Houston City Limits

In the summer of 2001, I chose to take an internship in Houston, Texas, rather than travel to China with my friends.

Looking back at that summer, I realize it was the last time I could really choose where I wanted to be. Shanghai or Houston? The comparative merits of each city aside, I didn't realize the key word wasn't either. It was the word in the middle. Or. I had to choose one or the other. Instead I chose one, thinking I could have Houston now, and save Shanghai for later. Well, later is now. And now my horizons seem to be the four walls of my room, and soon the four carpeted panels of my cubicle. What a thing to have hoped for!

But while in public I express regret at my choice, in my heart there's no other place in the world I'd rather explore than my own frontiers, this land made for you and me. And so I drove from the Redwood forests to the Gulfstream waters, because Texas is a big part of America, and in the courts, clubs, and strip malls of Houston I would learn a little bit about how things worked, or why they didn't.

What did I learn that summer?

I learned that muffalettas are the best-kept, tastiest secret in American sandwiches. I learned that bourbon and coke is a great drink. And then there's Mexican food and barbeque and country fried steaks... Houston, you have a weight problem!

I learned it IS the humidity - oh, the humidity! I learned to fear mosquitoes. I learned to love the Gulf of Mexico, which is warm and teeming with fish.

I learned to say "y'all" and "a little sumpin' sumpin'. I learned to do the electric slide... I learned that some people still fly confederate flags, but even rednecks call those people rednecks. I learned that Houston loves a good bookstore more than Orange County, and young Houstonians like pot every bit as much as their counterparts in Oregon.

I learnedthat a judge is a very nice thing to be. I learned that immigrants still come from France and the Netherlands as well as India and Mexico. I learned you can major in animal science and still become governor of Texas.

I learned to love the songs of Robert Earl Keen and Kelly Joe Phelps. I learned that "King of the Hill" is reality TV. I learned there still exists in spirit, such a thing as the "Republic of Texas".