Babies

Everyone is pregnant but me.

At least that’s what it feels like.

One cousin, four friends, about twenty-two Facebook friends, and my old roommate’s dog have all given birth in the last month. 

I’ve gotten used to the phone calls that begins with my friends asking, “How are you…” in a tone that says ‘Hurry up and tell me because when you find out how I am you are going to freak out.’

After the excitement of the pregnancy announcement dies down I never quite know how to segue back to normal conversation.

Congrats on creating a new life.  Speaking of exciting news, I bought a new brand of milk yesterday.

A few weeks ago my friend, Michelle had her baby shower.  I had known the date months in advance yet there I was on the day of the shower, clutching her registry and staring at rows and rows of bottles, burp rags, and diaper-genie-warming-sterilized-magic-something-wipes. 

My eyes zeroed in on an item called a “nipple brush” and I laughed to myself, grabbed it, and went to find a pastel bag in which to put it.

The shower was lovely, with the perfect amount of sweet (candy bar) and adult (free alcohol).  When we reached the gift opening, Michelle pulled out my gift and thanked me. I smiled and, wanting to detract from the fact I had obviously purchased it an hour before, made a joke.

Now every time you wash your nipples, you can think of me.

I waited for the laughter to follow but all I heard was the confused and shocked intake of breath from the future grandmother.

After much confusion, Michelle explained that by ‘nipple’ they meant the nipple on the bottle.  Not the nipple on the mother.

These moments have become a normal part of my life. I have moved seamlessly from the years of bridesmaid’s dresses and bad floral arrangements to baby bottles and giving gifts I don’t really understand.

Most of the time I don’t mind.  I can laugh along with the mothers and then go meet my friends for a martini because I don’t have a diaper to change.

But then, last week, I got a call from my youngest cousin with some news about his wife.

Hi, Dane!  What’s up?

Well…I’m just calling to tell you that Alicia is pregnant.

I took a breath.

Before getting excited, before doing the obligatory squealing and congratulating, I noticed that my heart constricted a little bit.

Here is another baby I won’t get to see grow up – another family member that won’t consider me a part of the normal routine. 

Even though technology lets me video chat and get instant photos of first steps, the fact is, it’s just not the same.

It’s not the same as holding a squirming, crying child in your arms and maybe crying a little yourself at how amazing life is. It’s not the same as looking at your friend who once danced on a table in the middle of a bar and who is now in charge of a human life.

I love my home here in Los Angeles.  I am proud and happy I decided to follow this path – a path in which I know a lot about building a career and a lot less about raising a child.  But there are a few times every year, during an excited phone call with a friend, that I’m reminded just how much I gave up to follow my dreams.

It’s always in the white space that I feel it most – the space that comes before my reaction, before my happiness has a chance to sink in.  It’s always most clear, and most painful, what the decision to live far away from home really means in the breath I take before smiling.  

This piece was originally written for the Fargo Forum.  You can find them (and me) here.

Believe

As a kid, I believed in Santa much longer than was socially acceptable.

I was in fifth grade when I learned for sure that Santa didn’t exist.

It was during a lesson about the difference between fact and fiction when my teacher looked up and rocked my world.

I don’t want anyone to burst into tears here fifth graders but I think we all know there is no Santa Claus.

Just like that.

As if this wasn’t the most shocking news I’d heard since I’d learned in Health class what a ‘red light’ touch meant.

I stared at her as tunnel vision started to overtake me.

As I white-knuckled my desk, I glanced around at my classmates who were joking and rolling their eyes as if to say, DUH.

I was clearly the only one who didn’t know.

My friend, Ashley Getslaff (who, incidentally, was also the first person to tell me about condoms) turned to me and scoffed.

How old does she think we are? 8??

I agreed and laughed a little too loudly.

Yeah. It’s not like we’re babies!

But truly, I was heartbroken.

Now, it’s not like I hadn’t had my suspicions. The year before I had done some serious handwriting analysis comparing a note from Santa to my mother’s signature on a check.

(It was inconclusive.)

But this was different. This was a cold hard fact from a teacher. And they knew everything.


That night, I took a big dramatic breath, and confronted my mother.

Mom. Is Santa real? Just tell me. I can take it.

She smiled kindly and I could see it coming. She was giving me her ‘I’m going to let my overly-imaginative and underly-cynical daughter down easy’ smile.

