animated marginalia

We stared at a large, cozily-lit and crazily-gardened home nestled on the slope to our right. Somehow, it looked like it belonged atop Lookout, not on the St. Elmo ridge. Then we saw the row of Volvo's, one with a European license plate, and we echoed each other's assertions that this was, undoubtedly, a Pettit house.

We kept walking, curious about this displaced Lookout Mountain community we had stumbled upon. The streetlights were all lit now, but we couldn't see the city lights or the stars for all the tall straight trees that flanked the road. Seneca bent around at the edge of the ridge and blended into Westridge Road. Now the trees shot up from our left, still blocking the view of the city, and beautiful homes with sprawling decks and terraced yards sat above us on the right. "If this takes us down onto the other side of the ridge," I threatened Noel, "we're calling someone to come pick us up."

But a gigantic "Do Not Enter" street sign suddenly sprang up, flanked by two other reflector-laden signs, blocking a crumbling road that continued along the ridge. East Avenue helpfully connected to Westridge, and we swung back around, ending back on Seneca, at the house with the row of Volvo's. Still shaking our heads in disbelief over this hidden enclave up on the ridge, we burst back onto Tennessee and the St. Elmo we knew.

Apparetly, however, whatever spell had forged that looking-glass neighborhood clung to us, continuing to disrupt our assumed reality. On the walk back to Alabama Avenue, a packet of barbecue dipping sauce from a fast food restaurant rocketed at me from the window of a passing car, we found black and bedraggled toupee on the side of the road, a huge, rusty car spring bounced cheerfully on the sidewalk in front of us, and, as we crossed over St. Elmo, a biker sped past, nodding his head in time to the thumping bass of the rap music emitting from the full-sized speaker strapped to the back of his bicycle.

"'It seems very pretty,' [Alice] said when she had finished it, 'but it's rather hard to understand.' (You see she didn't like to confess, even to herself, that she couldn't make it out at all.)"

-- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

not sure how I feel 'bout you comparing Stelmo to LKTMTN

I don't know how I feel about it either, so I'm glad that those experiences on the walk home reemphasized the fact that we were, indeed, in stelmo. I don't think people ride around on bikes-with-sound-systems on the mountain.

true dat, if we ever get around to making the Zombies in St. Elmo game, we'll have some level where you're crusing on a boomtrike, or Zombies riding boomtrikes attack you. should be awesome.