10 Things Texans Take For Granted

In the past four weeks, I have taken two trips down to my home state of Texas, and in that time, I have realized that I took so much for granted growing up there. I'd like to share some of those things with you now, and regardless of whether or not you've been to Texas, hopefully this list will inspire a deep appreciation for this great state in which Beyonce was born.

Spoiler alert: this list is mostly food-related.

1. Kolaches 

Good morning! Here, have some sweet, doughy, sugar-coated bread with a pool of fruit in the middle. Oh, you want something more savory? Great, we'll just wrap this deliciousness over some sausage and cheese. Now you're all set for the best day of your life. 

I don't understand why these bad boys don't exist everywhere. Kolaches should be the most ubiquitous food on the planet! 

2. HEB

Via hillcountrynews.com

It's just...it's the best, okay? I had no idea I had it so good. 

3. Whataburger ketchup

Via kbat.com

Whataburger is everything that is good about the fast food industry, which is very little, but still...shut up. I'll take a Whataburger Junior over a steak from a five star restaurant any day of the week. It's that good.

Texans will never take this kind of burgery goodness for granted, which is why I'm instead focusing on the ketchup. Whataburger's ketchup tastes like a potion crafted by some kind of witch scientist. It is the absolute perfect balance of flavors (tomatoey, salty, smokey a little?) that there must be some kind of dark magic behind it. Who cares? People of Texas, never forget how good this ketchup is. Never. 

4. Cheap rent, food, and pretty much everything

Via craigslist.com

I've obsessed over this fact in the past, but man, I had it cheap when I was living in Austin! Why didn't I use my wrap-around porch more often? Why didn't we roast s'mores in our fireplace? Why didn't I kiss my dishwasher every single morning?

But it's not just the rent that is cheap in Texas. Tacos, movie tickets, gas -- everything is infinitely more affordable. I'll never forget the first time I bought hair ties in New York City. I nearly wept in front of the Duane Reade clerk.

5. Breakfast tacos

This, my friends, is the Don Juan from Juan in a Million in Austin, Texas. I was introduced to it by my friends Michael and Emily. You are looking at a mountain of potato, egg, bacon, and cheese on top of warm, fresh tortillas. This is kind of like an avant garde example of a breakfast taco, but still, you get the idea. Eating tacos for breakfast is something I did throughout my entire childhood, and it never once occurred to me that people in other places don't think to wrap tortillas around their eggs and bacon.

But they don't. I've brought the concept up to some people up here in New York, and they look at me baffled. BAFFLED. Like I'M the insane one! It's become one of the most significant bummers of my life. 

6. The Alamo Drafthouse (plus, all other Texas movie theaters)

Via tbd.com

Look, I know that the Alamo Drafthouse has non-Texan locations, but it is definitely a Texas institution, and you know it. If you don't know what the Drafthouse is, imagine eating a burger and splitting a pitcher of your favorite beer while watching either a newly released film, or better yet, an incredibly rare B movie from the 1970s in a movie theater where talking and cell-phone usage is discouraged and leg room is plentiful. 

That's the Alamo Drafthouse. But seriously, all movie theaters in Texas can get it. Cheap and enormous just the way they should be. 

7. Texas winters

This is me and my husband before we cut down our first ever Christmas tree in Elgin, Texas. Note that at this point in winter, we are wearing light jackets and smiles on our faces. Today, on November 12 in Brooklyn, I woke up to snow and had to ewok-it around town in my hooded puffy coat and boots. I never knew how anti-winter our Texas winters were when I was living through them.  

8. The glorious hill country

Via jefflynchdev.wordpress.com

I mean...come on.

9. Shiner Beer and Margaritas

Via esquire.com

Shiner has made it's way to New York (praise the Lord), but I've seen narry a Shiner Cheer this winter, and I'm starting to get worried. Ruby Redbird was here in the summer, and we all rejoiced, but please, Texas, be a friend and send us some Cheer beer. 

Also, I'm going to say it...New Yorkers cannot make a decent margarita. I don't know what it is, but something is off. Give me a Texas margarita from Chuy's and some chips and salsa any day. 

Man, Texas is so great. 

10. The fabulous people

This is one of my favorite pictures taken during one of the best summers of my life. Scenes like this are plentiful in Texas -- a place where people love their freedom so damn much that they just dance about it. 

But there are wonderful people everywhere, some of the better ones of my life I've met right here in New York, but still, I have got to give it up for my fellow Texans and the many times they have made me smile. 

