"The more you let yourself be distracted from where you are going, the more you are the person that you are. It's not so much like getting lost as it is like getting found." ~ Willliam Stafford
Houston. If you've never been there, take my advice and stay home. I'd been there several times before my recent foray to M.D. Anderson. Furthermore, I've traveled a lot over the years for various jobs and I've gotten very comfortable with reading maps. There are only a couple of problems here. The first is that I have a phobia about bridges, overpasses, flyovers...if it's high, I don't like it. The second is that whoever is responsible for making road signs in Houston should be taken out and shot. Summarily.
The first order of business was to find a route from my city to Houston. It's only around 350 miles or so, which is no big deal because I know how to get there without going over any bridges (or any of the other aforementioned high places). Once one arrives in Houston, it becomes well nigh impossible to avoid Loop 610. It's really tall in some places and you're frequently required to cross four lanes of traffic in a matter of seconds because they've decided no one needed to know more than a half mile in advance that people would have to exit the freeway at some point. Thousands of automobiles, travelling at breakneck speed, completely oblivious to the fact that others are on the freeway, too. Or if they do notice, it's because they're having a road rage event. No one is much inclined to cut anybody any slack.
We decided to forego the Loop and all of the other freeways in Houston. The shocking thing is that it can be done. We located a small road that used to travel the outskirts of the city, but it ended up in the heart of downtown. There were just a few twists and turns which were not marked on the map at all. Arriving in the heart of the city was one of the many day trips to hell I endured during the three days I was there. Streets fork and, not only do they not warn you in advance that it's going to happen, they don't even put street signs up so you have any hope of knowing if you're on the road you're supposed to be on. There's no way of telling the name of the streets that intersect. Some streets are one way, then a two way, then a one way again. What the fuck were these people doing when it came time to order street signs? Do the guys in Houston have some stash of LSD left over from the 60's? I could go on and on about this...and I may again at some point, but I have too much to cover to get obsessed over it now.
We finally arrived at our hotel at around 9:00. We'd gotten into the city around 6:00, but we aimlessly drove around, hoping to get a clue as to where the hell we were at any given moment. Having arrived at the hotel, we breathed a big sigh of relief, then we made the fatal decision to go out for dinner. We hadn't eaten since early that morning and I knew that not eating was not an option. Off we went, I tried to stay on the same road because I thought if we went in a straight line, there would be no problem getting back.
We ended up eating at a Sonic. Just typing it here depresses me, but even more depressing is the fact that we were thrilled. Foot long hotdogs--after not eating for 12 hours, they start looking pretty damn good. By 9:45, we were on out way home.
At 10:30, we were still on our way home. Streets kept branching off and, even if there had been street signs, we wouldn't have been able to read them because Houston city officials apparently don't think installing adequate lighting is a requirement. I just drove. I doubled back a couple of times and my mom was giving me a hard time about the number of times we'd been by the same Sonic. Suddenly, miraculously, we were on the right street. To this day, I can't figure out how that happened.
The real fun began the next day.
America held hostage day 1390
Bushism of the day:
"You know, let me talk about Al Qaida just for a second. I made the statement that we're dismantling senior management, and we are. Our people have done a really good job of hauling in a lot of the key operators. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Abu Zubaida. Ramzi--Ramzi alshibh or whatever that guy's name was."
—Bush, at a July 30 press conference
Source: Washington Post, July 30, 2003
Website of the day: Center on Policy Attitudes
http://www.policyattitudes.org/
