Grits.

Last night, I went out, in my fabulous shoes, for a late date with YogaGirl and her BF. Let's call him BrassBoy.

We're at the pub, and I'm enjoying a Black & Tan with Dead Man Ale as the Tan. We're playing darts. An especially drunken woman who's randomly infusing her sentences with "subjective objective" in meaningless combinations is sitting at the table, regaling YogaGirl with something about the difference between "nurturing" and "nutrients," denying my assertion that they share the same root word -- as well as insisting "sustaining" and "sustenance" have nothing in common, either.

It's in this atmosphere that BrassBoy and I are having a little discussion about mental illness, and I am finding myself in the rare position of being the DSM's defender. It's like an episode of The Twilight Zone.

Then, as YogaGirl gets up to shoot her round of darts, the conversation takes an unexpected diversion.

"You know," BrassBoy says, leaning toward me as if to speak in confidence, "you're the first person from the South that YogaGirl has ever known. Me too, actually, but I mean, it's kind of a big deal for her, an issue she's been dealing with."

I'm sorry, I say over the music and through a cloud of cigarette and incense smoke. Did you say YogaGirl has an *issue* with me being a Southerner?

"Oh, not with *you,*" he says. "Just with people from the South. You know...."

I was tempted to be snide and say, No, I do *not* know. What do you mean?

Instead, I replied tongue-in-cheek, Well, y'all have some pretty thick accents, ya know. You sound like yankees to me, and that has taken some adjusting on my part, too.

But the truth is, my friends, that even if I do not know specifically what he meant, I can easily make some assumptions. I lost my accent -- in my opinion, it's pretty well gone -- a good long while ago, so people don't necessarily peg me as a Southerner. That has resulted in two things: People tend to make all sorts of derogatory comments about Southerners in my presence that I suspect they would not make if they knew I was of that kin; and, second, my personal relationships typically have not been tainted by people's presumptions about those of us who hail from the fair land of Dixie.

Because I have some personal problems with the political climate in the South, I suspect most of my friends don't know just how proud I am to be a Southerner. They may know I have some scars -- especially related to the KKK -- from the inner turmoil I experienced in coming out as a lesbian, but they may not now how much I value the interpersonal relations, the hospitality, the caring about other people's business.

Some of you from other regions might say the latter is just a bit of beig nosey. But The Debutante, who's from Tennessee, knows what I mean. Southerners mind other people's business not just because they enjoy gossiping, it's because they GIVE A SHIT. They (we) are exceptionally community-minded, very welcoming to others.

Now, granted, that kind of inclusive attitude begets its own problem: They (we) generally prefer people who are like we are, and those who kind of stick out, who refuse to conform, are frowned upon. The assumption is made that such people don't want to belong and may actually be wanting to disturb the social order.

On that point, I couldn't disagree more. I am, in the South, just that kind of outsider. I'm queer, you know. I'm a girl who likes ... girls. And not just for shopping. I like to fuck them. This is a bit too disturbing for many of my Southern sisters and brothers. (But not all of them.) So I pretty much had to move away to feel like it was OK for me to be myself and to feel more secure in living openly as the girl-fucking girl that I am.

But it doesn't stop me from being a Southerner. Nor does 12 years on the West Coast. If I hear "Dixie" start playing, I'm apt to tear up. Heaven help me if I'm expected to sing, "Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton...."

'Cause to tell you the truth, it's one of those secret heart-breaking things that I will never move back there. I miss the crickets and the cicadas, the thunderstorms, the genteel accents, the down-home food (the barbecue, the boudin, the jambalaya, the grits in every breakfast joint). I miss the music and the mint julips and the rocking chairs on big front porches and the spanish moss.

Sometimes, I even miss the humidity (but not often). When The Deb said last week that the heat in the South envelopes you like a hug, I knew what she meant. I felt it all over again. I had a sudden vision, a viseral and real memory from when I was about 21 or 22. I'm lying in a sleigh bed at my aunt and uncle's place outside of New Orleans -- the bed that prompted me to buy the beauty I have -- and the windows are wide open, the ceiling fan is making a futile attempt at cooling the evening, the lace curtains are billowing into the room on a warm breeze, and I can hear the sound of the wind in the Live Oaks, the cars driving across the drawbridge that crosses the swampy Tchefuncte River nearby and the sound of zydeco wafting on the air from the bar a few blocks away. And in that memory, I feel the hug The Deb was talking about. I feel the South, enveloping me.

It is a culture, a place, a people -- distinct as any other -- but it's the one that formed me most profoundly, left its indelible, indignant, gonna-rise-again, rebel imprint on me.

So I was curious to hear BrassBoy talk about my Southerness as an "issue."

Later, in between a round of darts, I asked YogaGirl, Am I really the first Southerner you've known? Because, more than her "issues," -- which are probably well-deserved -- I was having a hard time believing I was the first. Was I really popping someone's Southern cherry? I couldn't believe it.

"Well, yeah," she said. "I mean, I've known of people from the South before, but I've never *known* known one. You're the first."

I know better than to think I can undo 30 years of inculturation that has taught YogaGirl, who's from Chicago or somewhere around those parts, to fear Southerners as unpredictable, violent bigots. I haven't been unable to undo those feelings for myself -- and I know considerably better than YogaGirl just what Southerners can be like.

But I would hope, just a little, that all my friends on the West Coast -- not just YogaGirl, but any of them -- will come to appreciate the complexity of the Southern character from the likes me and The Deb. Getting into your business is the least of our charms, I can assure you.

Have you tried my grits?