home is where the heart is

You know you're from Houston when...

You can leave your house, head out of town, and an hour later you still
haven't left the city limits. (During rush hour, you haven't even left your neighborhood.)

Spring is not the season, Katy is not a lady, and 1960 is not a year.

The "farm-to-market" roads have seven lanes.

If you want to be a snob about your grocery shopping, you can go to a
Randall's Flagship, Rice Epicurean Market, or a Kroger's Signature.

You have to turn on the air conditioning in January, two days after a low of 29 degrees.

You come to work in short-sleeves and walk out at noon to find that a cold front has blown through, and the temperature has dropped 40 degrees in a matter of minutes.

When you see your neighbor dancing around the front yard, you know he just stepped in a fire ant bed.

You know that the Astrodome will always be the Eighth Wonder of the World.

You wander into a section of town where you can't read the street signs
but you don't care, because you can get great prices on fake designer merchandise there.

You go to an art festival on Westheimer and you're almost run down by two cross-dressers on roller blades, holding hands.

You hear everything but English spoken when you go to the Galleria to window shop.

You've never seen I-45 in any condition other than under-construction --
and you've lived there for 20-30 years.

If the humidity is below 90 percent, it's a good hair day.

The only real Mexican food is Tex-Mex.

You know that while saving you money, "Mattress Mac" has amassed more than the U.S. Treasury has.

You see nothing unusual about an 80-something former sheriff's deputy who wears a white toupee and blue sunglasses, mispronounces names, allows televising of his frequent plastic surgeries, seems unnaturally obsessed with slime in the ice machine, and screams, "MAR-VIN ZIND-ler, EYE-witness news" into a television camera every night.

You actually get these jokes.

i love it

i love when music, emotion, and imagery go together perfectly. oh, and i love little surprises, like already owning the HEM cd that contains the song liberty mutual uses in its ad.

make a wish

the usual website i get the friday five from had cruddy questions, so i chose the questions at another site. funny, i didn't know there were other 'friday five" websites out there...

1. When is your birthday?
january 9. this is the same birthday as dave matthews, joan baez, and richard nixon.

2. When you blow out the candles on your cake, do you make a wish? Have any of them come true?
i always make a wish. none of them ever come true.

3. How do you feel about birthdays and birthday celebrations?
i like my birthday, but i hate all of the attention. i just like any excuse to eat cake.

4. What has been your favorite birthday gift? What kind of gifts really blow you away?
justin gave me a lot of cool litle presents when i turned 26. i really liked them, because even though they were small, they really reflected who i am a person, and what my interests are. gifts that show someone really put in some thought blow me away like that.

5. What flavor cake do you prefer?
i'm simple. i like yellow cake with chocolate frosting. however, if it's an ice cream cake, i like yellow cake with chocolate ice cream.

i found another site with questions i liked better than the usual one, which had questions all pertaining to the internet, which i found rather dull. so, here are some questions from www.friday5.org:

1. What is one thing you always have with you?
i always have one of two things: my cell phone or this small moleskine-type journal where i write about deeper stuff than i would ever write on here. strangely enough, i would have written all that stuff here before, but ever since mid-september, i've chosen never again.

2. What are two things on your night-table (or next to your bed)?
this book called Get in the Game! The Girls' Guide to Money and Investing, and a bottle of water.

3. What are three things you learned in the last seven days?
courtesy of this podcast called "brain food," i have learned that acorns are poisonous to humans, and if they are ingested, they cause kidney damage; the universe has no center or end; there are some dogs that can detect autism in people, and can be trained to alert someone within an hour of them having a seizure.

4. What are four things parents always have to tell you?
"we'll support you, no matter what" (and by "support," i don't mean monetarily), "don't forget to eat well," "i love you," "i'm proud of you," and "everything will be okay."

5. What are five things you paid for in the last month?
groceries, my credit card bills, a christmas present for justin, lunch, and a CD to listen to in my car.

wanderlust

the friday five...

1) If you had to move 100 miles or more to the north, east, west, or south, which would you choose, where would you end up, and what's so great about there?
i have no idea, because, honestly, i think that either direction would be nowhere, especially when chico would be considered point A

2) Do you have a favorite stretch of highway or byway for driving, touring, or wandering?
there is this one part of highway 6 between beechnut and highway 90 that i love; however, my all-time favorite place to drive is down main street in houston, between north or south braeswood and one hermann circle, right through the medical center and rice university, in the museum district. i just love the trees there. the perfect time to drive is on a bright day at around 930am with no stops, because the speed at which you drive and the way the light filters in through the trees...it's just really beautiful.

3) Are you happier to start a trip or return home?
start a trip. definitely.

4) Plane, train, automobile, bicycle, or foot?
train. definitely.

5) Do you overplan or underplan your travels? (Assume that "no" is not a valid answer.)
in terms of packing, i overplan. but, when it comes to activities and stuff, i underplan. i really don't like to plan too much, because i rather like letting the environment, people, etc., just dictate what i do. like, whatever i feel like doing, depending on what the day seems to call for.

cider and pumpkins and leaves, oh my!

i love autumn. i like the coziness of it, and the warmth of the colors. and i am super-psyched that there are thanksgiving commercials on TV! and i've even seen some christmas ones already.

now that being away from home for grad school has gotten to me in a big way, i am really feeling the christmas spirit. already! i just want to go home and play fetch with the dog, and go to all my favorite and familiar places, and just be at home. it'll be good after this cruddy semester. it'll be good to be in the comfort of my own familiar space, and be able to cope better with the loss of a lot of things this past semester.

they say music soothes the savage beast

It's Friday. Time for the Friday Five...

1) What was the first CD/Record/Album/Artist you ever bought and what format was it in? (Vinyl/Cassette/CD/MP3 Download)?
i bought Tiffany's debut album on cassette. i wore that thing out!

2) How do you usually listen to music? (iPod/Walkman/Stereo/Radio)
i normally listen to my ipod, unless i'm at work (through the computer) or in my car (CD player).

3) What is your favorite genre of music and why?
i love any type or rock (folk, hard, classic, etc.), and soundtrack by thomas newman.

4) What is your opinion on music video shows and music televion?
i don't think it's about music anymore, especially music television. none of those channels have anything to do with music. it's all about "yo mamma" or some other nonsense.

5) Do you usually agree with who the winners of the Grammy Awards are?
no. real artists/musicians that are talented are never really nominated. people who are nominated and/or win...it's all about the commercial aspect of music. i get it. i just don't like or agree with it, and, yes, i do listen to john mayer, and he is a commercial artist, but i did start listening to him before the grammy wins, huge co-headlining $60 a ticket tours. i guess i just don't like radio-driven bands and music. a lot of the people i listen to are musicians whose music falls under one of three categories: (1) no one but me and a few friends know who they are, (2) their music isn't played on the radio, and (3) tickets to their live shows cost less than $10. i could go on about this topic, but i'll spare you.