Elizabeth Ashley Clayborne

I'm from Memphis (I do not, however, like barbeque. This is a gross overgeneralization of Memphian culture. On that sidenote, if you aren't from here and you want BBQ, do NOT go to the restaurant Rendezvous. The hype is empty, my friend). If you know anything about Memphis, you know it's one of the South's cultural melting pots. One of my favorite local bands, Dead Soldiers, is a gloriously confusing mix of bluegrass, rock, jazz, and soul. A girl I used to know is pretty well-known in the thriving underground comedy scene here. Memphis is like the love child of Chicago, Illinois and Bald Knob, Arkansas. Midtown is completely hip and never sleeps; there are also horses in the pasture next door to the high school I went to. It works for us.

Like my city, I'm the love child of two different cultures. Ethnically, I'm equal parts white and black. My fingers are 10,000 kinds of sticky from how many cookie jars I have them in. I like philosophy and psychology and Russian literature and eating and French and hip hop and eating and jazz and writing and drawing and cooking and... did I already say eating? Well, it bears repeating: I love food, and also eating it. Given my varied interests, my community, my ethnicity, and my rockstar of a mother, I flatter myself that I'm culturally ambiguous.

Hopefully, I'm right. That would be nice for me. For you guys, let's just hope that I'm weird enough and interesting enough and woke enough to entertain and maybe, just maybe, share some valuable lessons I've learned. As for me, I know that, in sharing my unique (ok, let's just call it like it is: "weird") views on the world, I'll learn more from the people that I connect with along the way than I'm bargaining for even now. Which is the goal, always.

So yay! I'm excited.

Life, my friend, is exciting.

And so is eating.