy of a million—$980,000. And they shelled out $545,000 for their downtown digs, which might seem like a bargain for the Bay Area but consider this: their charming Victorian dollhouse of a home in downtown Los Gatos was originally built as a chicken coop and measures a minuscule 544 square feet. Crunch the numbers and that comes out to approximately $1,000 per precious square foot.
Homes are cheap here, compared to the belly of the housing-bubble beast. The latest figures I could find cited the average cost of a home in the Knoxville MSA (based on a 2,400 sq. ft. new home) as $198,497—approximately $82 a square foot. Downtown prices, recently running in the $165 a square-foot range, essentially double that. Expensive? Maybe. But not at all out of line with other parts of town. Downtown’s price per square foot compares pretty closely with the non-boulevard or waterfront parts of Sequoyah Hills (Interestingly, downtown just happens to be zoned for Sequoyah Elementary). Fourth and Gill prices, pushing $100 a square foot, are on par with other, less blue-blooded West Knoxville ’burbs, while Old North Knoxville lags only a little behind.
It’s sort of a chicken or egg situation, as downtown, Fourth and Gill and Old North draw an increasing number of middle and upper-middle class homeowners who increasingly have to shell out middle and upper-middle class money in order to live there.
That has, inevitably, led to some grousing about gentrification. Although generally, the complaints I’ve heard are over people being priced out rather than pushed out. Buying in Fourth and Gill or tackling a building downtown used to be a bohemian thing, but not anymore.
“The process of spontaneous gentrification,†according to founding New Urbanist architect Andres Duany, “begins surreptitiously.†The first wave, according to Duany, constitutes “a social rather than an economic or physical gentrification,†consisting of people who may be poor, but are often of middle and upper-middle class origin: students, artists and gays. The second wave, he says, are “those who crave the bohemian lifestyle while actually being as securely employed as the conventional old bourgeoisie… They like the place to look rough and edgy, even as it becomes more expensive.†The final, more mainstream wave likes a little less edge. According to Duany, they “smarten up the buildings through…physical renovation, improved maintenance, and organized security. Their clientele has been characterized by Manhattanites as ‘dentists from New Jersey.’†Or, by Knoxvillians, as attorneys from Sequoyah Hills.
NOTE FROM KATIE: Here is the part about my wonderful neighborhood, which I love
But where does that leave the bohos and bobos? Seeking the next “edgy†neighborhood, naturally. Lucky for them, Knoxville offers lots of options. Loft buildings abound in Emory Place and are scattered along Broadway, Central and even Magnolia. And there are still plenty of inexpensive but cool old homes IN PLACES LIKE OAKWOOD-LINCOLN PARK and Mechanicsville to the north and west, Old Sevier to the south and Parkridge to the east.
So if you’re intrigued by the idea of buying downtown, but have been put off by the prices, why not check out one of these ’hoods? This Sunday, Oct. 2, from 1 to 6 p.m., Parkridge is hosting its third annual home tour (itself a sure sign that the ’hood is heading up). Starting from the new softball complex at Caswell Park, this glimpse inside 10 different bungalows and Victorians offers a unique opportunity to sample one of Knoxville’s oldest neighborhoods. And one of its most affordable: with sale prices hovering in the $50-$75 per square-foot range, a roost in Parkridge isn’t just cheap by Knoxville standards, it’s mere chicken feed compared to the going rate for Los Gatos henhouses.
knoxville brewer’s jam September 28, 2005
The line-up for this year’s Knoxville Brewer’s Jam has been finalized and it looks really great.
The headliner will be Scott Miller and the Commonwealth, and opening acts are Miller’s former V-Roys bandmate Mic Harrison, plus Senryu.
A friend and I recently hit the Chattanooga brewfest and it was fairly lame. The BoDeans (remember them?) were the headliners and the beer glasses were really small. So while Downtown Chattanooga gets a lot of glowing press, I think we Knoxvillians can outdo them on this brewjam thing.
The event will be October 15 at World’s Fair Park.
Before I say anything else about it, let me be rea…
Before I say anything else about it, let me be really clear that mostly I am just happy that the woman who was taken hostage a few months back by the courthouse shooter in Atlanta wasn’t hurt or killed. Her story of talking the guy into surrendering is pretty amazing, no matter what.
But it does add an interesting twist to the tale to learn today, on the eve of her book’s publication, that during the hostage ordeal, she gave the guy some meth from the stash she had in her apartment. It’s interesting because her spin — and that of the Christian right which has embraced her since then — is that she prayed with the man and read to him from The Purpose Driven Life, and THAT is why he gave up and let her go.
I wonder how all the evangelicals who have been holding her up as a miraculous icon will react to this new detail.
sheesh September 27, 2005
A friend sent me this. It’s a guy lamenting the fact that married women just don’t like sex.
That’s such a stupid sterotype.
jazz
Why do you think it is that some people are so into jazz and others are very anti? It seems like a real bright line kind of thing.
I used to work at a club where I heard a lot of what sounded like terrible, cheesy lounge music to me, but I was told it was really good jazz that I should enjoy and appreciate as high art.
I think it turned me off jazz altogether.
