DALLAS. OH. MY.
I ran away, I admit it.
This weekend in Austin is Queerbomb, Gay Pride, etcetera dance parties and parades and debauchery. Usually I’m an eager participant; not this time. I ran away. I admit it.
Instead I am in Dallas, Texas. It is inching towards 100 degrees – it will go higher still – and the sky is cerulean blue. I am at a cafe because my parents’ house is a frosty 68 and Fox News is on every television set – and there are many television sets – and I couldn’t concentrate what with all the shivering and crazy talking heads. Hannity and Beck and their ilk rail against the liberal agenda and government takeover, and then wonder why the Obama administration isn’t doing more to stop the oil leak that is swallowing the Gulf like a coal-black Blob. Have we lost our ability to properly define irony to the point that it simply doesn’t exist anymore?
The cafe is quiet and I quietly contemplate living in here, in Dallas. I’d be close to my folks; I love my folks. I’d be less distracted. Austin is Vacationland. Every day is a party, is a Facebook invite, is an opportunity for a dip at the Greenbelt, a mojito on South Congress, a sunburn on my shins. I’m unaccustomed to the perpetual atmosphere of R&R and frankly I don’t like it, it isn’t me. I miss the subway and not owning a car and riding over the Williamsburg Bridge and being harassed by MTA cops and getting grumpy about the grime, or the winters, or the infuriating commute to midtown. I miss having to make advance plans to get away, go upstate or out to the beach. I miss a vacation being a vacation, not a constant state of being.
Does this sound insane to you? Perhaps it is. But if I am honest with myself than I must admit that I am not a good manager of my own time, nor am I good at saying No to fun things, such as a glass of pinot grigio at noon or being half-naked at a dance party until 3 in the morning. Not to say these things don’t exist in other cities, just that I think other cities make you work a little harder for the fun. And work hard is what I need to be doing more frequently. Or more like “all the time.”
So I ran away to the city of searing pavement, where I know no one and all conversations with my father eventually turn into blistering political debate. Things are ever so slightly unpleasant here and I like it. In fact, I may never come home.
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