and then there's this guy in the morning.

yep! clipping your nails! in public! on public transportation! doesn't get any better than that.


maybe we haven't come so very far after all.

debate club.

what a historic night. a black man killed a white man on national t.v in mississippi and he was applauded, not tarred and feathered. we've come a long way.

my favorite quote of the night didn't even come from the candidates though. it came from olivia, of course.

'i mean, they're just so much more interesting to photograph instead of the whitest dead person on the planet and mrs. plastic face.'

right on livy. right. on.

you had the right idea.

krissy said to me today that she had the realization that she was completely not ready to live with a man again. now, while i have no experience living with a man romantically, i have to say that i don't think i'm down with it either. nor do i think i'll ever be. i'm not a cold person in relationships. actually quite the opposite. but i'm private about the things i'm private about. and of course they're weird things. i don't want a man looking at or touching my laundry or my make up. i don't want to have to share a bathroom at all with a man. i don't want to share a nightstand, don't want to get dressed in the morning while someone else is sleeping, and i certainly don't want to be watching television in my underwear and be subjected to being seen in that state.

and yeah a lot of people can say omg! you get used to that. but its not about that. its not that i feel awkward and i wish i didn't. it's that i don't want to get used to that. i don't want to be that 'comfortable'. that's ot comfort to me. that's on par with gaining 200 lbs and wearing sweats all the time after you're married. that's just not gonna be me. i can sacrifice that 'comfort' if it means maintaining some space and mystery. face it: no man wants to watch me give myself a pedicure while watching dr. phil reruns on a saturday afternoon.

i think frida and diego had it right. as do tim and helena.* i mean why not?


*i swear i'm not a loser that refers to celebrities by their first names, as if we went to brunch every sunday.

happy birthday and all that love.

lat night was so wonderful. a success! happy birthday liv and thank you to mama jane and hiyme for the most wonderful dinner.

however, getting up this morning was the opposite of success. i'm certain i'm still intoxicated. i spilled coffee on not 1, but 2 outfits as i was trying to get it all up and running. that's both amazing and unacceptable at the same time. never said i wasn't talented.

speaking of things krissy will want to go to with me.

renaissance faire this weekend at fort tryon park! you're gonna have to get your own costume ready; i'm busy cutting lucy's leg off and widdling a replacement.

ain't happnin

what a better story this would've been if instead of locking myself out of the house not once, but twice, instead i met this guy on the street and he gave me the key to the meaning of life. or to solomon's mines. or to the secret garden. or to tritan's undoing.

where's this at?

i don't know but i bet krissy wants to go there with me.

but really what i have to figure out is not how my key got off of my keychain (that just happened) but why i got so insanely angry about it. cursing at the bodega guy, the cab driver, the dog, and at the door itself did nothing to help anything. whoops.

destruction?

my dad calls me with reports of mayhem wreaked by ike. his exact words were: 'if you were to take a giant salad bowl and dump it onto hermann park, that would be about what this would look like.'

really? where the hell do you live dad? inside cloudy with a chance of meatballs?

so i asked him to send me pictures. below are the pictures. i just don't see the big deal. am i missing something?






i mean save the tree in the middle of the road.

post script: it was taking forever to upload these so i opened them in photoshop to see what the deal was. they were 60mb. each. is my dad planning on making billboards?

fuck that guy selling snake oil.

\

OMG I'M SO EXCITED. with this post i've got my FTG back! i have to admit that ever since phelps i've been less than excited about our fuck that guys. not that i don't fuck those guys...but...

but JOEL OSTEEN!?!? yes obvious but still. i'm as giddy as a kid on christmas about this one. the google image search alone was enough to get my blood pumping.

where to begin? how about fuck that guy for turning a place from my childhood memories into a circus. THE SUMMIT IS YOUR CHURCH. that's not a church! you've raped my faith.

pause

my friend jason was talking to me the other day about when he and his grandmother were driving around houton and they happened to pass Lakewood Church. she hadn't seen this monstrosity before so she asks, 'Jason, what is that place?'. 'That's the Lakewood Church grandma." "Oh...looks like 6 Flags Over Jesus."

hell yes grandma. that's exactly what it looks like. a joke. about jesus. in america.




how about fuck that guy joel osteen and his face? you and george clooney and your goddamn faces. look, you can't smile all the time. i don't care if jesus is your wing man. no one bros that hard. how do you eat with that smile? how do you get down with your wife with that smile?



good lord you're married to the wicked witch of the south. nevermind.

how about fuck that guy joel osteen for making me frown even more when i think about how i frowned for probably 28% of my life?

how about that?

that's not a long time. but in a joel osteen world that is 67% too much. oh what's that? no one has 139% of time? maybe if you read my one of his books you would. just sayin...



pfff. you buy that and i have a bridge to sell you.

confessions on a dancefloor.

sometimes, when i haven't gotten any texts all day and i'm feeling so! blue! i text google. just for the response.

what?!

omg madonna is scary and maybe has been dead for 25 years.

hey-ya hey-ya hey-ya hey-ya ike-o ike-o i-yay

i wanted to share this not particularly because of my grandfather, but to share my father's word-smithery. i get it from somewhere.

but f'real. i think he did such a lovely job. i hope he writes my obituary someday.

oh, i said that.

hurricane ike dawg

i was an evacuee of hurricane ike this past weekend. and i have to say that i'll be a hurricane evacuee ANY DAY. as long as i'm evacuating to the hill country with one sister, one sister's love, one sister's love's daughter, two sister's friends, one cat, two dogs, 19 bottles of wine, 3 cases of beer, 6 and a half tons of food, and a healthy dose of various parent-like family figures.

