If I can make it there

Tom was only gone for about 30 minutes tonight; he left the house to come pick me up from work, which I got out of about 15 minutes later than usual. When we arrived home, a police car was parked across the street, the neighbor's door was standing wide open, and our neighbors who lived across the street (but next door to the house with the cops and the open door) were standing outside. For the 4th time in 3 months, a front door on our street had been kicked open, within a span of 2 blocks.

Then, as I was unlocking our front door to come inside, after chatting with the neighbors for a bit (the neighbor whose house had been burglarized, obviously, wasn't home, and no one could get a hold of her), our house alarm was activated and started going off.

I guess it was just coincidence, as we had been standing on the porch talking for 5 or 10 minutes before coming inside. A moment later, our new alarm monitoring service called to ask if everything was ok. That was comforting. Several weeks ago we left town and returned to our alarm blaring. We had no idea how long it had been going off, but until that point, we just assumed it was being monitored. Not so. It was nice to have the alarm, but if no one gets notified if it's activated, it doesn't do a whole lot of good. So we got a monitoring service a couple weeks later, right before we left for Thanksgiving.

Tom and I have very little of any value (laptops, really, that's about it). If someone wants to steal a shitload of books they can have at em. What I do find unsettling is that if the door gets kicked in while we're gone, my cat will most likely get out, and if we're out of town, that just won't sit with me.

Living in this city has certainly been an exercise in paranoia. Naturally, the security industry here is sitting pretty. Having an alarm is simply a matter of necessity. I've never thought so much about crime in my life. In Austin, I used to occasionally even leave my doors unlocked and not think twice about it (which, granted, probably wasn't very smart, but nothing ever happened). In Portland, in our first, ground-floor apartment, I always locked the door, but again, didn't think twice about leaving all the blinds open all day long, and sometimes the windows too, if the weather was nice. It's a different mindset, to be sure. Someone mentioned once that Memphis would never attract the educated talent that it wants to this city if it doesn't get its crime under control. There may be some truth to that. It would certainly be a factor for me in deciding whether or not to put down roots here.

I don't get too worked up about crime. I guess I'm just an eternal optimist, or I'm naive, or I'm just in denial, but crime just doesn't freak me out that much. Having 4 houses broken into just on a two block stretch of my street in the last 3 months certainly does give me some pause, however.

Tonight makes me sad. The neighbor across the street is just a nice, quiet, probably mid-30's single lady. Last week she put up a beautiful Christmas tree in her front window that glows radiantly at night. The cops said that was probably why she was targeted. What fucking assholes (the thieves, not the cops). one consolation I take from this is that no one was home at any of the break-ins. That clearly means they don't intend to hurt anyone; they just want their stuff. Still a violation to be sure, but slightly less scary.

Churches

The Church of the Immaculate Conception, at Belvedere and Central.


As I've said many times before, one thing Memphis has going for it is beautiful architecture, a lot of which is in pretty bad shape (which is very captivating in its own way), but much of which has also been lovingly preserved. Some of the most striking and inspiring buildings in the city happen to be churches (at least one good byproduct of being such a Jesus Freaky city).

In my quest to document the extremes of Memphis's built environment (both the blight and the beauty), churches have to have a place. I went out on an absolutely gorgeous fall Sunday this past weekend to photograph an extremely small sampling of what Memphis has to offer. The churches I took pictures of are all in a very small area of Midtown, mostly in Central Gardens and the immediately surrounding streets. All these churches are within a mile and a half of my house, so I get to see them all the time.

Idlewild Presbyterian, corner of Union and Evergreen, my favorite of the bunch. It's also about a block from my office.


Close-up of the Church of the Immaculate Conception


Grace St. Luke's Episcopal at Belvedere and Peabody.


Union Avenue Methodist, Union and Cooper, soon to be demolished to make way for a CVS. I will refrain from editorializing.


The arches at Idlewild Presbyterian


And, as always, more pictures (and more churches) are here!

