Slacker? I Hardly Know her!

No!!! I swear I haven't been slacking! It's just the opposite. I have been writing that column online for Jacksonville.com!!!
I wrote my first column last night using a post from here. Of course, I had to make it a little more "public friendly." Then I laid awake until 3 AM -- my mind buzzing with dozens of topics. I have the next ten columns already lined up in my brain. I feel great that I'm conquering one of my biggest fears about writing: lack of inspiration.
I was always scared that I would have a job where I had to come up with a topic and I would either come up with nothing or the things I would come up with wouldn't be interesting enough. The latter may still be an issue, we'll see!?

Elsewhere in life, I am dreading the next couple of weeks. I have really struggled since moving to Florida and it's about to get more difficult.
This part of Florida is unlike anyplace I've ever lived. It is not at all comparable to Miami or Ft. Lauderdale or even Sarasota. I live in Northeast Florida, near the Georgia state line. This, my friends, is the DEEP SOUTH. An interesting slice of America where people are actually proud to be called "Redneck." We are near the Christian Bible Belt and knee deep in Conservative Right Wing Republicans. Not exactly my utopia.
I came here from Washington, DC about ten months ago and have been battling homesickness. It hasn't just been the usual feelings that this move was forced on me by a job change or the sentimentality of missing my friends and the familiar. It has also been the realization that I am much more of a metropolitan "city girl" than even I knew myself to be.
I don't need to live on a busy city block with sirens screaming all night long, but I do need to be surrounded by people with the mental agility to spar with me. At the very least, I need a friend with whom I have something in common.
The one thing that made this place bearable over the last few months was my friendship with a co-worker named Lauren. We had a bond I didn't expect to find so soon. Lauren and I are both single Jewish women in our thirties, unhappy with our current situations. Neither of us is thrilled with our jobs, the men we meet or the city in which we live. We'd often talked about escape but she made good on it before I could. On November 21st, Lauren will move back home to Boca Raton to live with her parents and figure out what to do next.
Lauren was one of those people with whom you feel comfortable almost immediately. She was a true girlfriend in every sense of the word. Someone I could call crying about my latest dating disaster and on whom I could rely to attend High Holiday Services with me at a strange synagogue. (And I do mean strange)
I doubt we will ever live near one another again because I fully intend to move back up north at the first opportunity. However, I will always remember Lauren and be forever in her debt for making my first few months here a lot better. And Lauren, you should feel very good as you have carried out a very important mitzvah. Good Luck!