Cityscapes.

Incidentally, I cannot BELIEVE that I'm finally going to London. I'm really, really excited, yet I have no real plans.

My friend Black, who used to live in London, was telling tonight about all these places to visit, and I now have a list. But, at the same time, I'm just trying to figure out what I want to do when I'm there - or if I just want to walk around and experience what it's like in its day-to-day. You know, I want to see what the people do, the ones who take the sites for granted and instead just consider London a place to live. I want to see how I would do among them, as well, to see if I would fit in or stand out.

When I visited New York a couple years ago, I went out everyday with one question posed to myself and to the city. "Could I live here?" I think I may spend some time in London just wondering the same thing. That way, you spend your time not as a tourist but as someone exploring a real possibility, a potential change or a new life. Because London is fascinating in a different way, I imagine, to the people who live there.

I thought about this first when my cousin Shannon, who lives in New York, told me that she'd never been to Liberty Island. Because, considering herself a native, Liberty Island wasn't for her. It was for the tourists.

Consider your own city and how you think of it. Think of the places that you take your guests when they're in town. Why is that the only time you visit them? What do you, apart from the sites, love about where you are? What do you find most comfortable about the place you call home or consider your temporary home? What makes it special to you?

There are sites in Atlanta that I never go to unless a friend is visiting from out-of-town. I've not been to the Laser Show at Stone Mountain since high school and see no real reason, aside from the kitsch factor, to ever see it again in my life. I last visited Zoo Atlanta when I was, I don't know, 12, even though I drive by it maybe once a month. The World of Coca-Cola is fun for a gigantic, obvious, caffeinated sales pitch, but only if you're really, really, really thirsty. CNN Center, to me, became a whole lot less intriguing when I worked there everyday and walked through the newsrooms you see behind the anchor desks on TV, yet packed tour groups adore it. I say every year that I'm going to go to the High Museum more often, but I'm amazed if I make it once a year.

But Atlanta, to me, is about getting a small bottle of Mayfield Chocolate Milk and some fresh glazed at the 24-hour Krispy Kreme at Ponce and Argonne. It's that night during the holidays I spent walking with Michael Edmondson through Centennial Olympic Park, looking at the lights and the manufactured ice-skating rink. It's riding MARTA through Five Points Station, getting out and looking around Underground, no matter how bad or how musty it smells. It's the Mall of Georgia where I work, which I find comforting and almost quaint in spite of the fact that it's gigantic and ridiculous. It's about the moments when I feel just crazy enough to run under the mall's giant water fountain - even though I'll get soaked and even though it's for the kids. The city is about the day that I spent walking through downtown with nowhere to go after I finished the GRE, having lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe and at the Brooks Brothers store just to browse. I feel the city most when I'm carrying a basket of laundry out of Larry's condo at night, looking up at the glowing tower of the Bank of America building and thinking that it's sorta beautiful.

I once rode from Georgia to Chicago with my father in a rental car. I was 12. We turned the car in at an office on Michigan Avenue and walked back to his apartment on State Street. We walked over the bridge on the Chicago River, and my father pointed out to me the apartment building from "The Bob Newhart Show." He showed me the Harry Caray restaurant called "Cowabunga." We walked past brownstones, and he told me where the first Playboy mansion was. At the same time, I looked at the people walking past me and saw how they behaved. I saw a Walgreen's on every corner. I figured out what my dad's video store probably was. My father taught me how he used the subway everyday. He told me that we were going to exercise every night by walking along the coast of Lake Michigan, and we did during that month. One night, we walked the length of Rush Street, returning only when it got really dark and the city skyline was filled with lights.

He took me to Wrigley Field a couple times before they put the lights into it, just for something fun to do during the day. He would look over at the people who lived in apartments next to the field, the ones with deck chairs on the roofs so that they could watch the game. He told me they were lucky. At the game, he taught me that it was traditional to "throw back" a home run ball hit by the visiting team. It's a rule that the regulars know - not the tourists. My dad taught me how to behave when Harry Caray himself sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh inning stretch. I felt more "in the know" at Wrigley than I ever did at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, and that's probably why I'm still a closet Cubs fan when they play. I feel like I know the hometown rules.

So I suppose I want to see Westminster Abbey. I suppose that I'll think that London Bridge is awesome. My friend recommends the Tower of London. Harrod's, of course. And the British Museum. And Big Ben. The House of Lords. The House of Commons. And the changing of the guard. And I suppose I want to see Buckingham Palace. And the Millennium Wheel is supposed to provide an excellent view of everything. And I want to see the park that was in Antonioni's "Blow Up," if I can find it.

But I want to see, as well, how Miss Gibson gets to work, who she walks past, how they behave. Black told me about a church that he attended for a couple years, and I want to see it. I want to see people shopping. I want to pay attention to how much ice they put in my drinks, as Welsh Guy did when he came to visit me in Athens.

I want to feel the city as much as see it. And the way to do that is to ask, "Could I live here?"