I'm sure I'm missing something. What would you add to this list?

Back to Brooklyn, Back to Blogging

Full disclosure: I have started writing this post multiple times in the last hour, and each attempt I have made has ended with me deleting everything and then walking to the kitchen to eat a pickle. I have now eaten seven pickles, so I feel like I should probably just shoot straight with you guys.

You may or may not have noticed that I sort of fell off the planet in the last couple of weeks. My last blog post was about how Feelings Friday, something that I invented without provocation, was canceled, so at that point, I'm sure you could already tell that I was pretty much checking out mentally.

The thing is...I've been busy. Really, really busy. Lame, right? I mean, that's really it. Worst excuse ever.

For those of you who read regularly, I am sorry I left you hanging for a while there. I mean, how can you ever trust me again? You can't. Let's be honest. Reading my blog is a little bit like dating this guy:

Sure, he might make some promises he won't keep. He might miss your birthday or leave you in a Denny's bathroom. He's an unpredictable, dangerous bad boy...isn't that part of the fun?

Actually, scratch that. Don't date that man up there. And don't think of my blog as an irresponsible biker boyfriend.

Instead, imagine reading Avoiding Atrophy as being happily married to this guy:

I don't know...I just feel like he's the reliable type. 

Anyway, here is a list of things I've been up to since I last posted. I assure you that I will expand on all of these things in the days ahead.

1. I completed my Improv 201 class at The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.

UCB logo

2. I've also been doing a little bit of stand-up here and there.

Looking SUPER comfortable in a cat-print button-down

3. I went apple-picking in the utterly lovely world of upstate New York.

Photo credit goes to Jess! This is my friend, Clint, and he's basically my brother.

4. I went home to San Antonio, Texas and ate breakfast tacos every single morning. 

5. I spent some much-needed time with my precious niece, Amelie. She is three-years-old and loves spider monkeys as well as talking about spider monkeys.

6. I had a reunion with some of my oldest and dearest friends.

7. I traveled to Austin, Texas and ate this outrageously scrumptious dessert from Salty Sow:

Don't worry. I shared it with my sister.

8. I spent a weekend of wedding festivities as the Matron of Honor for my sweet friend, Emily.

I definitely have more thoughts (and pictures) to share on this one.

9. I wore false eyelashes for the first time and made this face about it:

Anyway, I'm back in Brooklyn for another two weeks and then back to Texas for another wedding. Busy-bee-party-of-one over here, but I will not forget you in all of this. I'll try to make this blog more like the reliable jockey husband as opposed to the flakey biker boyfriend. You'll see, you'll see.

What did I miss while my head was in the clouds the last few weeks? 

Is Miley still doing stuff? I have no idea.

Waiting on a Friend

Today I am going to talk about something that I think is true for a lot of people that move to New York City, or any new city for that matter. Let's start this one out with a song.

This is the Rolling Stones' "Waiting on a Friend", and it is basically my life story right now. Here we have Mick Jagger standing in a doorway watching some ladies pass by. He's all "ooo ooo oo OO ooooo", but you know that is just code for something really heavy that's weighing on his heart. Then he starts singing and you eventually hear him repeating over and over, I'm not waiting on a lady. I'm just waiting on a friend. Then it hits you. Mick Jagger isn't waiting on a lady...he's waiting on a friend.

You and me both, Mick. I wouldn't mind if that friend was a lady, by the way. I'm not picky. I'd probably prefer it.

Let me explain. Daniel and I have been living in New York for almost two months, and we have been having a blast. We've been to museums and zoos and parks and musicals and Coney Island. We are a daily audience for an inconsistently impressive dance show on the Q train. We've eaten cupcakes, ridden on ferries, walked by historic landmarks, sighted celebrities (Clinton Kelly...I had just been watching What Not To Wear before I saw him). This place is great. Listen to Alicia Keys. She's not kidding.

But here's the thing about moving to New York that I hadn't completely realized until we actually got here: when we moved, our friends didn't move with us.

This revelation probably isn't as shocking to those who have moved before, but I don't have a lot of experience with moving, so give me a break. From the time I was born, I lived at the same address in Helotes Park Estates in the same bedroom with the same bunny light switch for nineteen years. The first time I really moved away was college, but I was still in Texas and when I got there they had something called Welcome Week where they basically assigned us lifelong friends. Thanks for the bridesmaid, Baylor bubble!

My wonderful friend Lara and I, freshman year at Baylor.

