Journal 2025-05-08

Howdy, from Stitch Cafe here in Oklahoma City, OK. OKC is a pretty cool little place — it’s kinda like what I imagine Birmingham could have been like, in an alternate universe. It’s basically the same size as Birmingham, but a lot of things generally seem nicer. It’s like, on the surface a lot of it is the same. Substitute Railroad Park with Scissortail Park, the Barons with the Thunder, and you generally get a lot of the same shit, civil rights history with Southwest cowboy history, and bada-bing bada-boom you got yourself the whole new city. But in general, there seems to be a lot more diversity here, which means a broader array of food. Generally things seem less run-down. Notably, the population of downtown OKC is probably triple that of BHM, but the overall metro population is about the same. That probably has a lot to do with it. A slightly more centralized culture, something closer to an actual city.

Honestly I’m not here long enough to be able to speak concretely about the history of all of that. I don’t know what developmental factors went into OKC’s history, if it ever had a darker period akin to the white-flight/civil rights era of Birmingham, which ultimately I think has a lot to do with how Birmingham is sliced up into fairly distinct cultural areas. But I can call it as I see it.

What else is going on, I don’t know. I’m sorta just killing time here this morning, writing a little bit and then probably will hit a museum or two in the afternoon. I should probably go through my voice memos, there’s a lot in there.

Anyways, I’m not at the public library. I don’t think I’ll stay long — for better or worse, the public library in many cities is a generally a place for folks of all kinds to come and hang out, which generally means it’s mostly homeless folks. They should be able to be here — they’re citizens too! — but I’ll concede that the guy with two trash bags taking a nap isn’t exactly utilizing the libraries resources, nor is the person who’s playing online slots on the library computers. But a policy to differentiate