Honey…Santa is more of a feeling…kind of the spirit of Christmas. It’s in your heart.

Well, that confirmed it.

The hell with what’s in my heart, I wanted a jolly elderly gentleman to bring me gifts!

That Christmas, when I raced down to see what "Santa" had brought me I noticed it didn't feel as fun. I stared at the cookie crumbs from the cookies I had half-heartedly left out the night before and realized grumpily that I had just wasted those cookies on my parents.

For years I had been begging to be treated like an adult and finally, when I was, I didn’t want it anymore.

I felt silly. Young.

I had figured the whole Santa thing was a sham but I had just wanted so badly for the magic to be true.

Wanted something that special and mysterious to actually exist in this world.

Eventually I got over it and replaced the mystery of Santa with the mystery of boys.

And now I’m in LA carving out a career that’s all about making people believe a different kind of fictitious magic.

This year when the holiday season rolled around I just wasn’t feeling it.

There was no snow, no homemade stockings, not even an angel for the top of the tree that my brother and I could fight over.

I was just working, auditioning, and sitting in traffic – just like every other day in Los Angeles.

Then last week, someone honked at me for no apparent reason and I screamed with venom out my open window, LAY OFF! IT’S CHRISTMAS!!!!

That was it. I needed some holiday joy.

Enter: Naples Island in Long Beach.

My friend Katie had told Noah and I about this magical island last year. Every house sits facing the canal ala Venice, Italy. Every year, for the holidays, they decorate their houses magnificently.

We’re talking, professional lights and themes.

Anyone can come and wander the paths through the canals, taking in the view.

So a few friends and I got together and headed over. From the moment we crossed the bridge into Naples I knew this was what I needed. It was impossible to resist the magic of this place.


We walked and walked, sipping our hot (and spiked) holiday drinks and oohing and awwing at the displays.

And then I felt it.

It was that feeling of joy and a little bit of wonder that I had always felt about Christmas and namely, Santa.

I looked around at my friends, laughing and skipping from one house to the next, and that magic started to creep back.








Who needs Santa when I had these people and this place?

This was Christmas.

And right there, surrounded by the ocean, twinkling lights, and my friends I put my practical, adult-self on hold for just a second and allowed myself to believe in a little magic.

Thanksgiving Is So L.A.

This year for Thanksgiving the police came and we had a kitchen fire.

In other words, just a typical day.

Since I moved to Los Angeles (three-and-a-half years ago) I have only been able to go home once for Thanksgiving. Instead, with a few friends from college, we have forged our own tradition, trying as hard as we can to bring the comfort of the Midwest to Hollywood.

And by comfort I mean lots of butter and ‘salads’ with cookies in them.

One of my friends has a home and a little boy so we all headed over to his house this year to cook, eat, and (let’s be honest) drink lots of wine.

The police came right at the beginning of our day. Someone had hit my friend Ben’s parked car so hard that it had shattered the bumper.

Let me say that again.

Ben’s car was PARKED. But the woman still managed to hit his car so hard that it slammed into the car in front of him and also SHATTERED HIS BUMPER.

Did I mention this was in a residential area?

The police came, we gave them cookies, and they gave the woman a ticket.

After that, I figured we were done with drama for the day.

I was wrong.

About an hour later, as I was idly stirring gravy over the stove and contemplating if I should abandon my wine and move on to hard liquor, I started to smell something that didn’t fit in with the savory stuffing aroma or the distinct cinnamon smell of the pie.

No…it smelled like…plastic? Burning plastic?

I looked down.

There, burning below me were flames.

A LOT OF FLAMES.

Someone had placed a ladle between the gas burners. The ladle had caught fire which had then caught the plastic child-splatter guard on fire.

I kept calm.

FIRE!!!!! THERE’S A FIRE!!! GUYS!! FIRE!!!!!

I picked up the flaming ladle and ran to the sink. Someone else broke off the flaming child safety guard and did the same thing. The whole kitchen filled with smoke.

Yep, it was definitely time to move to hard liquor.

Despite the police and the flames, we finally made it to dinner.

And it was delicious.

We might not have pulled it off as flawlessly as my family had always seemed to do, but the end result was just as lovely.

That night, after we had let the food settle, a few of us took turns jumping on their family trampoline.