On my wedding day. The comparison seriously makes me cry. 

From there, Daniel and I got married and we moved to Austin where most of our friends were anyway. I got used to a lifestyle of going out to dinners, having occasional sleepovers, checking in on each other, having real in-depth conversations, and simply doing life with my best friends. I was spoiled.

These people spoiled me rotten.

Now we've moved to New York, a city where I know only a handful of people and none of these contacts are preexisting best friends. This situation has NEVER happened to me. And I mean for that sentence to sound as dramatic as it looks.

When I think about how I even accumulated the friends I have in my life, I realize that I have mostly made new friends with a few older ones by my side. Then I have to think about the first time in my life that I made a friend which was probably in pre-school, and that was probably the result of Tinker Toys or some other friend-inducing toy of the early 90s. Kids are awesome at making friends. 

I know I am getting ahead of myself, and I am absolutely making it look like I am totally socially inept (which I'm pretty sure isn't the case). Daniel and I only just recently joined a church and while I have a job, we haven't started taping yet, so I haven't been around any of those folks. These are very logical places to meet people, and I probably will and everything will probably be more than okay.

The problem (as always) is my expectations. I am seeking in strangers what was cultivated through years of experience with my close friends. I want discussion and honesty and accountability. I want to skip right on through the politeness and primary tension of meeting someone to true, real friendship. 

That's not how life works. I know that. I know I am being selfish in not wanting the work of starting new friendships. The truth is I have been pretty fortunate to have had such great relationships despite my propensity towards over-thinking absolutely everything. And it's not like I am looking to replace any of them. They are still there, though miles away, whenever I need a dose of thoroughly-marinated, real conversation.

Still, as Mick Jagger says:

Don't need a whore
I don't need no booze
Don't need a virgin priest
But I need someone I can cry to
...
I'm just waiting on a friend

My thoughts exactly, Mick. Who needs virgin priests when you've got friends?

WAH would you EVER wanna go THAY-ER: Part 1

Too much to talk about. Long story short, Daniel and I moved from Austin, Texas to Brooklyn, New York creating one of the most epic journeys we have ever taken. We road-tripped through nine states, landed in Brooklyn, bought Metro Cards, and it's finally all starting to become slightly real. There is simply too much to cover in this entry, so I'm just going to start posting pictures.

THE ROAD TRIP:

We left bright and early at 6 AM. This was the last (also first) Austin sunrise 

we will see for quite a while.

  Road Trip snacks (not pictured: Mini Oreos and Wheat Thins)

We stopped in at Shipley's in Waco where we were given the exact donuts we asked for (false) and we got to spend time with the ever-beautiful Kaley Eggers. She really is beautiful as is evidenced in the above picture where she looks like Barbie's friend, Teresa, while I look like Barbie's forgotten sister, Tutti (1965-1971). I had just woken up...

 

                                       Teresa                                            Tutti

On top of her Teresa-like beauty, Kaley also has the most beautiful heart. She made Daniel and I this gift that we will so treasure forever. It will certainly be a part of every home we ever have.

Anyway, enough about how beautiful Kaley is. Moving on!

These are the places Foursquare suggested we go in some small town outside of Little Rock...

No thank you.

Passing through Memphis. 

Daniel got way too psyched about passing by this pyramid. 

So all of that was Day 1. 6 AM to 9 PM. Austin to Nashville. Radisson Hotel. Celebrity Apprentice finale. Room service pizza. Sleep. 

DAY 2

We found this pretty graffiti outside of the restaurant Phat Bites where we ate a lunch of mixed-reviews. Side note: there were so many grossly-named restaurants in Nashville. I loved it. I can't really remember any of them, but probably like...Butt Back Burger or something. These restaurants went for it. 

This is where President Andrew Jackson is buried. We went to his plantation, "The Hermitage" where we were led in a tour by someone who looked EXACTLY LIKE ANDREW JACKSON. I wish I had taken a picture of him, but he basically looked like this.

It's not like he was an Andrew Jackson impersonator. He just worked there. His life had become so immersed in thinking about Andrew Jackson that he literally took on his physical characteristics. That, or our tour guide was a ghost. I choose the latter. He winked at the end and then sort of disappeared....

I know this picture looks like the essence of freedom, but this was actually a field where Andrew Jackson's slaves worked. It was really humbling to be there. The people who worked at the Hermitage would casually mention Jackson's violence against his slaves amidst elaborate depictions of how great he was. That was kind-of-super offensive, I think. Get real, Ladies Hermitage Association.

