The horror, the horror!

Suggested Soundtrack: "Sheep go to Heaven" by Cake



A full week in, and I have much to report.

Went on my first bike ride. It was a resounding failure that shook my nerves to the core and prepared me for other soul-crushing attempts to do like I did in San Diego. The Walgreens is a half-mile away and I decided to do an early evening ride to get some essentials. It was hot out, and sticky, but I kept a shirt on just to protect my God-fearing neighbors from the sight of my half-naked body. Good idea, as it turns out. The amount of bugs out here is unbelievable. I remember once, riding in SD, getting a bug in my mouth. Once. Flash back to Texas, where I had eaten three mosquitos before I even got out of the driveway. The faster I went, the more hit me, and the greater their velocity. It kinda stung. Furthermore, the layer of sticky sweat that built up on me after the first 30 seconds meant that the bugs didn't just hit, they stuck. Too late now, though. I had my iPod going and by golly I was gonna ride to the damn store! Head down, smacking my arms in a constant rythym to kill the bloodsuckers that adhered to my skin, I pushed on. Braving roads with drivers who, judging from their slack-jawed glances, had never even SEEN a bicycle before, I make it to the store to discover, but of course, there no bike rack. I have no idea why I didn't anticipate that. Well, I have one idea why: I am obviously a moron who is out of his element. I chain to a tree. Shopping is without incident. This Walgreens is almost exactly like a California Walgreens, except that everyone is slightly nicer, and they sound funny. Finished, I go unlock the bike. As I mount my bike, the unmistakable feeling of a bug stuck to my leg makes me pause to smack it. In doing so, I realize that both of my legs are covered in ants. One hundred ants. Red ones. What followed was probably pretty funny for spectators: I hop off the bike, dancing around the parking lot, slapping myself in the legs while letting out an unbroken stream of curse words that would make a sailor blush. All the while with cheery music from ELO piped into my head from the iPod. Once the slaugher was finished, I rode home (more of the same: pedal, pedal, smack, pedal, pedal, smack), went inside and relayed my story to the Martin family.

"Better hope those weren't fire ants."

But guess what?



They were. Not pictured here are the yellowish pustules that form during day two, which, if popped, can become infected. Good times!

Lesson learned: bike riding is for fair weather and friendly towns, which is to say, not anywhere around here.

Another one for the "Why doth Texas hate me so?" file:

Apparently my method of self-cleansing hasn't hit central america yet. When I came to visit in June, I brought my toiletries, including my loofah thing which, when teamed with body wash, provides me with squeaky clean skin that is soft to the touch and pleasantly aromatic. No one here had heard of it. There was only a few questions on that visit, nothing rude, you see. I found out that they were being nice so I would move out here. For as soon as I had arrived, the mother of the household asked, in a well-aren't-you-a-little-nancy-boy-tone, "Did you bring your LOOFAH?"

I replied, somewhat taken aback, that I had.

She just laughed.

Next day, same thing with my friend Mike's wife. "Did you bring your LOOFAH?"

And she laughed.

I still haven't figured out how they clean themselves here in Texas, and frankly, I don't care to. The fact is that two women insulted me for loofah use, and I am still recovering. Oh, loofah, scrub my pain away...

On the job front, I'm officially an employeee of Countrywide Financial Corporation (CMC), meaning I have been issued a cubicle, a computer and printer, some drawers, a phone with a nifty headset, an assortment of pens, one small and one large pad of paper, various useless handbooks telling me whose ass I am not to grab or even comment lewdly upon and, most exciting for me at least, my very own Employee Identification Badge.



It has a tiny little picture of me on it, distorted by the computer's printing process, and it allows me to access areas by holding it up to a card reader. I feel like James Bond, smartly dressed, going into headquarters. Except that I can't kick anyone's ass, I'm dressed in business casual, and "headquarters" here would refer to a room the size of a football field with cubicles stretching from wall to wall. But still pretty cool. Kinda. But not really.

I'm really nobody here. It's kinda weird. There's probably six people in the office that know me by name, half of those only because I work under them so they're required to. I walk around, and everyone just nods at me, if anything at all. It's not like I'm not trying to meet people. The setup here makes it difficult. My cube is adjacent to two others (I have a coveted corner cube), and my neighbors consist of one pretty cool guy and one mindless dolt who talks to himself ALL OF THE TIME. Really. A tiny little version of Milton from Office Space, right next door.

This is getting a bit wordy, so I'll go for now.

Next time I'll telk about more Texas oddities, and the effects of being invisible...