Don't Mess With Texas

Last week I ate the best brisket of my life and couldn’t find a single restaurant that didn’t have at least one item that was ‘smothered in cheddar.’

I was in Texas.

Yeehaw.

I was working and visiting my best friend, Chelsea and her husband, Sangam. They had just moved to Houston and I was their very first guest.

It was good to be with those people. It was good to remember what it was like in college when we all lived mashed together like sardines. It was good to be with someone who remembers who I was before I became the person I am today.

Plus, they even had a guestroom – something only bonafide adults have.

I had an amazing time with them, eating brisket, laughing at Texas bumper stickers, eating Tex-Mex, laughing at Texas signs, eating BBQ, and laughing at each other.

There was a lot of eating.

And laughing.

I felt so welcomed and loved. But I am about to say something crazy.

I MISSED Los Angeles.

Uff da. There. It’s out there. On the Internet. There is no taking it back.

Let me explain. While in the Lone Star State I got to do a great deal of traveling. I got to see some amazing places in Texas (Austin) and some not so amazing places (somewhere on I-45 where I passed a sign comparing women to cattle.)

I was charmed by the how they still speak respectfully to strangers with the use of ma’m and sir. I enjoyed seeing an American flag or two and some Levi jeans and cowboy boots.

But darn it if I didn’t start to yearn for a stranger to honk viciously at me on the street, or to be surrounded by rainbow flags, or to walk down Santa Monica Blvd and see a man wearing the same jeans as me except in a smaller size.

Even the patriotism became a little hard to swallow– like one of those year round Christmas Shops where the wooden Santa’s go from being cute to creepy after more than 15 minutes spent in the store.

One of my favorite books about studying abroad – and lets’ face it, LA might as well be a foreign country with it’s very own language – “I knooooow, riiiight. OMG I totally LOL’d and spilled my venti, macchiato, no-whip, non-dairy, organic coffee.”

ANYWAY.

In the book, Survival Kit For Overseas Living by L. Robert Kohls, it says that the best way to beat homesickness is to go away to a city you’ve never been and have the experience of coming back home – to your new place. When you walk into the airport suddenly the things that weren’t familiar before are more familiar than the place you left. That worked for me when I lived in Ireland and went away to Spain.

And it worked now.

I got off the plane in Los Angeles and wanted to kiss the girl in the ridiculous shoes and the Louis Vuitton puppy carrier. I wanted to high-five the man who was wearing his big, ugly sunglasses indoors. I stepped outside and breathed in the smoggy, sunny, dirty, air of LA and as my phone dinged with ‘welcome home’ texts from my friends and a homeless guy asked me for a dollar, I smiled.

It was good to be back in LA.

It was good to be home.