A mi me gusta la gasolina.......

Tejas - What was supposed to be 4 days in 4 different cities ended up being 2 days in 2 cities: Austin & Houston.

Austin
I arrived at the rental car booth at the airport and was told by my agent that they had run out of their GPS navigation systems. "Oh no, I've got a New Yorker and I don't have a GPS. She's going to cuss me out now." (I love that Southerners use words like 'silly' and 'cuss'.) He then asked me where I wanted to go eat lunch, and when I asked him for advice, he recommended Chuy's, because that's where Jenna Bush got caught under age drinking. Not exactly a drawing incentive for me, but what the hey. So I went there and had pretty bad Tex-Mex. Well, I shouldn't say that. It maybe was good Tex-Mex, but I wouldn't know since I can't stand Tex-Mex. But I'm in Tejas for the first time, so I need to try it. Tried it. Done. Can move on now.

The place was KITSCHYYYYYYY. I learned that Texans like to just plaster their walls with all kinds of nick nacks (like Hawaiin hula dancing dolls), bumper stickers, lights and all kinds of weird shit. The bartender was a sweet and patient doll. He scanned the menu with me for 5 minutes while I asked the dumbest, most basic questions like "so what's the difference between a burrito & an enchilada?" People, you have to understand. When someone asks me what I want to have for dinner, my response is always always always "Anything but Mexican and Indian." I've never even had Taco Bell.

The people in Austin were SOOOOO sweet. And by people, I mean men. Of course, I did stick out like a drag queen at the Vatican. Me, with the big, dark sunglasses and the black top and the grey wool suit, sashaying down 6th and 4th streets, peering into wicked-looking live band bars. The city has a very goth-meets-Jimmy-Buffet feel to it and I wish to God I could've spent an evening there. Oh well. Next time.

Houston, on the other hand, was kitsch in a completely different way. As I was driving down 45 and the 8 Beltway from IAH airport, I found myself horrified by the flashiness of the sad sad sad strip mall & franchise development lining the highway. It was one brightly-lit car sales lot after another. One chain food restaurant after another. One gas station after another. And the driving. Can someone please explain to me what Texans have against placing sings on streets? Leaving the airport, I followed the signs for 45, until I reached a significant cross-section of streets & noticed that the signs suddenly disappeared. So I found myself driving down 59, passing by a caballero on his horse, trotting down the middle of the flippin' road! I doubled back into the airport (which is as expansive as a European city, mind you), and found myself driving down the same route. I thought maybe I had missed the signs for 45 at the cross-section, signs that would naturally point you left or right to get onto the highway. But no. I was on 59 again, waving hola to the caballero. I stopped at a gas station to ask where the hell 45 was and learned that I was supposed to turn right onto 8 West at that cross section, which would lead me to 45. Really? And how in the hell was I supposed to divine that?

I had dinner with a friend in Houston; a lady I haven't seen in 5 years. I met her at what she called a 'quaint' little Italian restaurant. When I heard 'quaint little Italian restaurant' I envisioned an adorable little trattoria tucked away in the hills of Tuscany, serving bold house wines on tiny little wooden tables covered in white linen, parma hams hanging from the ceiling. Instead, I pulled up into a wooden cabin that resembled an 1800s saloon, featuring branding tools, horse shoes, and all kinds of 'good ole West' paraphernalia. It was highly comical. The Mexican waitress serving atrocious Italian pasta in a Western Frontier throwback.

I'd definitely go back to Texas. There's so much to explore - and I'd love to hit up Austin again. Spend a couple of days. Witness the nightlife. The people in both cities were genuinely nice. It's always so refreshing to come across people who smile and thank you and exchange pleasantries.

Exercising the noodle

Tonight I went to a game night that was like a spelling bee, but a vocabulary bee.

You know, I used to believe that, even though English wasn't my first language, I was pretty gifted at spelling and in vocabulary. But what I thought was talent, judging by the A grades I got in English class, was proven to be of mere average intelligence when faced with the vocabulary section of my GRE prep (back when I thought I wanted to pursue a Masters degree). Tonight, I seemed to have forgotten about this less than Mensa level of intelligence when I thought, mistakenly, that I would ace most of the vocabulary words. I think I knew about 5 of the 50 or so words that were thrown out there. I tend to suffer from forgetfulness. What do I mean by that? I mean that I could read a fascinating article that I try to relay to someone 5 minutes later, only I stumble over my words, pause frequently and end up just throwing the article at them so that they can read it directly. Otherwise my egregious attempt at narration comes out something like this: "I just read this incredible article about, uh, about... oh yeah, so so there was this guy. Ummm... I can't remember what his trade was, but it was something really important. And he lived back in the 1800s or something, during the fall of the Roman Empire, I think. Or was that earlier? Anyway, so he made this really important discovery and, well, I don't know exactly what the object did or how it did it but, you know, you should probably just read it yourself because I'm not doing it justice." So in the case of tonight, I'd hear a word and go "Oh I know that word. I've seen it or heard it a dozen times. What's it mean? Shoot!"

