Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Summer

Official summer is two months away, but since we've seen the last of cool breezes at six in the morning, and the humidity is beginning to cloud my already hazy thinking, there is a sense of summer approaching and it will be here soon enough and when it comes the heat will hit us as sudden as a suicide bomber yelling "Allahu Akbar" like a banshee on a Pacific sumatra as he lights his fuse. Ka Boom.

This is the time of year when I really give thought to jumping ship. For the past week I've dreamed relentless dreams about being somewhere other than here. I get up for my 3 AM slash, stumble to the loo whispering, "Fuck. Still in Abu Dhabi." But then that's me. No matter where I go--there I am pissing and moaning at 3 AM "Fuck, still here." And where else would I go, can I go, should I go? New Orleans is gone. For me there was no other city to live in back home and thinking outside the box would be settling for something far lesser than.

I'll spend about ten days in Houston in May. As Steve Earle says, "Houston ain't that bad a town," and he's right. I wonder if the Ima Hogg Theater of the Performing Arts is still home to the Houston Ballet.

And what Houston lacks in red beans and rice, it makes up for in some of the world's best Meskin food.

In two weeks I take Ana Zoiji to Houston, to the United States. She's got immigration fever. She'll get a social security card, a green card and a Texas state driver's license. She deserves to be an American more than I do. She is a member of a huddled mass yearning to be free.

She loves Oprah for Chrissakes (can one get anymore middle class American than Oprah?)--she spells her name "Opera", but I don't correct her because the malaproprism makes a lot of sense.

I only hope we can get her citizenship before George Dumberer starts dropping bombs on her country. Not that there is any love loss between Ana Zoiji and Iran in its current state.
I see a white picket fence in my future.

6 Comments:

Blogger booda baby said...

Helpful Hint #1 for a Tuesday: No, no, don't get seduced by rumors of Santa Barbara. Apparently, people in search of a new place to go (yes. That would have been me) are lured here and, once planted, feel mysteriously obliged to agree with the consensus that it's paradise and other swell things when, really, every day's another chance to say: Fuck. Still in Santa Barbara. Lethargy being contagious.

And Opera's got a joint in the neighborhood.

Just trying to help. :)

7:01 PM  
Blogger Mimi's Pa said...

What do they call people from Santa Barbara anyway? Santa Barbarinos? Santa Barbarians? Santa Barbarbar-barbarbar-anns?

10:15 PM  
Blogger booda baby said...

The mechanics of blogging. Crap. I left this reply on my blog and then ... it occurred to me that you wouldn't KNOW I'd left such a speedy and educational reply. Isn't there some automated SOMETHING? Anyway. Cut and paste always works for me ... drum roll:

Well, they call them Santa Barbarians.

Santa Barbarians like to use the whole nine yards: I'm from Santa Barbara. (Is 'from' a preposition?)

You get to linger over the picture of privilege and pedigree. Evidently, the reward you get for working two gigs to pay for insane rent and higher than average petrol prices.

12:33 AM  
Blogger LisaPal said...

Hey- are you even going to try to make a little trip to see all your old friends in New Orleans??? You can't be as close as Houston without coming to see us!

4:44 AM  
Blogger Mimi's Pa said...

Lisa--yes--we will make the drive to see New Orleans--or what remains of it.

6:25 AM  
Blogger Ebriel said...

Well, Hooray! I like the tone of this post; it's good to face the home country now and then...you can always leave if you like.

My other half has never been to the states, and is for some reason intrigued primarily by - get this - Alaska. I think he'd like to live out some kind of salmon-fishing from a log cabin lifestyle up there. He now knows I'll hang out in the continental US if he decides to live out his fantasy, while we wait for the greencard to go through.

4:11 PM  

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