It was dark, and the ocean made the air wet and chilly. It almost…almost…felt like fall in North Dakota. And as I jumped and jumped I thought about traditions.

When I moved to LA I had to walk away from my grandmother’s Thanksgiving desserts and my cousins’ annual backyard Thanksgiving football game.

And I realized, that first Thanksgiving away, that it was up to me to make new memories in this new place.

That if I was really going to try and call this place home, I needed to put down some roots. Let go of how much I wished I was home, and embrace the fact that I'm not.

That night, on the trampoline, I looked around at my friends and into the warm house where some were still eating pie and I thought, we did it.

We created something that I look forward to every year. We created a whole new tradition in a whole new place.

It might be messy and filled with too much wine and too little snow but it's ours.

And I am so thankful.

Guy Fawkes Day

As a kid, I hated Guy Fawkes.

Probably much less than the English but I’m fairly certain I’m the only American six-year-old who carried around bitter feelings toward a 17th century English rebel.

I think I must have come across the story of Mr. Fawkes in one of those “See What Happened on Your Birthday” postcards they have at trinket stores. I found November 5, hoping to learn that it was the day Cabbage Patch Dolls had been invented or that I shared a birthday with Punky Brewster.

Instead, I learned that an English mad man had tried to blow up the House of Lords.

And now he gets his own day. With bonfires.

This was clearly a direct snub against my birthday.

After all, this was my day. It seemed ludicrous to me that someone was trying to take that away.

Every year I would do a mental comparison of my birthday against the festivities of the English National Holiday.

I soon learned that bowling at Safari Lanes and dinner at Paradiso did not compare to a nationwide celebration.


It was clearly a stacked deck.

Eventually, somewhere in my early teens, I let the whole thing go and replaced it with excitement for my first boy-girl birthday, asking for Dock Martins, and deciding what color of corduroy pants I would wear that day.

But a few weeks ago, when I mentioned my birthday was approaching, someone recited the famous rhyme about Guy Fawkes Day.

Remember remember the fifth of November.

It got me thinking about my childhood obsession.

How devastated it made me to imagine that someone else outdid me every year.

Nowadays, although I love my birthday, I am constantly aware that maybe it’s a little silly.

In fact, I usually wish something would take away the pressure I feel for the day to be all about me.

It seems that somewhere along the line to adulthood we are taught that we’re too old, too mature to get a day all to ourselves.

Like we don’t deserve it.


So this year, on my birthday, I tried to push away the uncomfortable thoughts. And when I looked around at my mom, who had flow all the way from Minnesota to be with me, and my friends, drinking wine and listening to music in the warm Malibu sun, I didn’t feel uncomfortable at all.


In fact, I felt really lucky.

I spend every day as an actor and a writer trying to get people to pay more attention to me. To watch this or look at that. To cast me, hire me, or buy my show.

And there, sitting with me in the grass, were people who already think I’m special.

Who already think that I’m worth celebrating.

And that’s not silly at all. It’s just lovely.

As for Guys Fawkes, I think I can finally say it.

I win.

Koi

When I was a little girl I desperately wanted to live by the water BUT I lived in North Dakota, where not a single body of water (not counting a slough) was within walking distance.

I would read stories about girls who lived by streams and brooks; they always seemed to have great adventures and their lives just seemed more exciting!

So one day I decided to make my own pond.

After all, why should I just sit around dreaming about water? I was a very resourceful eight-year-old girl. So I picked up a shovel, chose the perfect spot in our yard, and started to dig.

And dig.

And dig.

I dug for days.

I wanted it to be deep. I wanted it to be just like the ponds in my books. I had big dreams that I would eventually add fish (maybe even Koi!!) and the pond would become so fantastic that EVERYONE in my small town would come to see it. They would tell their friends and soon everyone in the world would know how fantastic Jessica Runck’s Koi pond was! People would stand over the pond and think, “Wow, this pond sure is the best thing I’ve ever seen in the whole wide world. Thanks, Jessica for making our lives better!!” And I would stand there, proudly staring through my giant glasses at the huge crowd and think, I made this happen.

It didn’t turn out that way.

After about a week, I thought I had dug down deep enough. I knew I couldn’t just fill the hole with water or it would seep into the ground, so I went into our musty old shed and underneath some old cat food and a tractor tire, found a large piece of plastic.

