Saturday, September 02, 2006

Go West. . . Now What? :-P

Writing from about 40 miles north of Los Angeles. Sitting in Amy's spare bedroom at the end of a fun fun day. Amy's apartment is wonderful, the surrounding terrain is gorgeous, and the barbecue place about a block that way has made me a very happy camper.

The trip here was fun. About the time we should have started boarding, the sky opened up over Houston Hobby, and the tarmac turned into a wind-tossed sea. Albeit a shallow one. Only a minor delay, though. The second the wheels of the plane left the ground, a weight fell off. I'm on VACATION! This is the first trip in years that I've taken by myself for myself. I'm going to have to do this more often!

About the time we reached cruising altitude, one of the two high school boys sitting next to me asked me what I had been reading. I've started George Eliot's Middlemarch and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. This led to a conversation on my degrees, my interest in Victorian literature and the way it explored the social issues of its day, his interest in film, the colleges he's looking at, Myers-Briggs typing, religious faith, and so on and so forth. For an introvert, I sure ended up spilling a lot my life experiences out to a perfect stranger. But hey, I've learned too much in the ten years since I was where he is to keep it all to myself, and he asked me all sorts of questions.

So, Rice opened the football season against U of H today. We lost 31-30. Drat. I told Amy, "You know, something? Rice football is a lot like guys. It's easy pretend you don't care . . . until you start winning."

Amy and I spent the evening watching Brigette Jones' Diary and eating chocolate ganache. Good times. I feel utterly girly. Tomorrow we'll counter this by visiting the La Brea tar pits and the Lego store. That oughta put things right back to normal. ;-)

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