Well, Las Vegas finally got to me. I woke up this morning with heartburn and eyes swollen halfway shut.
Actually, wait.
I’m in Houston!
(Got ‘em.)
I escaped Vegas yesterday morning, waking up at 2:45 and exiting my hotel alongside a lot of other people exiting their pop-up nightclub. The earlier hours of the night had been more eventful than expected, a blacked-out man riding the elevator repeatedly up and down, cussing at his fellow passengers before a crashed payment system at the pizza shop downstairs enabled a different blacked-out man to wreak chaos on the line and on the bag of chips he took, popped, and accidentally emptied on the floor. At the airport, I got stuck in a long TSA line ahead of a high school orchestra. They did not play their instruments. That would have been quieter.
I got into Houston yesterday evening, arriving at 5:15 to pick up some pro-NIT handouts for the protest today but finding that FedEx’s paper cutter was broken, meaning I’ll have to go back to Rice today to get them. Between Vegas and Houston, I enjoyed a nice four hours in Austin. Needed that. Once in Houston, I drank four beers and ate a big fish sandwich. Needed that too.
My final theory on Las Vegas is that it can only eat you alive if you stay on the strip. If you’re off the strip, it’s a lot easier to survive. I think that’s what kept me level. Also, if you have something to do while you’re there, besides debauchery, the debauchery’s less likely to consume you. Theories, only theories, but I think that’s why the internal response to the week has been, “That’s all?” Might have been the weather, too. I don’t know if Vegas is Vegas when it’s 45 degrees and drizzling.
Houston is a behemoth, and a city I’m assuming I will never know well enough to fully understand. The area around Rice is nice, this industrial suburb where my cousin lives seems cool. More to be learned today and tomorrow, but for the moment, the impression of Houston is that it’s exactly what people say it is. Both the pro-Houston and the anti-Houston crowds. It’s gigantic and sprawling and there aren’t great attractions, but a lot of the neighborhoods are pretty and there’s plenty to do for fun. Everyone is right. Impression, only an impression, but I think that’s why the internal response to the day has been, “That was nice.” Might have been the weather, too. Hard to dislike a place when it’s 80 degrees and sunny.
Of course, Houston is complicit in the great crime against humanity which is the NCA* *********t, so I hate Houston, and Houston also gave us the Astros, which wasn’t cool of them but does make life better by giving baseball fans a novel enemy with the Yankees so medium lately. Besides that? I’m in favor. Keep it around, ye who control the weather.