I pulled the grimy piece of plastic to my giant hole, lined it carefully, and stared at my work.

It was perfect.

All it needed was… water.

You see, in my excitement I had forgotten to make the hole close enough to the watering hose.

So I had to carry bucket after bucket of sloshing water to the pit.

It took me the entire day and when I’d finished I stood looking at my work proudly; what probably looked like a muddy brown hole of water to the outsider was glorious to me.

Only, no one seemed to care as much as I did. My parents were less than impressed (considering I had just dug a giant hole in their yard) and our little gravel road was just as slow as ever.

But I didn’t care, I sat by the pond all day long. I read books beside it, danced around it, and just plain sat and stared at it until the sun went down.

I had faith that people would soon get word and show up.

The next morning, I woke up excited to play by the water again – I jumped out of bed and ran outside to sit by the pond and eat my breakfast…

But it was gone.

The hole was still there. And so was the plastic. But the water had seeped through a tiny hole in the lining that I hadn’t noticed.

I stood there, staring at my muddy, plastic-lined, hole-in-the-ground.

I was devastated.

All that work. All that time. All my good intentions to make something wonderful and new and exciting – gone.

Now there would be no place for the beautiful fish and nothing for the lines of people to see.

Now it wasn’t a beautiful Koi fish pond.

It was just a hole.

I thought about that memory yesterday.

I’m currently working on a project that I’m terrified is going to become like that pond.

My producing partners and I have spent over a year working on our web series, Book Club. We filmed the pilot and I’m so proud of it. (Watch It Here!!) And like the pond, I was hoping after all the work we did on the first episode, all the time we spent digging, that someone would notice it and deem it worthy of Koi…ahh, I mean, sponsorship.

But after trying to secure funding to film the rest of the season for almost a year, we have made a very hard decision to try and raise the money ourselves.

By that I mean – ask for it. From our friends, family, fans and anyone who wants to show support.

YUCK.

As a girl who used to dig gigantic holes by herself, I am not a fan of asking other people for help.

But I thought about it for a long time and decided that I don’t want Book Club to be like my pond. I don’t want it to seep away into the world without making the mark I know it can.

So I decided I would put my pride aside and ask.

I know most of you are going to read this and think, “That girl needed some friends growing up.”

You’re also going to think, “That is so nice that she is raising money. Good luck to her.”

But maybe, just this once, could you follow all that thinking up with some clicking? As in, click on the link below to donate?

I mean, please, if you have a few extra bucks, spread the love. If not for me – for the little girl with the frizzy hair and the big glasses who just wanted to live by a pond.

I think she’d be pretty psyched to know that her future self made it all the way to the ocean.

I'm Sexy

I don’t have strep throat.

I recently went to the doctor because my throat felt like someone had lit it on fire. I was convinced I had strep. I even argued with the doctor when she said that I probably didn't.

But she was right. (Imagine that.)


And that information cost me a lot of money. So I’m going to say it a lot.

I don’t have strep throat.

That is just one of the many reasons I’ve not been blogging on a regular basis.

And here come the excuses:

I’ve started a third job to try to pay for my outlandish studio apartment lifestyle.

I’m taking an acting class, and I’m writing for this blog.

I know that most of you have been sitting at home just waiting and wondering when, when, will I blog again.

That time is now.

You’re welcome.

I would say I’m sorry for my absence to the 10s upon 20s of readers but in my acting class I’ve been told I need to stop apologizing. Every time I feel the need to say 'I’m sorry' I should replace it with 'I’m sexy.'

So...

I’m sexy.

And I don’t have strep throat

Rapids

Last weekend I escaped the Los Angeles jungle for a new kind of wilderness.

The mountains of Montana.

After two plane rides, one hour-long car ride, a two-mile hike, and a 450 foot free climb (okay, maybe I’m exaggerating) I was at Rainbow Ranch for my cousin’s wedding.

Along with a weekend filled with family, friends, and $1.50 draft beers, my getaway also included checking something off my “I Really Need To Do That To Feel Like I’ve Experienced Life” list.

Whitewater rafting.

On class four rapids, bitches.

(I might not be able to get away with putting “bitches” at the end of sentences…)

Anyway, it is probably in the top 10 coolest things I’ve ever done – right after finding an apartment in LA for less than a thousand dollars.