Like I said, average intelligence. But I put on a good act because one of the adjectives that most people use to describe me is "intelligent".

I recently started working on crossword puzzles. I can't even begin to explain to you how much these things horrified me in the past. I'm just not good at games. Scrabble, checkers, monopoly. I'm not a strategizer. Hell, I can't tell you how many people have tried to teach me backgammon, but it's pointless. I just don't get it. Anyway, the crossword puzzles would scare me because I would SUCK at them. I still do, but now I'm allowing myself to cheat a little bit. You know, fill in a few of the words from the 'Answers' page just so I can build the words around them. I don't judge myself any more for it. I need to do everything I can to ward off Alzheimers, so if I need to grade on the curve a little bit with crossword puzzles, then so be it.

I've also decide to start relearning Italiano. I took one year of it 12 years ago, ma no posso parlare molto bene. Capisco un po ma ho bisogno di esercitarmi.

All in all, a very fun evening. Unique, and a refreshing change from the same ole bar scene. On the subway I even got to help someone out (I love giving directions).

"Excuse me, does this go to Union Square?" asked the tan 50'sish old man wearing a blonde wig, red beret, heels and pencil skirt.

Without even blinking I responded, "Yes, yes it does."

Howdy pardners!

How y'all beeeen?

Why am I talking this way? Because I've been spending nearly every day for 2 weeks trying to plan and coordinate a Tour de Texas in which I will be visiting 4 cities in 4 days (by plane and car, not bike) and I'm just gettin' all excited about the accent, BBQ, rodeos, hats and all. Not that I'll have any time to do that, but you know, one can only fantasize. It'll be my first time to the state larger than France.

What else has been happening? I started doing online dating again. I tried this a few years ago and didn't have much luck. Probably because I insist on staying as private as possible and so don't post a picture. So you can guess how successful I am this time around. Not very. But it's OK, this cautious risk taker's doing the best she can. I'll spare you the details on the a-hole who blew me off on Friday, the weird little Frenchman I met at a party who asked for my number from a friend and proceeded to NOT call me. The Scrubs dude I had 2 dates with who's nice but, you know. But. And the artsy little Frenchman who clearly spends more time on his hair than me. Not worth getting into.

Oh, my sister had a baby 2 days ago. She's adorable. In that alienesque newborn way. A face only a mother and an auntie could love (just kidding. She really is cute).

And my feet are orange from an herb soak I've been doing for a week. It's kinda calmed the nerve sensations but I've been told by my doctor on Friday that only time will tell if the damage was permanent. Fortunately, I've been blessed with that virtue called 'patience'. Yup, and Babe can fly.

I'm officially done with maintaining hope that I may some day soon find someone with whom I can share deep love.

I've been blown off one too many times

I've been thrown aside for my date's ego one too many times

I've been rejected, disrespected and disregarded one too many times

I'm just not strong enough to keep the hope alive. I've just kept it up for far toooooo long and it's, it's just been beaten down too much.

I'm weary.
I'm tired.
I'm done.

Driving on water, and wishful thinking

Last night I flew to Florida for a meeting this morning. I spent less than 24 hours there but maaaannnnn was it worth the 9 hours of travel time. As I was driving to my meeting this morning in my rental, the road I was following carried us over a body of water that was totally surreal. The road was nearly level with the water so you genuinely felt like you were driving on water; I wonder if this is how Jesus felt. It was so amazing to be in that blazing sunshine, surrounded by palm trees, taking in that unobstructed view of the horizon. What a refreshing change from slabs upon slabs of gray concrete.

I need to get away more. I mean, I'm away a lot as is, but I need to spend more time in places that rejuvenate me. I travel mostly for work, so I'm never fully relaxed. And I usually go to crummy places that I won't name here lest I offend someone.

