Overachiever

I've really been wanting to work on art more lately, but my job, wife, and kids keep wasting all my damn time! Hopefully everything will calm down soon and I'll be able to post some art for sale.
Unlike most people here, I was born and raised in Atlanta (well, technically, Roswell-which is about 15 minutes north), and this has been my home much of my life.
Atlanta-the only major city in the deep South-is a very strange place, which I have a love/hate/hate/love/hatelove relationship with-all in the span of about 22 seconds while driving down Ponce de Leon or any other major thoroughfare.

By the way-Florida is not the south, Florida is Florida. I'm trying to think of a fancier, more literary-sounding description, but that about sums it up. If you've ever been there you know what I mean.

So, being a relatively big, metropolitan area we have many of the things you would expect-art museums, music venues, the symphony, the Dixie Speedway-you know, culture.
But, somehow, Atlanta-try as it might-strives tirelessly for the "New York of the South" title, but falls painfully, often embarrassingly, short almost every time.
Case in point-two years ago the city spent something like 6.5 billion dollars on an advertising campaign to sell us to the world as a great city to visit.
The slogan they came up with?
"Every day is an Opening Day."
Need I say more? Can you imagine a more awkwardly worded phrase? What the fuck does that even mean?
My only real regret is that I couldn't have gotten all that money and come up with a more appropriate slogan like, "Hey we kinda' try. But this IS the South. What do you expect?".

And yet, I do love this city. The small communities scattered around downtown-Inman Park, Grant Park, Lake Claire, Decatur, and our own little hood-Oakhurst-are beautiful and seem worlds away from the city that is a mere 10 minute drive from my house. I mean, we've got possums on our back porch and huge owls that we hear every night-and I can see downtown from my roof!
As far as natural beauty, we don't have the majestic mountain views of Tucson or the ocean like L.A., but you'll be hard pressed to find a greener, more tree filled major metropolis anywhere in America. And the weather is beautiful for most of the year-the winters are mild, and the spring and fall are nothing short of magical. Nothing beats sitting out in someones backyard for a Memorial Day barbecue, surrounded by huge, 100 year old trees, the easy-flowing conversation and the cool spring breeze drifting by, lulling you into a sense of calm and momentary all-is-right-in-the-world bliss.
Yes, we manage to fall a bit short in the "progressive" department most of the time, but that is changing too. And as thousands of people from "up north" move here and stay every year, whenever they complain I keep repeating, like a mantra, "If you don't like it Yankee, go back to Michigan and try to find a job.".

And then I remind them, just to rub it in, of the popular bumper sticker which reads-"The Civil War ain't over-its just half-time.".
Lord help us all.