My cousins and I were all in the same raft and we would be sailing down the calm river, enjoying the beautiful scenery until suddenly, our raft guide would yell “paddle!!”

And just like that, we would be flying through rapids that seemed to have some sort of personal vendetta against the Runck/Bollingberg/Haugen clan.

That is how Los Angeles can be. One minute, you are cruising peacefully along, thinking that life is really beautiful and then BAM – you are in over your head and think the waves are definitely going to consume you.

My friend (who asked to remain nameless) told me the perfect story, upon my return to LA, which really confirmed my rapids theory.

This friend (who is an actor) was going to therapy. He had always told me how much he loved his therapist, how he was really getting along with her, and how she was really getting to the bottom of some of his issues.

He was riding smoothly along in his therapy life raft and didn’t even notice class four rapids ahead.

One day, he was drinking wine and innocently searching the web, watching different TV shows and web series programs.

He saw a title that caught his eye and was intrigued. He told me later that he kept thinking there was something very familiar about the show. Something calming and almost….therapeutic….


And then he realized it.

His therapist was the lead actor.

Let me say that again.

HIS THERAPIST WAS AN ACTOR.

Now, we’ve all heard of actors working as servers, nannies, and even tax preparers.

But never, in my entire life, have I heard someone say they are getting their PhD in psychology “just in case the acting thing doesn’t pan out.”

Whose “fall back” career is therapy???

My friend said he felt totally violated and exposed. I mean, can you imagine?

You are telling your deepest darkest secrets and she’s thinking about what time her next audition is.

You’re explaining how hard it is as an actor to face rejection every day and she has to resist fist bumping you and saying, “been there, brother.”

Only in Los Angeles do you have to worry about seeing your therapist on the cover of OK Magazine.

Now that is a class four rapid.

Needless to say, my friend stopped going to therapy.

And now needs it more than ever.

When I think about that story, the following image from my rafting experience comes to mind.

Now that is a rapid.

Bitches.

In Case Of Emergency

A few weeks ago I woke up in the middle of the night looking like a cross between Angelina Jolie and the Elephant Man.

I was having an allergic reaction.

My eyes were swollen almost completely shut, my lips were huge, and my stomach and legs were covered in hives.

I know what you’re thinking – What are you allergic to?

My answer, dear reader, is this:

WHO THE HELL KNOWS.

Seriously, to this day, I have no idea what it was. And yes, DAD, I’m getting an allergy test.

After I woke up and got a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I called Noah in a panic and let him know that he needed to immediately get in his car, pick me up, and take me to the Emergency Room.

Somehow, Noah was able to understand me through my swollen lips. You know you are good friends with someone when they can decipher the words “allergic reaction” from what must have sounded like “amphergeek eashon.”

We got in the car and (thanks to Google maps) headed to what we thought was the closest ER. The “ER” turned out to be located between a Taco Bell and a Used Car Lot in a building that “used to be a church.”

Let me just say, when you think your throat is closing the LAST thing you want to be able to say is that you sought medical attention next to a fast food chain in a building that was once used to pray for the dead.

We finally made it to a legitimate Emergency Room (in a real hospital!!) and I checked myself in. As I was hastily filling out the required forms I came to the “Contact In Case Of Emergency” box.

I looked through the narrow slits that were my eyes at Noah who was supportively sitting there trying not to fall asleep. He just looked so tried, so worried, and so totally there for me.

So I wrote down his name.

It then asked me what my relationship to him was. I thought about that for a second. Neighbor? Writing partner? Producing partner? Acting Partner? Friend? Person Who Will Drive You To The ER At 3am?

They didn’t seem quite good enough.

So in my haze, with my fingers barely able to hold the pen I scribbled:

BFF.

I’m sure the nurses are still laughing about that one.

The night ended with lots of Prednisone and a hefty charge to my credit card.

Oh, and I lived…in case you were wondering.

And the very next week, my BFF and I filmed the pilot episode of Book Club. (Hive free.)

And it was amazing.


Partly because of Noah.

Partly because of the incredible direction by Ms. Katey Wheelhouse.

Whom I met because my car died outside my apartment one day and she offered to jump it. The rest is history. We became great friends (despite the fact I am her noisy neighbor who lives above her.)

When Noah and I asked her to direct this project she threw herself in headfirst and hasn’t yet come up for air.