Today I received an email from a former crush. He's one of my people, and I've never really liked the male gender of my people. Don't get me wrong, my tribe's men are attractive, but they tend to be rather macho. This dude didn't seem macho. On paper, he was perfect. Tall, very attractive, educated (Masters degree), from a good family, in the US for 5 years so Americanized a bit. But in the end, I found myself highly disappointed. Perhaps I put too much weight on the perfect little portrait and resume and so set my expectations too high. Because, tribe or no tribe, at the end of the day he still turned out to be the typical schmuck. So anyway, we found each other on one of those social networking sites. Or rather, I found him, as he was a contact in my friend's network. So I shot him an email asking him if he wanted to join my network. He accepted. Turns out he now lives in New York. What are the chances that he'd turn out to be single, completely matured and emotionally sound, and interested in me? I mean, today I randomly ended up sitting next to a fellow tribeswoman on the plane. Since there are only about 600,000 of us in the US (population of 300 million), what the heck are the chances of that? Like zero. So I see no reason why I couldn't hope that somehow in the last 8 years since we've seen each other, he's hit his head on a pole, woken up from a coma completely grateful for life, studied with Guru Baba Swamisomething in India, found inner peace and now is going to whisk me off into the sunset so that we can screw like bunnies and distribute rice to the poor?

It's 9am Friday morning and I'm nursing a saaaad hangover with a giant bottle of water and a greasy egg and cheese sandwich.

About once every year I go to that third stage of inebriation: beyond shitfaced drunk. There's the tipsy stage. There's a fine line between tipsy and drunk. Then there's drunk. And then there's a fine line between drunk and "it's morning, I've slept 8 hours and I'm still drunk." About 8am this morning I walked a crooked line to the bathroom, tripping over my coat and jacket splayed out on the floor, beseeching the Lord to quiet the jackhammer going to town in my head.

Ladies and gents, I was fine for about 4 hours. I was just tipsy, and then BAM, the next minute I can't walk to the bathroom by myself nor make out who exactly is holding my hand, guiding me toward the restrooms. I skipped the whole drunk stage and went straight to "oh my God, how embarassing, what a lush, that's pathetic" bombed.

I joined L, a new "friend" (I'm going to start putting that word in quotes because friends in this city exit your life as quickly as they entered it) who gathered a group of people at a very loud and testosterone-filled bar. Mostly bankers, so any attention I garnered was quickly diverted to other women. Bankers are a fickle crowd. They can't seem to make up their mind on which girl to give their attention to, so they give it to all of them, and as the clock gets frighteningly closer to 2am, they pick one and start grinding them. Anyway, drinks and shots kept getting handed to me, so I drank them. And drank them. And drank them. During this time I chatted with several very good looking men whose personalities were as fascinating as a box of Bic pens.

I did find one Israeli guy who was cute and interesting but he didn't take the bite. I wonder why that was. Could it have been my insistence that "I will not convert. I will NOT convert to Judaism. I know you boys need to marry a Jewish girl, but I am not gonna go there." despite never even being asked to go out on a date, let alone get married and convert. Or maybe it was because I had him stop the taxi so that I could get out and puke over the stone wall lining Central Park.

Whatever the case, I made a complete ass of myself. I couldn't walk without L holding my hand. I spent 15 minutes puking into and clogging up the non-functioning one-stall bathroom of the hummus place everyone took me to in the hopes of sobering me up. The damned thing wouldn't flush. And the hummus place is owned by L's boyfriend. Lovely. Reminds me of the time I had a HIGHLY unfortunate rendez-vous with a broken toilet at a restaurant in Bangkok. I walked out of one restaurant, and 10 minutes later rushed into another, imploring the owner to let me use his bathroom, then bounded into the ladies room instead of the mens room, despite the trash can that was placed in front of the bathroom door barring anyone from entering, and despite the sign on the door that I later realized was a very bad translation of "Do not use. Broken." As I went to flush the toilet and noticed that nothing was happening, it suddenly dawned on me why that trash bin was placed there. I closed the lid, walked out and noticed the sign on the door that I had completely overlooked just minutes before in my haste to purge whatever parasite had made its way into my digestive tract. I dashed out of the bathroom, bowing to the owner on my way out, giving him a remorseful "My apologies to your plumber" look. Bad bad bad karma. And I wonder why crap happens to me. No pun intended.

Wow, I seem to have no shame. I'll talk about my bowel dysfunctions to complete strangers. Sorry for the details.