Thursday, July 29, 2010

The Change Game

Sometimes I think about how far I've come in the five years since I moved to Dallas, and nostalgia has crept up on me over the past few weeks.

I can't deny the fact that my life drastically changed when I moved here. It was a lot like having an original Nintendo, and hitting the reset button: It was like you never even played the last game.

I moved to Dallas from Madisonville, Texas. I didn't grow up there, but circumstances from a previous relationship forced me to move into the mouse-infested home of my mother's childhood in a small, lackluster town, a place whose claim to fame is being the mushroom capital of Texas.

It wasn't all bad. It taught me exactly where I didn't want to be, which was reinforced during the 45-minute commutes to College Station, where I still had an internship.

Just a little over a month after graduating from Texas A&M, I had a job at Texas' Leading Newspaper. My family helped me pack a U-HAUL once more, and off to Dallas I went.

If I'm honest with myself, I'd say that before I started looking for a place to live in this city, Dallas had been little more than large letters on a highway sign pointing north from Houston. Before I decided to move here, I had visited Dallas all of once, and I didn't stay long. In fact, it was for a metal concert in Deep Ellum that I didn't really want to go to in the first place.

The first month was trying. I was alone in a foreign land. I tried to learn the landscape on my own, but it was difficult.

I'd read newspapers, try to find something to do, but it was a lonesome existence. It was made worse by the fact that Dallas was in the middle of a tumultuous political upheaval, with Laura Miller in office and "Strong Mayor" on everyone else's minds.

It was July 29, a full-on month since I'd moved there, and I told myself that if I didn't get out there and do something now, then I was just wasting my time. I'd might as well live in Madisonville.

I decided to go to a bar called Muddy Waters off of Greenville Avenue. There was an ad in the Observer pushing the place as a live blues joint with cheap beer. Good enough for me.

So, I packed up my black leather handbag, threw on a resale-shop T-shirt, and headed down to the bar.

I still remember that night like it was yesterday. In fact, I told the entire story to a group of my drinking buddies last Friday. The details are still fresh. And they should be.

Today is, after all, the fifth anniversary of the night I met the man that would become my husband.

Muddy Waters has burned down. I'll be married to Dave for four years in September. I was laid off from The Dallas Morning News on April 9, 2009. I am a homeowner with two dogs, two cats, and five chickens.

And although I feel like I've changed so much since that night on July 29 in a seedy blues bar, I feel so much more like myself.

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Sleep Deprived

MrOrangePity

I am not a morning person. At least, I'm not one right now.

In high school I would wake up at 5 a.m. every day to do my hair and makeup before class started at 7:15 a.m.

Now I am lucky if I wake up before 8 a.m.

Here I am, of course, posting at like 11:30 at night and after three glasses of wine. It's no wonder that I have a difficult time getting up.

But, before you accuse me of complaining of sleep deprivation, every time I think I'm tired I consider all of my friends that have kids and never sleep.

Suckers.

While I'm Still Up...

I've been doing work for work. It's late. I'm tired. Right now, the weirdest things are bugging me:

When you drink a lot of coffee, your urine smells like coffee. When you eat a lot of asparagus, your urine just smells weird. Why?

Why does peanut butter make just about anything taste better?

Why do muscle relaxers make you drowsy? Is there an awake muscle that gets really relaxed?

OK. That's enough brain purging. Good night.