I Can't Believe It's Not Texas: March 2009

I'm back home in Austin, whoo!! I had a great visit - and really, I'm glad for experiences that push me [way the hell {ironic}] out of my comfort zone. Otherwise, I wouldn't have known how fun ice/sleet/snow can be [not much ;p but it's pretty]. I'm usually one of those miserable humans who actually depends on that addictive substance they call The Sun to not only stay alive and warm, but also happy. So sue me.

Mmm, I took pictures with Kirstie yesterday afternoon and discovered that I don't mind being out in the cold, as long as there's sun and I have a purpose. But compared to the excitement with which I greet lounging around in hot summer, though, it has to be a damn good purpose.

I will say this: Upstate NY forces me to grudgingly acknowledge its beauty, even in its current shame at being caught half-naked between the wintry drifts of snow, and the verdant beauty of a land that actually sees something I know as "spring" by hearsay.

You see, where I come from - every place I remember "coming from," really - we know "ice" as something novel, a substance to be forced into pathetic Lilliputian snowmen, or a circumstance which allows us to skip school.

But out here, it snows at the drop of a hat (in MARCH!!), piles up in banks along the roadside, looks amazing as hoarfrost on my car until I attempt to drive it, and nearly causes me to drive off the side of the road as my mouth gapes open at the sight of an ACTUAL ICE-COVERED POND!! (Once again - say it with me - IN MARCH!!!)

To me, it's like walking into an alternate universe where gold is sprinkled around and regarded with the same kind of disgust we generally reserve for manure-like substances. I just can't wrap my mind around this fairy tale I've inadvertently walked into...

...Until my nose frosts over, and I comment on the cold* once every 3.56831 seconds.

*The average temperature was probably between 35-45 F on the "cold days." Canada dwellers, shush you.

No. You don't get it. I'm sure most of you are laughing at me, much like child Kat ignorantly scoffed at children who didn't grow up using chopsticks. Oh, the scorn I exhibited! I eat it all now.

There was one day where I actually recalled 30 Days of Night dread while walking alone (40 yards from my front door) at night. 30 Days is this wonky horror movie about some Alaskan residents who are visited by vampires hoping to wipe them out during the 30 sunless days in their winter season. Now, when I watched this movie (in the peaceful cool of a darkened home movie theater, a/c providing sweet relief from the 110-degree summer blaze), I found the townsmen's frustration with cold and dark mildly entertaining. It's not that I don't sympathize - trust me, I do - but I chuckled over their stupidity in bringing themselves to such a place to begin with.

Of course, rural upstate NY horror levels compare to 30 Days of Night terrors about as much as baby ducklings threaten raging bull demons. But the pretty snow, as well as the peaceful silence of the rural farmland during my solitary stroll, was enough to cause me to jump, stare at the neighbors' kiddie playground set with deep suspicion and superstitious horror (I mean, you KNOW the ghost of her grandfather's baby cousin once removed is going to come floating out), and flee to the "safety" of home.

Oh, wait, this was supposed to be a post about coming home.

...Texas, I am glad to nuzzle back into your familiar, overly-warm bosom. And I'm pretty convinced I'm a beach/city kinda gal.

But now you can't tell me, "Don't knock it 'till you've tried it."

This little piggy is a grade-A wuss prone to over-dramatization of perfectly enjoyable situations for the sake of, well, justifying her wussiness. It really wasn't that bad. But shhh, nobody has to know.