And About

Inspired by an event in Oak Cliff, Dallas last year, where a young man convinced a bunch of people to come to a decrepit and crumbling block and imagine its possibilities, a friend of mine made a similar thing happen this weekend in Memphis. Broad Avenue, about one block east of where Midtown ends, is a gold mine waiting to happen. Home to a few art galleries, one bar, which happens to be one of my favorites in Memphis, and a couple of restaurants, it's primarily full of empty warehouses that border an ugly industrial area. At night it gets very dark indeed.

A New Face for an Old Broad brought together people from all over the city, including already well-established restaurants and cafes to transform Broad Avenue into a thriving urban street full of retail, galleries, music, cafes, bike lanes, people, and life. At least for a weekend. The idea is to get people to see a mostly abandoned area's potential to support business and encourage street life. Apparently so far it's been very successful. My friend who originally got the ball rolling on this endeavor is already eyeing other strips of crumbling eyesores around Midtown to get the makeover treatment.





Tom with our friends John and Michael. Aren't they cute?

I am loving Memphis right now. The air is so clean and fresh. The temperatures are perfect. The trees are bursting urgently with luminous colors. Everyone is in such a good mood. I also went to the Memphis College of Art's holiday bazaar this morning. Naturally I couldn't afford anything there, but it was super fun to go browse. I did buy one dry-mounted photograph from a series a guy did of an abandoned falling-down theater somewhere in the city. Not sure where it was, but the pictures were beautiful.

After Broad Avenue, I went running with John and Michael on the Memphis Greenline to continue to take advantage of the perfect day. There were so many people out. And I ran 6 miles without stopping!! So far (in my life) my record has been about 4. And it wasn't even that hard. I really like having some running buddies who won't let me quit when I start complaining that my legs are hurting. It felt like an accomplishment, and one that I didn't even set out to do.

Tonight we're going to a birthday party, and tomorrow I'm leaving first thing for Nashville for the Tennessee Counselor's Association annual conference. I'm really looking forward to that!

Memphis Blight pt 2 (Hickory Hill)

My friend Dmitry and I decided today to go out and take some photographs of Memphis. I don't think we necessarily intended to go photograph a bunch of apocalyptic blight, but that's how it turned out. We spent about 2 hours in Hickory Hill, in southeast Memphis.

Hickory Hill has about 65,000 residents and was once its own independent city. In the late 90's it got incorporated into Memphis, and as history has shown over and over in this city, that caused a great deal of white flight, and the neighborhoods, and subsequently the city, went downhill. Its demographics now echo, pretty closely, the rest of Memphis, with the African American population there about 60%. Supposedly it also has the highest Hispanic population of any neighborhood in the city.

Never having been there, it felt pretty solidly middle class and suburban to me. Most of the streets we drove down reminded me of the ranch-style, 1980's-era homes of the neighborhoods in my hometown. Most striking, though, were enormous apartment complexes that had been lost to fire or simple abandonment, often sitting there rotting in the middle of otherwise perfectly benign suburban streets. I've attached some pictures here. Many more can be found at my Flickr site in my Memphis set which I hope to be adding to on a pretty regular basis. With nice stuff too, not just ugly blight.

Habitat For Humanity is building a huge subdivision next door to this acres-wide eyesore.





You see a lot of these on abandoned buildings in Memphis.

Memphis Blight

Memphis has an estimated 8,000 vacant and abandoned properties within the city limits. Most of these are homes (or apartment buildings) that are unsecured, crumbling, have overgrown lots, and naturally, are magnets for crime. These things keep neighborhoods oppressed (what businesses or people are going to move next door to something like the above, in Midtown Memphis?), property values down, and crime high. Blight is a major factor in inhibiting Memphis's growth, including by keeping crime at ridiculous levels.

