Hatched
Tonight, I hung out with Marshall. We ate palaak paneer and dosai at Madras, grabbed a couple Zesto milkshakes and drove up I-75 to check out the Big Chicken, since neither of us had ever been. Yes, this is what you do in Atlanta at this end of the twenty-first century: You eat really good food, and then you drive.

And it feels perverse to admit I’ve noticed, but ever since the Katrina, Atlanta has had the most beautiful weather. Cooler clear-skied days and almost no humidity. Tonight it smelled like fall for the first time, and the wind through the car windows was a little too chilly for my t-shirt. We drove in silence for a good fifteen minutes listening to the New Pornographers’ album Twin Cinema with the windows down, peeling down the rollercoaster ride that the Downtown Connector feels like on nights like this: all irresistible curves and bright lights on either side like a midway.

And all that fat and refined sugar in my belly plus the good friend and the good music and the night made me think: This time is okay.

Something about every summer in this city feels like a battle, but as I surfed my hand out the window (as I was of course, utterly compelled to do), I knew this to be true: That when I pull out this cd in five or ten years, from a shelf in some strange new town, it’ll bring this all rushing back. And I’ll realize I was lucky. I’ll miss it: This night, the smell of your car, the expression on her face as she dances; that one at midnight on any given Friday, laughing open-mouthed, beer in hand, perched on the edge of a green metal lawnchair, those two with foreheads furrowed in concentration over the song they’re playing, and you and that day and that time; oh, tell that story and don’t forget the good part. I forget I am lucky; I’m blessed.