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The hubby and I spent yesterday afternoon in Winston-Salem. I’ve always liked it there, and I’d argue that it may well be the most attractive city in North Carolina. It has a denser urban feel than many similar or larger cities in the area, most likely because until the 1920s, it was the biggest city in the state.

As I’ve opined many times before, the size of any given city in the 1920s is perhaps the most accurate single predictor of how “urban” we perceive that city to be today. It seems the form and density of 1920s development is what defines urbanism to many of us, if only from an aesthetic perspective. A city can have earlier or later development too, but without a fairly high proportion of semi-dense early twentieth-century residential and commercial areas, it just seems quaint and precious like Charleston or a little sanitized and bland like Charlotte and Phoenix…

Winston-Salem is our own little slice of Pittsburgh, not just gritty and industrial at its heart, but also built on numerous hills and more than a little run-down. Yet there are still beautiful and stable inner-city areas which are amazingly inexpensive compared to their counterparts in Charlotte or Raleigh or even Greensboro.

Yes, Winston-Salem is a really nice place…

We tried to have breakfast at two different Waffle Houses. The crowd scared us at the first, and the fact that no one would wait on us drove us away from the second. So we moved on to lunch at what is apparently one of the last remaining S&S Cafeterias. We had our Hoppin’ John and our collard greens and our assorted pork products, thus assuring a happy and prosperous New Year.

Finally it was time to walk around downtown. We limited ourselves to Meeting and King Streets, and the verdict was that either is much better north of Calhoun, which is where the hipster shopping mall zone ends, or south of Broad, where it becomes largely residential. All in all, the New Year’s Day crowds were much less infested with hipster clones, although a few could still be found roaming around in ugly shoes and brand new sweatsuit jackets which had been “aged” using godonlyknows what chemicals.

Downtown Charleston, like downtown Savannah, illustrates the history of a city which was initially one of the largest in the southeast, but which had become rather irrelevant by the 1920s. The extremely long, but low-rise main street indicates that Charleston’s day had come and gone long before that early twentieth century period that screams “urban” to most people today. Thus, it seems very small and quaint even though it was clearly once regarded as a very big city.

After covering the commercial strip, one very nice boneyard, a bit of residential, and the Battery, it was time to stop by the Harris-Teeter (simply because it was there) and drive home to Charlotte.

After waiting several hours for Office Max to deliver something several DAYS late, we finally left Charlotte about 1:00. We made it to Rock Hill, about 25 miles south, before realizing that we’d have to go back because someone (who shall remain nameless because this is his website and he has that privilege) had left his wallet on the kitchen counter.

The brief showers that had been predicted for the Carolinas had become thunderstorms and a tornado watch by the time we cleared Columbia, so the drive was extra fun. We arrived in Savannah just in time to be the last customers of the day at the suckiest Piccadilly Cafeteria in the world. We drove around a bit and opted for sleep, knowing Thursday would be better.

Good morning, Midnight. It’s Christmas:

My boyfriend said, “It’s really sweet the way you go for Christmas cheer.”

I said, “We can’t afford the tree.”

He said, “Love is free.”

So we trimmed the cactus with my earrings that we’d meant to pawn.

I’d almost forgotten that it was time for my annual posting of the official Otherstream Christmas anthem…

I bought my first computer ten years ago today. It was a Mac (what other kind is there?) and it came with a 100MHz processor, a whopping 16MB of RAM (which I later updated to the maximum of 64MB) and a massive 1GB hard drive. With a 15″ monitor, I think it cost about three thousand bucks…

A month later, Planet SOMA made its debut. But more about that anniversary later…