New Memphis mayor AC Wharton has a plan. For the last year he has been working with Memphis's top attorneys to bring Memphis back as a true city of destination. Memphis loses, on average, 5 people with college degrees every day. One of the first things he did was appoint a Bike Czar, and pledged to build 60 miles of bike lanes all over the city in the next 2 years, many of which have already started appearing around the University of Memphis neighborhoods. He has lobbied for and received millions in federal grant money to boost public transit availability in the inner city, which now pretty much stands at third-world levels. As opposed to focusing on "regionalism" and the erroneous belief that investing in the region makes the inner city grow (when in fact it is just the opposite: investing in the inner city makes the region grow. You can't have healthy suburbs without a healthy city), he is wholly focused on Memphis, and Midtown in particular.

Last week he announced a very ambitious plan to combat blight, by a first-wave rollout of hundreds of lawsuits to property owners who have let their buildings and lots deteriorate. The Memphis Flyer has an excellent article this week on his efforts. Many of those are lobbied against Wells Fargo, which owns hundreds of properties around the city due to foreclosures and has left them completely neglected, as well as not paid thousands and thousands of back taxes on any of them, depriving the city of much-needed (and deserved) tax revenue.

Though it didn't see the kind of price spikes that occurred in cities in the so-called sand states of California, Nevada, Arizona, and Florida, Memphis has been hit hard by the foreclosure crisis. The city has filed suit against Wells Fargo, claiming that the lending giant engaged in predatory practices against African Americans and damaged the city's property-tax income.

The foreclosure crisis, combined with the economic downturn and negligent owners, has led to blighted properties all over the city. In the last 10 years, more than 80,000 foreclosure notices have been served in Memphis, with maybe half of those resulting in actual foreclosures. There are 8,000 vacant properties in the city, as well as 13,000 vacant lots.

In the mostly African-American neighborhood of Frayser, in North Memphis, the foreclosure crisis has hit very hard. Entire city blocks up there have been abandoned and left to rot, and consequently crime has skyrocketed in that part of town. My own landlord is Executive Director of Frayser CDC, which buys foreclosed properties and flips them (my own current rental home is a foreclosed property, though it's in Cooper-Young) is quoted in the article:

Steve Lockwood, executive director of the Frayser CDC, buys foreclosed properties with the hope that he can get to them before they fall into total disrepair.

"We do foreclosure counseling to try to keep people in their houses. We're absolutely adamant about that," Lockwood said. "But once they come up empty, they've got to be dealt with."

And more empty homes means more blight. As the number of foreclosed homes has increased, the Frayser CDC has had to keep pace. According to Lockwood, they've redeveloped as many houses in the past year as they have in the last seven years.

In his quest to move dispossessed families back into homes, Lockwood often struggles to identify the legal owners of property.

"We've just done one really nice house, and there's a comparable house right next to it that is empty and in foreclosure," he said. "But we can't find anybody who claims to be the owner. In the meantime, we've got an abandoned place that is unsecured, and the yard is waist high. We've got a nice little house next door that we've put a lease-purchase person in. It's a problem."

Over the next year, Mayor Wharton plans to serve hundreds more lawsuits to individual owners (many of which live out of state) and to Wells Fargo. Thank god. Having only been in Memphis a short time, so far it has impressed upon me as being a city with a lot of problems, and is often very scary and intimidating. But it's also a city I've already grown to become very fond of, and it seems to have a lot of potential. Midtown Memphis, where I live, is composed almost entirely of historic neighborhoods, with so much beautiful old brick architecture, and homes, and wide, tree-lined boulevards. The people are so nice and accomodating, and if this city could only retain and attract more young people willing to invest in its long-term livability, I really think Memphis could become a world-class city again. I truly believe that. There is enough diversity, culture and history here to make it attractive to all kinds of people. And as of now, at least, the cost of living is astonishingly low (especially after living in Austin and Portland).

I will write more soon on some of the other grass-roots efforts around the city to make it simply a nicer and more progressive place to live and be. I also want to start a little photo-blog to showcase some of Memphis's more beautiful architecture and design, so much of which is mid-century art deco, and old, early century southern architecture. (For more on this, my friend Dmitry, who just moved here from San Francisco, has some interesting posts, also from the perspective of a non-Southerner who'd never even been to the South before. Check out his blog: true grit.)

