Or, more specifically, stuck inside the Holiday Inn off Govt. Blvd.in my old hometown, which feels nothing like home. It’s the same feeling I had when I lived here, a sort of disconnect. On the airplane here I began reading a wonderful book by Katherine Clark called Milking the Moon, about Mobilian and man of the world Eugene Walter. Though he lived in Paris and Rome for decades, he said he always knew Mobile was home.

Maybe, when I decided to travel down here for my 20 year high school reunion, it was in the hopes of reclaiming Mobile as home. Maybe I thought I could learn to love it in a way I never did when I was here.

Walter said the Baptists ruined Mobile, moved in with their boxy churches and tiny steeples and closed up the bordellos.Perhaps the reason I never had a love affair with this town is the fact that my experience of it, growing up, was primarily a Baptist experience: tiny steeples, no sweaty sex under an azalea bush.

Today I’ll visit my old school, Murphy, and see if it elicits any nostalgia. And I’ll be meeting Clark, whose book opened up for me the idea of an entirely different Mobile, one I wish I’d known.

Keeping this short, as I’m writing key by key on my blackberry. Full report upon my return home to San Fran.