first day in houston

Got up at six this morning to rise with mom and enjoy reading the news with her and drink some coffee before she headed off to her second day of work. I did some preliminary packing, and after mom had left, Larry and I went out for breakfast at Harlow’s cafe. It’s now one of Larry’s favorite places to eat too. It feels strange to eat there because it doesn’t feel strange. Phoenix is no longer contaminated with my associations of my past life there, I associate it more now with moms house in Awhatukee than any of the apartments in Tempe or Phoenix.

I’m still homeless. I try to think of where my home is, and I’m coming up with nothing. Many places I’d be welcomed to live, but no place that is really mine or where I would feel to be at home. Home kind of ended for me when I dropped off Saori at the airport for Germany. The apartment just became housing.

Anyway. Drove back to the house, packed up most of my crap and left some crap behind, including my computer tower, widescreen monitor, climbing gear, and winter jacket. I was hoping to take the jacket with me as rain gear, but it was too bulky and my luggage ended up being overweight so I had to leave it at home. I loaded up Larry’s truck and he drove me to the airport.

About two weeks ago, I left St. Louis with a car full of cat, artwork, computers, luggage, legos, cat crates, kitty litter. The back of the prius was so full I had to put Suki in the passenger seat on the drive up to Bloomington. I’ve sold, donated, and left behind everything, including the car, paring my traveling possessions down to a suitcase, a duffle bag, and a Freitag messenger bag.

Airport was busy, but not insane. Flight was full, only two hours long, so I grabbed the first middle seat I could find between two portly gentlemen who were thrilled that I was a lean little guy. Flight went by fast once we were airborne. Landed in Houston and dad met me at the baggage claim.

It was good to see him. I think he may have lost a little weight since I saw him back in January. He drove us back to their new townhome close to the downtown. The house is really nice. Three floors, each about a 1000 square feet. Really high ceilings, wood floors, granite countertops everywhere, everything top of the line upgraded appliances. Storage space everywhere, but still so much residual furniture from so many moves that it spills into the garage. Actually, its not really a townhome since the building is technically separated from the neighbor by a foot-wide gap. These new luxury developments are really awkward because they’re the first “improvements” the neighborhood has seen. Two car carages filled with Lexuses and Beamers, and the street outside has no shoulder or sidewalk and the edges are deteriorating. There’s been so many new taps on the power and cable that the poles look like they’re out of the Favelas of Rio. It is obvious that infrastructure has not kept pace with the development of the area.

It’s actually kind of uncomfortable since there’s still quite a few streets and properties where the owner has not sold out their little bungalow on a the standard large parcel. Dad’s house is one of four on what looks like a standard plot size out on this street. Because the developer basically built up to the easement of the lot line, probably 10’ from the wall, the third and second floor windows look directly into the backyard and back windows of the bungalow directly across the fence. With the super-high floor to floors on these houses, there’s really nothing you can plant that would block the view of the backyard apart from 20’ mature trees.

Anyway, we went out to dinner at a sushi restaurant and shared some rolls and edamame and sake. The sushi was pretty good. Felt really decadant to order four rolls, even if one of them was a california roll.

Drove back the apartment and watched some TV for awhile before Skyping Tay. Even though I just saw him literally three days ago, it felt good to see him again. Apparently Suki is still waking him up at 6 or 7 am to feed her, goddammit, feed her RIGHT NOW, so he was talking about going to bed earlier when Suki goes to bed so at least he gets more sleep that way. I do hope that they work something out because I really don’t want Suki to be stealing Tay’s sleep when he spends so much time studying anyway.

So much more still to do. Taxes, Typhoid vaccine are on the top of my list. It’d be nice to hear back from the company I’m interning with about what I should do regarding visas or if I even need to get one.