Not even a mouse

We had only been in bed for about an hour last night when what seemed like an earth-shattering crash made both of us leap out of bed in a flurry of racing hearts and caught breath. We stood in the dark, unsure of what to do. "Hello!" I called, terrified, down the dark hallway into our second bedroom, which has seemed to serve as the locus of our paranoia lately.

The night before, you see, Tom was at school attending a poetry reading and I was home by myself. I discovered that night we have motion censors on both the north and south sides of our house, because they both kept getting turned on. One of them is right outside the window in the second bedroom/office, and the other is right outside our living room windows (which aren't on the front of the house, but the side). I was in our office, on the internet, and noticed the light come on through the blinds. The dogs in the neighborhood were going nuts that night, with constant barking (and there are a lot of dogs in our neighborhood). I didn't think much of it, and eventually it turned itself off. But I hadn't even been aware of its presence until that night, after almost 5 weeks of living here. Probably some random dog walking around, I thought.

A few minutes later I was walking into the kitchen when I noticed another light shining through the blinds of our living room window. I peeked through and saw that we had yet another motion censor on that side of the house, I had also previously never been aware of. This gave me a little bit of a pause, as the dogs were still going nuts all around our house.

Hmmm, I thought to myself, growing a little scared and paranoid. All the blinds in the house were shut, and the doors were locked. I thought about activating the alarm, but didn't. I went back into the office, my skin tingling a bit, and a chill went through me when I saw that the light outside the office had turned itself on again.

Shit. Now what? This boy has seen too many movies. Plus, at the moment we're sharing a car, and Tom had it, so I thought, "What if someone is walking around the house trying to figure out if someone's home?" And lest you think I'm simply paranoid, our neighbors across the street have had their home broken into 3 times in 4 years. Just a couple of weeks ago, the house next door to them had its front door kicked in in broad daylight. Within the past month, 3 other houses within 2 or 3 blocks of us have been broken into. Memphis takes its crime seriously. The dogs were now quieting down.

After several more minutes of hand-wringing, I decided to call the cops. Just, you know, to let someone know I was feeling paranoid, and maybe they could drive through the neighborhood or something. So they ended up sending 2 cars to my house, and they talked to me a bit (which, honestly, made me feel silly, because I hadn't actually seen or heard anything), and they walked all around the house and the backyard. (And I'm pretty sure one of them was Officer Aubrey, but I wasn't sure and it seemed inappropriate to ask. And yes, I sometimes watch that show.)

Obviously they found nothing. But later that night, after I had gone to bed, Tom was still up working and noticed the sensor outside the office turn on yet again. So he left the light on in the office when he came to bed.

So last night, we both crept into the darkness of the living room, huddling together. The kitchen light was on. "Did you leave the kitchen light on?" I asked Tom, as he had come to bed after me. I don't remember his response, but I think he said he did. I called for the cat, but I didn't see her anywhere. One of us reached down and turned on a lamp. Nothing seemed amiss. I walked into the kitchen half expecting there to be a person standing around the corner, having just kicked through our back door. Nothing. And no cat. Door still securely fastened.

So we both crept slowly together toward the back bedroom. I turned on the light. Everything seemed normal.

What the hell was that crash we'd both heard, and that caused us both jump out of our skin from sound sleep?? We were both so confused, and also freaked out.

Then I saw it. I breathed a sigh of relief, and almost started laughing at the absurdity of it. 2 weeks ago (or 3?), I bought a huge, old framed poster of a United States map to hang above the giant empty space of wall above our TV. Well, that had decided after all this time to fall, and simply land, upright, behind the TV and the TV table. We both finally breathed, and found the cat underneath the coffee table. The only other time in my life I'd been that freaked out was when I lived in Dallas and the light fixture in my bathroom fell one night and crashed to the floor while I was sleeping. I was convinced then that someone had broken my back sliding-glass door and was absolutely mortified to walk out into my living room to investigate.

