You have to play this loud

The last time I was heading to Houston, I wasn’t really looking forward to going. Houston had begun to seem out of reach to me—like so much there has changed, it’s just not as familiar. I didn’t know if it still held anything for me except bittersweet memories (this sounds really dramatic, but… I don’t know what else to say, this just sounds dramatic). Anyway, the first day there, I spent too much time on I-10 (which is now massive, with a billion lanes, but somehow has the same amount of traffic as it did when I left 16 years ago) and at IKEA (they should start a stopwatch when you enter and make you leave before you want to kill yourself). But all the people I encountered in restaurants and stuff, as always, were awesome. The second day, I borrowed my brother’s truck to go run some errands. Even though it was 11am-ish, the sky was midnight-blue-black because it was about to rain, which I love about Houston—when it rains in LA, it’s just gray out, never midnight-blue-black. Then I turned on the radio and this song came on (Goodhearted Woman). I cranked it, and the rain started to come down, and suddenly it felt great to be back in Texas. Even though I was alone in the truck, I yelled, “I’m in!!”