Back in DC, boyee

Don't know when it happened, but a couple years I started calling D.C. "home". It used to flip out people in my hometown of Buffalo. They used to say, "that's not your home, boy!" And they were right. But it felt like it. When me and Lyd, who lives in the Bronx, go back to Buffalo for Mom&Pops anniversary each year, we always have at least one discussion about how we feel like visitors and guests. Visitors in the city and guest in our parents house.

I mean, I don't have a room, anymore. Neither does Lyd. Lyd and I used to live in the attic. It was like our own lil apartment. The two older sibs, graciously seperated from the rest of that madness on the two floors below. That was the beauty of proverbially movin on up, like we did in 95. But now, Ceez lives in Lyd's old room and A-ez lives in my ol joint. So, Lyd bunks with P on the second bed in Priscilla's palatial room; and I get stuck on the futon in Mom's lil study, which used to be A-ez's room. I call Mom's study "My room" sometimes, but it's really no different than a makeshift place for me to lay my head, even though Moms tries to throw a few comfort items here and there and make sure the desk is cleared and things like that. And sometimes I feel like I need a tour-guide. Like, I'm still that nigga that gathers the troops to go out places when I get home, still the Entertainment Coordinator. but that ultimately ended with something like, "Aight, everybody is gonna meet at X's crib...but where are we gonna go?"

Well, in about three hours I'm gettin on a plane to head back to D.C. Two days will be spent working a story project, the other two with my niggas. I'll be stayin in a hotel right on M Street, not more than two blocks from, AFPA, where I worked for the first three years in the area. I'm lunchin w/ my old pals from AFPA, going back to the Post to visit my people there and u know me and the crew are throwin the bbq on the weekend, where i'll see some others I've missed. We're gonna hit Adams Morgan and/or some of the downtown spots. I'll go catch some lunch at one or two of my favorite G'Town joints. I hope to visit my old congregation. It'll be like old times, I hope. But will it?

It's been close to a year now, since I left the Strict. The first time I left was in the summer of 2004, to intern at the AJC, a newspaper in Atlanta. I came back and it felt like coming home. The second time I left was the beginning of 2005 to intern at the Sentinel, a newspaper in Orlando. I came back in 5 months and it felt like coming home. I was always dissapointed to leave the jobs i was at, but happy to be back in my city. But what about this time? I wonder if I'll feel like a visitor. Chances are, I will. That'll be a little sad, though, because that'll be the last straw in the reality that I'm a true-Floridian. Ahhh, the horror.