In Which We Texas, Just a Little

 

Yes indeedy, I have returned to the swampy embrace of Houston, my childhood home. I tell people I am originally from Houston, that is a lie; in reality, the nasty little suburb I grew up in is about 2 hours east of where I am now.  That's okay, it's all Houston.  I managed to escape the Gulf Coast of Texas 49 years ago, but my family still refers to my trips back here as "coming home".  Bitch, home is California, and 10 minutes on a Houston freeway makes me glad of it.

But I AM looking forward to Mexican food and some excellent barbecue. 

To be fair, there are moments when the old place can be charming.  It had been cloudy and rainy all day before I got here which helps ameliorate the hellish temps that are the norm in August.  I was in a good mood and prepared to be charmed so I walked over to a particularly fine donut shop and the air was soft, balmy in fact, with a little breeze. 

The particularly fine donuts are about a block away from my hotel.  I say "about" because the hotel is literally surrounded on all sides by parking lots.  There seems to be a nominal street that wanders through them, but it is very difficult to discern.  The easiest way to access the hotel is to just plow through some random parking lot.

I'm very fond of this hotel, it's attractively decorated with an actual sense of humor. And they have delicious deviled eggs in the dining room. 

The look is very plush with lots of velvet and marble and brass.  It's a design that says "I only employ the very finest hookers." 

The view from the balcony includes some of the ubiquitous parking lot, the lush green, perfectly flat landscape off in the distance, and of course, the freeway, all 18 lanes of it.  Eighteen.  Lanes.  Eighteen. Motherfucking. Lanes.

The bathroom is absolutely enormous, bigger than my bedroom at home, with the toilet discreetly enclosed in its own room.  What simply enchants me is:

A small room that opens off of the toilet.  It's finished with fancy tile work, attractive wallpaper,  and a small piece of art, but it has nothing else in it.  It has no apparent function, it's only about 8 feet wide and is, let me repeat, completely empty. I have no idea what's going on here.  Maybe it's where you send the hookers when they've been bad. 

I wish room service would send up some hookers that look like this:

I think he would look lovely in the little empty room.

The always welcome Nicolo Neri

How come some other grumpy old man gets to have this in his hotel room and all I get is the Mystery Chamber?

I have a nicer bathroom than that, even if it does not come equipped with muscle pussy.

I can already tell the Little Empty Room is going to weigh on my mind.

Where were these guys when I was a little baby gay trapped in Texas?

In which we lose a bet

 

Well that was stupid.

As I mentioned in the last post, I high-tailed it off to Houston for my high school reunion. I got there, checked into the most hilariously glamorous room I've ever seen in a hotel, and settled down to the very demanding task of visiting with my family.

I love them, I do, but they are very high maintenance.  This trait I have for long meandering stories apparently is genetic because all of my nieces and nephews have it too.  Plus they're much louder than me.  You get all of this around one table and it sounds like urban warfare. My niece Willow and her son came in from Phoenix and my other niece Amber came down from the far northern reaches of Texas. Plus I have yet another niece and a nephew living in Houston along with my older brother.  It was quite a gang.

Everything was going swimmingly.  Diane von Austinburg blew in and was an immensely welcomed respite from my lunatic blood relatives.  I've mentioned before I take pain medicine every day.  Instead of pills, it is a small piece of tape that I cut into eighths, tiny, tiny little bits. I take one of the little bits twice a day.  I had been taking them regularly and then Friday morning I opened up the medicine minder box I carry and discovered five of the pieces were gone.  I only had two doses in the box, enough for Friday and that was it.

I have no idea what happened to those goddamn itsy bitsy pieces of tape which are all that keeps me from being crippled.  I flailed around all day Friday trying to replace them.  My pain doctor turns out to not be able to prescribe controlled substances outside of California.  Great. My regular doctor was out of the office for the weekend.  Great.  I went to the very nice emergency room a couple of blocks from the hotel and discovered ERs cannot prescribed opiates either.  Again, great. I appreciate how all the pharmacies and doctors and nurses I spoke to never took the position that maybe I was a junkie trying to just cage extra meds off of them.  

And so yesterday afternoon I just surrendered and decided to come home early, this morning in fact.  Perhaps you remember in the earlier post how I sniffed at Diane's joke that she was taking bets that I wouldn't make the reunion.  How very galling to now have to admit that I lost that fucking bet.

On the other hand the flight back this morning had those seats that recline fully into beds and so I was able to sleep most of the way here.  It is the only way to fly.

Naked men welcome me home:

I'm too tired from traveling to make up snappy lines about these guys; you get the idea.

So glad to be home.

In Which We Reunite

 

See, if you graduate from a high school (and I did, despite evidence to the contrary.  I really did.) and then subsequently you don't die, you run into the inevitable high school reunion.  Thus, my 50th one is coming up this weekend so I am returning to the swamps of my youth to celebrate it.

I have mixed emotions about the entire affair.  Diane von Austinburg knows me so well she is already making book that I will duck out and just not go.  If you want in on that action you'll have to take it up with her.  Another old friend warned me the reunion has all the ear markings of a hostage situation.  Her advice?  "Keep the motor running."

Pooh, I say.  I escaped the grimy little town I grew up in once, I can do it again.  Plus I'll be able to visit with my family while I'm there, including my niece Amber, who's always good for a laugh.  If that's not enough high times, I'm planning to visit the cemetery where my great-grandparents, grandparents, and sundry other relatives are enjoying being dead. 

Lastly there are the twin pillars of the real delight of visiting Houston, really good Mexican food and really good barbecue.  Now we're talking.

Guys with whom I wish I was reuniting:

The entirely too flexible Trevor Adams.

Do you remember the guy last week with the extreme farmer's tan?  Here he is with his suntan more under control.

Diego Reyes is also good for a laff.

Some joke about arrows, I don't know, fill in the blank.

Paulo Victor Melo and his Ass of Death

So serious.  Lighten up, baby.

The hotel where I'll be staying closes their pool at sundown.  Fatheads.  I love swimming at night.

And in conclusion, Letterio Amadeo