This might also be a good time to talk about how this is where we met our first New York naysayer. His name was Larry. He asked why we were traveling through Nashville and we told him we were on our way to move to New York City. He looked like he had just seen a ghost (which he probably had because the tour guide was right there) and said, "WAH would you EVER wanna go THAY-ER?!" I was immediately frustrated with this man, but Daniel was super polite. He explained he was going to be in the New York Teaching Fellows Program, and Larry responded with a story about how his son and daughter-in-law had done Teach For America. "Worst. Experience. Of. Their. Lives" Yep. It's always good to discourage someone from making the selfish decision of teaching inner-city children. Thanks, Larry!

After leaving the Hermitage, we drove around downtown Nashville. Fun place.

We ate dinner at the Bluebird Cafe. Really fun. There was a songwriter's jam (I don't know the technical term) happening. The guy with the guitar wrote Eric Clapton's "Change the World" and some song from The Fox and the Hound 2. I'm not sure which one I was more impressed by. 

After this, I was jonesing for something sweet, so in a desperate decision, we decided to make our first trip to Waffle House. We've just never lived where this place exists. We drove up and were almost deterred by this sight: 

Some lady's barefoot feet! She wasn't even wearing uncomfortable shoes. They were flip flops. I was so bothered by this. I hold Waffle House responsible.

Regardless, we ate there.

Proof.

DAY 3:

Sweet potato pancakes from Nashville's famous Pancake Pantry!

Bookstore!

Daniel with a Dragon!

Some kitties in a storefront. Fun fact: my past four blog entries have included pictures of cats, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

We decided to take a little detour in our trip and head to Greece! Kidding. This thing is IN Nashville. Why? We don't know. It cost $10 to go inside, so we might never know.

This is a picture of me on Daniel's shoulders. Why did I get on Daniel's shoulders to take this picture? The short answer is that I wanted to be taller. The even shorter answer is that 

I lack logic. 

This is our departing picture of Nashville taken with the Nashville filter in Instagram. 

Clever, right?

From here, we went to Knoxville, Tennessee to stay with our phenomenally gorgeous and wonderful friend, Lara. 

Lara and I at Aubrey's (it's a restaurant). 

Look, guys. I love this girl. I love her more than I love black olives and Diet Dr. Pepper. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of this, but she gave us the most intense basket of road trip goodies. I can't even talk about it. It was incredible. From candy to sermon CDs to Star Wars toothbrushes, this girl nailed exactly what we needed. We stayed up talking while Daniel did homework (he already had homework at that point!).

DAY 4:

We left Lara, sadly, and then took this final picture which is an homage to the following picture taken our freshman year of college.

AAAAAAAAAAAW! BABIIIIIIIIIES!

We left Knoxville, armed with Lara's goodies, and traveled the long stretch to Pennsylvania.

This is from a crane machine at a gas station in Virginia. 10 points if you know what this is from. Anyway, this is a testament to how severely out-of-touch this town was.

We finally made it to Carlisle, PA to stay with our good friend Clint.

He lives in a fancy apartment, but he doesn't make you feel like a loser if you don't. 

DAY 5:

We said our goodbyes to Clint and headed for New York City. It was business time. We drove the rest of the way, listening to Ted Talks and getting quietly nervous. 

I want to back-track to a picture I forgot to include from Day 3.

This is Daniel at the Pancake Pantry. I didn't include this picture earlier because I wanted to save it since it is the perfect depiction of exactly how we were feeling the entire time. By the way, to fully understand this, you need to know that when Daniel gets nervous, he yawns.

We loved this trip. We saw three of our favorite people on earth, the ghost of Andrew Jackson, and that guy who wrote the song from The Fox and the Hound 2. We will never forget it, but we were full of nerves and excitement the whole time. It was weird because we so wanted to enjoy our vacation, but I think every morning we were just ready to be there already. 

That Saturday, as we approached Manhattan, our nerves calmed to a simple manic excitement. We were finally here. Just look at this surreal image we took in.

As is the case with most all of these entries, I've gone on way longer than I meant to. This was kind of the equivalent of when your uncle sat you down in the '90s and made you look at his slides from his trip to Boise, Idaho. Sorry about that, but if you have any investment at all in Daniel and I, we just want you to know that we had a blast on that trip and we are having an even greater blast living out this new adventure in New York.

You knew it from the beginning. I'm splitting this entry into two parts. Next time, I'll talk about our new, crazy beautiful life. Get ready.