Tomorrow I Leave the South For Much Colder Climes

Today I wore a bespoke blue stripes on white business shirt — crossed with light khakis. I was all about business today and I didn’t bother removing my sunglasses for the entire day — even indoors. The southern folks here were milling about their day — eating grits, slabs of pork, having a general time about their existence here — calm and poised.

Over at the local golf course, I spied several dozen well cigar’d gets swinging wildly and flagrantly into the wind — not really trying to do well, but instead crush the ball with every fiber of their existence. We once again frequented the college towns of UNC and Duke, for reason which now escape me. I am beginning to think I don’t have much say in the matter and just drive to wherever people want to go. While in Chapel Hill, my son ate a grease filled chicken cheese and biscuit from a placed called “Time-Out.” It’s a 24/7 greasy spoon that has served college idiots in the area for generations. In Princeton, we have a similar greasy spoon called “Hoagie Haven.” Painting a broad brush, I can tell you that Chapel Hill is a disgraceful and degenerate place to live. It’s a pure college town, minus the dignity, history, and honor of a town like Princeton. Over at Durham, where Duke is located, it’s a mixed bag of sea-shells. Not for me.

My favorite parts of this area are in North West Cary and part of Apex. The builders have gone absolutely fucking nuts down here and are building houses faster than people can fill them. I don’t quite understand what the fuck is going on here, really. I’ve never seen entire communities being built like this, all without land — just large well built homes with beautiful mill work at very low prices. One of the developments I visited near Apex, which has a brand new HS opening this September, was so perfect I didn’t exactly feel comfortable with it. It was a scene out of Mayberry — stepford wives with strollers, men with lawnmowers, and kids playing in the streets, amidst a backdrop of perfectly manicured lawns and brand new homes — all affordable and connected to the city sewer. I kept thinking to myself “something isn’t right here”, but I couldn’t find anything with the time available to me.

The area is brimming with well healed folks who are employed in tech and biotech — many from India and China — which is rapidly changing the demographics of the area. Quite honestly, and this could be me being aspirational and possibly naive, this does look like the very best place to possibly live in America. Naturally, you can find a more aesthetically pleasing geographic location on the coasts, but you’ll pay $700-2,000 per sq ft for that. Here you can get 4,000 sq ft at less than $150 per sq ft. I’d say roughly 70% of the homes in West Cary are new — which is astonishing when considering the scale of homes there — well into the thousands. The fucking builders have just about run out of land in Cary and are now continuing their rampage up north in Morrisville and down south in Apex and Holly Springs.

Tomorrow I’ll be forced against my will to frequent the local fucking mall and I’m hoping to get back on the road by 1pm. Every single trip I’ve taken before — took much longer than planned. I do not want to get home at 3am — but something tells me it’ll happen anyway.

Dinner will be served early in the land of Jefferson Davis — BBQ brisket naturally alongside a banana pudding and perhaps a side of collared greens and sweet potatoes. I’ve been eating like a complete barrel ass and that will not change during tomorrow’s parlay and exit from the south — en route to the cold gray lands of the frigid and austere north.