So we both went back to sleep, eventually, after our hearts and nerves calmed down. But even now, in the morning, some of that paranoia still remains. I wonder if this is just how I'll feel the whole time I'm living here. Having your home broken into seems to me just about the most invasive crime that can happen to someone. How can you ever feel safe after that? Frankly, I'd rather be mugged at gunpoint if I had to choose. Let's just hope it never comes to that.

Numbers

To prevent myself from writing a rambling, rage-filled rant about how much I hate America and politicians and never want to vote for anyone ever again, including the "fierce advocate" Obama (a post I have already written and prudently sat on before I "published"), I will instead write a small, personal and congratulatory (to myself) post.

I got a job yesterday! And I have to say it was a little bit serendipitous, but it also came about through some deliberate and assertive networking. Several months ago, upon first learning that we were going to be moving to Memphis, I emailed someone at the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center to see if they might have any recommendations for any places in Memphis that provide mental health services and were either GLBT friendly, or even specialized in GLBT issues. The man who responded was very nice and forwarded my email to probably 50 people in Memphis, several of whom wrote back to me. One of them was this guy, who wanted to know a little bit more about what I was looking for.

Long story short, we met up after I moved here and had a brief networking interview (well, about 45 minutes), where he got a little more information and said he had a few ideas of how he might be able to help me. Eventually he got back to me and asked me if I'd be willing to come back and meet the other 2 therapists that work there. I agreed, and they offered me a job.

It was a position that they had sort of been thinking about creating for a couple of years but hadn't really bothered. And then they met me and decided it would be "their loss" if they did not utilize me in some way. So I'm coming in preliminarily as an office manager of sorts, but they plan to begin training me in their modalities, and eventually I will get to start co-leading therapy groups and helping to co-facilitate their "intensives," which you can read all about here. I think this will be a very good fit for me. It seems the guy was really looking for someone to mentor, which is great, because I love to be mentored! He also just joined (I can't remember the exact name) the board of the Tennessee Strategic Planning Association for GLBT issues, or something like that. Basically a statewide mental health advocacy association for homos. They're having a big conference in November in Nashville he already said he wants to take me to. Which is super exciting!

So, you see kids, networking can really pay off. I guess especially in a city like Memphis that doesn't get a lot of young, educated people moving in. Mostly moving out. But I think this can be the start of a great relationship and a fantastic opportunity. I start tomorrow!

And speaking of relationships, Tom and I got engaged over the weekend! Also, I've been obsessed with this song for weeks now:

There's a calm before the storm

Tomorrow I have a "networking interview" at this place. Last week I had one here, and a job might actually come out of that one. The guy keeps being sort of cryptic about it, but promises to have me back for an official interview in the next few days. Tom sometimes marvels at my ability to cold-call places and ask if I can come in for an interview. It's sort of astonishing, if you actually have the credentials (even though I don't, really) how many places will invite you to come on over. As long as you act like you do, no one really knows the difference, and once you're in the door you can wow them with your smile.

In school they tell us over and over that networking is the key to employment. That was always what people said about the entertainment industry too, except then I felt like "networking" half the time was a code-word for giving someone a blowjob. I'm not really so jaded, but it's certainly a different experience. I also had a real interview on Friday at this place. My second with that company. In the first one, I told the lady I didn't want the job before the interview was even over. Not my bag, counseling gang-bangers, and kids awaiting trial for homicide, rape, and severe physical assault. No thanks. I am very gifted at some things when it comes to counseling, but probably not so much that. The latest interview was to be a counselor to foster kids and their foster parents, which I think is much more my smile. I think that interview went well. I also think, if I may be so bold, that it speaks to my inherent employability at some level if I can forthrightly say in one interview that I don't want the job and then she can recommend me for something else. One thing about the mental healthcare industry is that honesty is certainly valued. And self-awareness.