ok seriously these photos are beyond out of order. im just going to caption them. but i will tell you this: we'll never do an ftg hurricane ike. i think i'm actually doing the opposite of ftg.


the first night i stayed in the 'fish room' and since i was a little tipsy, my mind was getting absolutelyfuckingblown by the names of some of these fish. i mean, not really. but some of them were hilarious.


this is riley. her initials are r.a.d. and that's exactly right. here she is giving a demo on her new found proficiency in all things gymnastic. see, the good thing about her is that watching her exist gives me a reassuring feeling that i wasn't a total weirdo as a child. i too, if forced to sit still for too long would feel compelled to get up and perform a spontaneous backbend. nbd. just had to stretch those limber limbs.


and here is her face. i think her father (my sister's love) is putting the final touches on a machine that will keep her from puberty forever as i type this. at least i hope so. if not he's going to have to hire a personal assistant to keep track of all her dates.



so these are two of my favorite things about going home: spanish moss and mexican food. wut wut! i love you south.


i fear this photo jumps way too far ahead. but you reader, are none the wiser. to you this just looks like some magical southwestern tableau. and that it is, except it's real, not arranged. these are the roots i grow from.


oh hi dog! what's your name? dublin? is that spanish for i'm so beautiful? great.


ok. i just want to try to communicate the comfort, rapture, and love that swallows my soul when my sister makes this dish for me... hmm... try to picture a baby falling in love with a pony and them both weeping tears of joy as they bound over rainbows of light and hills made of money. got it? now times that by 1,000 native princesses all singing your praises in unison.

not even close.



more fish. (lil' scamper!)


another fantastic feature of west texas: once you enter someone's property you have to go through multiple gates to get anywhere at all. it's like fort knox, except instead of keeping people from stealing gold, these gates keeps cows from stealing grass.


what an expansive vista.



this is the river. there's another photo. this is where i took a 2 hour nap in an innertube and nearly got a sunburn. that's about as close to disaster as i came. there aren't any photos of me doing this because again i was drinking and luckily i have the foresight to know (with absolute certainty) that my phone would be at the bottom of the river in about 4 seconds had i brought any closer to it.



i'm not a great scrabble player.



oh. oh hai. oh hai other puppy. you say your name is huxley? shut up or ill eat your feet. it really doesn't get any cuter.



this is my sister and her love. in a fight. she probably wanted to tear off my arm for taking this photo. but i think it was worth it. they don't fight a lot, but the majority of them stem from things so minor that this is what they look like during said fights. totally normal. they could very well be watching the daily show. actually i think they are.

*i'd like to note that it's maybe 11 am. this isn't in any way in reference to the drinks.

**yes it is.

***they're both mine. whoops.



i decided to go outside and take a photo of the quincenera pavillion before my sister tried to kill me.



oh. hai.



this is a post oak. a most missed love of my life. it is such a beautiful tree that is, to me, so representative of my home. if you live in ny, i suggest going to the hill country bbq joint to experience something of this beautiful tree, which they import from the actual hill country to smoke their meat. i work near there and sometimes go just to smell their wood pile.

what did i just say?



some cacti.



the second night i stayed in the pheasant room. i think. at any rate this is only one of many pheasant-centric pieces of art.


yet another glorious vista.



more of the river.


i went on a walk saturday afternoon. i was looking for the barbado sheep that live on the property. can you guess what i'm doing here?

nothing.


another post oak. majestic enough?

also seriously so out of order. please try to follow.



i found this can on my walk in a dry river bed. yeah. i know what a dry river bed looks like. anyways it was the plan to bring it home with me. but that didn't happen. :(


guess what those are.



barbado sheep! oh they were so curious.



these bastards are EVERYWHERE. ever seen the movie ants? it was like that.


and all of a sudden we're back to scrabble on the porch.



and all of a sudden we're not.


this is the best photo of the river. it really captures what it's about. gigantic trees. and rocks. and spiritual purity.



more barbado sheep. a few photos back i was sitting doing 'nothing'. what i was really doing was sitting in the middle of these poor guys' dinner, pretty much forcing them to be near me. sheep whisperer son!





back at the ranch (literally) sunset is too glorious for words.



if you put lipstick on a pig it's still a pig. well...what about a pigfish?



what can be done when your hometown's under water and you can't hold a funeral for your grandfather? wineries. go to wineries.



this sign made me think of eli whitney.




if you ever find yourself in sisterdale, tx go to sister creek winery. it's the best.


the texians' flag from the battle for texas independence from mexico. cheeky.



bye.



give me land lots of land under starry skies above. don't fence me in. let me ride through that wide open country that i love. don't fence me in. let me be by myself in the evening breeze. listen to the murmur of the post oak trees. send me off forever but i ask you please. don't. fence. me. in. (at the very least gimme keys to the gate.)


howdy!



this place wasn't great. at all. i can't remember the name but just don't go there.


maybe the only thing that was good.



SIX FLAGS OVER JESUS!



we were tired of the wineries so we decided to go to a wine bar...


my dad showed up at this point, acting WAY TOO COOL. the jerk wouldn't even take off his sunglasses. PFFFFF.



we had the bug book out for like an hour trying to categorize this guy and got nowhere. cue nightmares.



re-elect? what the...



and of course no trip home is complete without my 3 liter 'medium' dr. pepper from jack in the box.

SIRLOIN RULES!