Blaugust and Florida

Welcome to Blaugust! I'll be blogging every day this month. I'm going to try not to overwhelm everyone (and myself) by talking about depression and manipulation for an entire month. Posts like my last two will occur, but I'm trying to think of lighter subjects, too. I'm re-reading Harry Potter right now (and you totally should do that with us if you're not because it's the best), so there will definitely be a post about Snape and probably some other Hogwartsy type things. Also, Happy Doctor Who Month! There will definitely be some of that talk around here. And while I write for myself, I obviously write hoping that people will read and respond in some way. If you're taking the time to read my words on the internet, I would love to talk to you about things you want to hear about, silly or serious or anywhere in between, so your suggestions for topics are encouraged and very much appreciated. I did BEDA back in 2012, but basically only completed it by writing a lot of really crappy posts just for the sake of posts. I'm going to try my very hardest not to do that this time. However, I did Question Tuesdays in 2012 and that was a nice break from having to come up with topics and makes me feel like John Green, so I'm going to be doing that again this year. I'll be asking for questions on Twitter, but you can also leave them in comments of any of my posts for the month since Blogger doesn't have a great system to reply to comments anyway. That does require people to humour me, but hopefully some of you wonderful people will do that. Should I tell you what I'm listening to again this year? Is that remotely interesting? I think I'll at least post it on this one because music is great.

I've been back in California for almost four months now, and a question I've frequently been asked is, "Did you like Florida?" Obviously, I didn't think Florida was that great if I lived there for only eight months before moving back home. I'm just going to list the things I liked about living in Jacksonville:

• Lightning. I know that sounds weird, but it's beautiful and not very abundant in California, and a couple of my favourite memories involve watching lightning.
• I lived two and a half hours away from Disney World, so that was pretty beautiful.
• The people are really complimentary. I just feel like more strangers went out of their way to compliment me than they do around here; like, pretty much every day I left my house I would get some sort of compliment, usually about my hair.
• Beaches. Obviously. The water is so stinking cold here. I only went to the beach a few times in Jacksonville and I regret it so much because that water is so, so nice. Except that the first time I went to the beach in Jacksonville I was trying to boogie board and there weren't really waves to catch, and then suddenly someone was warning me about a shark. But that white sand!
• There's a restaurant called Taco Lu that has all sorts of tacos, including one with steak and brie. There are few things I love more than steak and brie. I unfortunately discovered this gem too late.
• Another restaurant I discovered way too late was 4 Rivers Barbeque. Southern Barbeque, man. I really did not get enough of that.
• I lived five minutes from an arboretum. That was a really cool place. We have way better hiking places around here, but it was a really peaceful, accessible place.
• It is a lot more affordable than Sonoma County, and pretty much anywhere else in California that isn't a desert.
• Total Wine is a big and beautiful place that we do no have within two hours of me
• Just in general there are a lot more places to shop and eat things (even if they don't know that Mexican food in restaurants should not include store-bought tortillas), which meant I was right across the street from a Target, and Michael's and World Market were like five minutes away. Do you know how great it is to live five minutes from World Market? DO YOU??
• Speaking of conveniences, Walmart never closes on the east coast or the south or wherever, I don't even know. But the Walmart five minutes away from me was open 24 hours and that was just the greatest. 
• TACO BELL HAS CHILI CHEESE BURRITOS THERE! WE HAVEN'T HAD THOSE SINCE THE 90'S AROUND HERE!
• It was only a couple of hours from Savannah and about five hours from Atlanta. Georgia is an adorable road trip destination.

I'm sure there were other good things about Jacksonville, but that's pretty much all I found that I liked in the eight months I lived there while being broke. That was probably the least interesting way to try to entice you to come read my blog every day this month but it's already past eleven. I hope you come back anyway.

Listening to: Lights Out by Ingrid Michaelson