Well. I'm back. Damn it.

It was so nice to not be here. I mean "here" is fine, but sometimes its so here that I just can't stand it. Do you have any idea how many malls there are in Dallas? How many places there are to buy things? how many restaurants? just how much more there is to do there? The downtown is artwork!

My only quibble would be that everything looked the same. Garland, Richardson, Farmers Branch,  The Colony - they were all interchangeable. I never knew where I was.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Plano has a downtown. I had no idea, really. I thought Plano was miles of tract houses and monster high schools and rich kids. I have to giggle though, even in  rich, new money Plano the downtown is awash with tea shops, antique malls and gift stores. Ha.

I came home and kissed my non-Fox and Jacobs/Centex built house. All those houses they built so fast in the late seventies and eighties? Lets just say they aren't aging well. My place isn't perfect but there isn't another like it for miles.

I ended up not having my civil liberties tromped on too much by the airline and my only problem was a slight attack of  claustrophobia when I realized my seat mate was never going to get out of his seat. I felt like a Christmas pear. I had a great trip though, someday though, ideally, I'll stay longer. Its exhausting trying to cram a weeks worth of activities into twenty hours. I slept better there than I have here in months. I don't know if it was because I  was run to the point of exhaustion or because I didn't have to face the clock or because the A/C was set to "meat locker". You would be surprised how nice it is to be cold.

And when we weren't inside the walk in, we were outside in the humidity free heat. It was great! We were at the lake under a pavillion for the meet up for hours and it wasn't unpleasant at all - it was 100 degrees. If we were here under a pavilion for hours we would have all been dead or at the very least, wishing we were, but instead we all hung out for hours. Try that with 80% humidity.

I had no idea I went to school with so many rednecks - very nice, very friendly rednecks but rednecks non-the-less. There were a couple  of the guys that looked like extras from  Deliverance. I know they had all their teeth when they sat next to me in Biology.