And I think that’s the reason the filming of Book Club was such a success.

Because the people who I’ve surrounded myself with are the kind of people who jump your car without knowing you and forgive you for wearing heels and walking on your wood floor at 1am.

They are the kind of people who take you to the emergency room at 3am even though they have to get up for work early the next morning.

They are your “In Case Of Emergency” people.

And in a way, Book Club was an emergency.

For a while I’d been feeling like if I didn’t make something happen for myself here in Los Angeles, nothing ever would. That I would end up always regretting not living the life I had dreamed. Worried that I was on the verge of giving up, and moving on to something else.

And I can’t think of any greater emergency than that.

Unless maybe your throat is closing.

So thank you – to all my “In Case Of Emergency” people (you know who you are.)

Without you, this dream of mine (and Noah’s and Katey’s) could have never happened.

If I could put you all down in that little box on the hospital form – I would.

These two are great if you need to go to the ER or have your car jumped. They are also wonderful people to call if you want your dreams to come true.

B+

Last night for supper I had two dried out Easter Bunny Peeps.

I can’t remember what else I ate that day.

I am in the midst of working on a project with Noah. A big, time-consuming, career-driven project.

I feel like I’m back in college (without the quick metabolism and disillusions of grandeur.)

My freshman year, all I could think about was keeping up my grade average. Luckily, I had a roommate - Chelsea - who was the same kind of freak and became my best friend. There was even a weekend where we did nothing but homework.

36 HOURS OF HOMEWORK.

We would stare at each other across piles of papers, give a half-hearted thumbs-up, and say, “College is so awesome…”

That was also the year I almost accosted my history professor because he gave me a B+. When he told me a B+ was considered “excellent” by college standards I told him I had my own standards and could he please tell me how to get an A!

It’s amazing I didn’t become addicted to pills.

Chelsea and I later learned the word time management and were soon putting off homework to watch VH1’s “I Love The 80s” and taking late night trips to Coldstone.

Looking back on my freshman year I wonder what I was so afraid of.

Nowadays, I’m working like I worked in college. The same crazy hours, the same neglect to my diet, the same freakishly high standards.

But one major thing has changed.

If I had failed a class in college it wouldn’t have really mattered. Yes, I probably would have needed oxygen but it would not have affected the rest of my life.

Someone has yet to ask me about my college grades on a job interview or on a date.

Are you from around here? Are you a smoker? What grade did you get on your ‘Religions of Asia’ paper?

Not once.

The difference now is, if I don't work hard, there are real life consequences. Consequences like having to keep up my Ramen diet and having to wait until my fingers are numb to turn on the heat.

Real life success doesn’t just mean a mark on my transcript.

It means I was right to believe in myself.

It means I can stop eating Peeps for supper.

It means I can stop working three jobs (I’m lucky to have) but not passionate about and start working one job I am.

Success in the real world is not just about validation.

It’s about being able to provide for myself.

It’s about being able to get a one-bedroom apartment, travel to see my friend’s new baby, and being able to look back and think it was totally worth those years of struggle.

So here’s to real-world success!

And Doctor Sandgren, if you’re reading, thanks for giving me a B+ and some much needed perspective.

I hid under the bed for a week after that grade because I thought the world would cave in.

Surprisingly, it didn’t.

A Thank You Note To Halloween

Dear Halloween 2009,

It’s Monday and I’m still tired. I think this means I’m old. And that you, Halloween, deserve a ‘Thank You’ note! (My mom will be so proud that I’m using my manners.)

So here it goes….

Thank you Halloween, for closing Santa Monica Blvd for 10 blocks so that 400,000 people could show up in full costume to celebrate.

Thank you for considering a bright orange mesh thong and some face paint a costume (or rather, the guy next to me on the treadmill at the gym thanks you.)

Thank you for enabling my friend Katie to use (in total seriousness) the phrase,

And then Care Bear went home with a guy she met at the bar.
(In fairness Care Bear’s costume was pretty sexy…for a pink fuzzy bear.)

Thank you for making it the one night of the year where I can get away with white fish net stockings and fake eyelashes.

Thank you for also making it the one night of the year where it is okay to take unsolicited photos of random people you see on the street.

Thank you for this:


And this:



And this:



And mostly this:



Sincerely,

Jessica
(Roxie Hart)

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.