I also think it's just Memphis. People here are nice. And, I think, sort of desperate for out-of-town blood. In Portland (or even Austin, probably, for that matter) calling strangers out of the blue and asking for 30 minutes of their time would make people think I was creepy and desperate. Or just annoying. I've already made more friends in the 3 weeks I've lived in Memphis than in the 2 years I lived in Portland. That place is already starting to feel like somewhat of a distant memory. Whenever I tell people here where I moved from I get 1 of 2 reactions: a hearty welcome and some warning about the crime but that it's a great city; or a suspicious eyebrow raise and a "Why the hell did you move here?"

Today I went jogging in the old growth forest part of Overton Park, which was lovely, except I almost stepped on a large(ish) snake and subsequently almost had a heart attack. I'm glad no one was around to see me hyperventilating while I waved my hands up and down, muttering "Ohmygod, ohmygod" over and over.

Pretty soon I'm going to start taking some pics of my neighborhood and neat things in the city to post. And our house. That we love.

Also, for some reason (well, I know the reason, but it's complicated) I've been obsessed with this song for, like, a week now.

Dirty South

My first impressions of Memphis were driving over the Mississippi river from Arkansas into downtown at dusk. I'd heard tales of the blight of Memphis, and the rampant poverty, but I'm not sure I was quite prepared for what I actually saw when I arrived. Blocks upon blocks of crumbling or boarded up buildings; sheds that were actually liquor stores with bars on all the windows and doors; homes with the ceilings or porches caving in, but people clearly still living in them; roaming packs of dogs; burned out cars; and empty, desolate fields and lots, some of them full of garbage. I won't lie: my heart sank, and I nearly panicked at what I had got myself into.



As we drove on, and neighborhoods began to look only marginally better, we got stopped by a train trying to get over the track that runs only 3 houses down from our house. As we waited, and waited, and waited (at one point, the train simply stopped and sat there for awhile), 3 teenage boys were running down the street with 2 unleashed pit bulls. If I'd had a paper bag at that point, I would have started breathing into it.

Eventually, however, we made it to our new home, where our landlord was waiting for us ( and he is SO nice). The house is beautiful (pictures to follow), and I really like our neighborhood, but yeah, Memphis is a change. It's a city that is hemorraghing population, the cost of living is dirt cheap (our relatively large house is putting us back $700 a month; in Austin, our house would be no less than $1,200, or probably more), and at least according to Wikipedia, it's the most dangerous city in America. The dog at the house next door to us either spends all day on a 3-foot long chain, or simply runs around unchained, and likes to come up on our porch and try to follow us into the house. A house across the street has 2 pit bull puppies that also sometimes run around. Last week, apparently, 2 unleashed pit bulls attacked an old man somewhere in the city and he died.

Awesome.

Grocery shopping here has also been a bit of a challenge, or "uninspiring," according to a friend of mine here (yes, I've already made a new friend). But we're managing, and adjusting to any new place requires flexibility and a change in routine. I'll get by. It's a city I'm really looking forward to exploring culturally (with the rich music history, and the wealth of civil rights history, there's a lot going on in that regard) and socially. Honestly, at this point, my biggest complaint is the sprawl and how you have to drive 10 minutes to get anywhere. I guess I got really spoiled in Portland, because Austin is that way too, and while I didn't like it there (but expected it, and didn't really know much better), it's making me crazy, and kind of depressed, here in Memphis. Another adjustment, I suppose.

I assume I'll be blogging a bit more regularly here, since in Portland I just never felt inspired to blog. Here, I anticipate feeling more inspired. Already good things are happening, which I will also write about. I think, once I get past the shock of actually living in an impoverished southern city of extremely dubious distinction, I'll settle in and start making it my own. A lot of people love living here. Hopefully soon enough I'll understand why. And since we have a guest bedroom now, maybe lots and lots of people will come visit! Memphis has its own special kind of beauty, much like the rusty, dilapidated industry of the Pacific Northwest, which I think is beautiful.