7 Things: Texas-Louisiana Findings (1-3 of 7)

We’re on a mini-trip. Shawna’s parents invited us to their condo in Gulf Shores over the weekend. Yes, Alabama. I know. I don’t know why the fuck I keep ending up living in/traveling in these red states either. It gives me a (super gay) skin rash.

I got behind in my posts again (the horror!) and to keep from getting even further behind, I’m just skipping over my last two posts of my last 7 Things and getting onto this week. And then I’ll go back and finish up the last list, because I know you’re all on tenterhooks wondering what show I might discuss next.

My blog posts lately… life-changing.

Okay, I’ll give you a hint about the next one, since I don’t want your individual butts to get sore from clutching so hard at the edge of your seats. It’s Frasier.

Now, back to this post.

It will be the first time we’ve seen Shawna’s parents since they acted like complete asshats, allowing Shawna’s brother to exclude Shawna from his wedding for a false reason and then feeling it was justified just because he said so the falling out. I don’t know how I feel about it, other than, frankly, not too good. You don’t have to hate or not care about people just because they continuously hurt you, but I don’t know that you have to be around them either. I don’t like feeling sad all the time, and, over the past couple of years, I’ve discovered that the only way to avoid feeling sad when people say or do things is to avoid hearing them or letting them happen. And, unfortunately, the only way I’ve discovered to do that is to just not be around those people, even if they are all of the closest people to you.

This particular bit of drama, of course, isn’t really even my thing. I’m just a background player, which is sadly an upgrade from once being banned from the set. But I do get tired of all of the shit that people dish out. Anyway, the point is, if anyone knows the secret to taking a sucker punch and not getting the wind knocked out of you, please share your secret.

Then tell me if you’d walk back up to the person and let them punch you again.

I mean, for you religious people out there, I know that you count on forgiveness and all, but if you apologize for the same sin for the fiftieth time, at some point even God has to be like, “Really? You’re sorry? Because you’ve said that forty nine times, yet here we are again.”

I mean, doesn’t He/She/Ganesh? <— Threw in my favorite God, just ’cause. Extra arms and a trunk? Shit gets done when Ganesh is in the house. Hindu Power!

But, to make this experience more bearable fun, we decided to stop in New Orleans for a couple of nights. It’s the first time we’ve been here. In fact, it’s the first time we’ve been through Louisiana. Which is weird, because we’ve been all over this region of the country… we’ve been all over most of the country… so it’s kinda excitin’. To pay tribute to the start of our New Orleans adventure, I was going to do a list of the seven most haunted places I’ve ever been, but, after today’s travels, I’ve decided to save that list for another day.

Instead, in the spirit of Demetri Martin, I would like to share findings from the trip, starting with the first three, since I’m behind…

So, here they are…

1 – Just like when you leave Amarillo going west on I-40 and nothing stretches out as far as the eye can see, when you leave Dallas going east on I-20, there is nothing. Then there is a fried pie place, and then a small blip of a town, and then nothing again until Shreveport. For East Coasters who don’t drive that far, you have few opportunities to understand this type of nothing. It only happens a couple of places east of the Mississippi. There’s a good stretch in Kentucky, but you have to be on old highways, not Interstates, to find it, and one Interstate stretch – Atlanta to Savannah.

2 – Louisiana loves their gambling, apparently. So much so that all the travel plazas have attached casinos. Which means that Louisiana travel plazas have that unmistakable casino smell, cigarette smoke and desperation.

3 – The bridge that crosses the Mississippi in Baton Rouge is the prettiest Mississippi-cross in the country. But I might have been skewed, because they lit is up for me. Yes… just for me.

Also, we went to Bourbon Street tonight and walked around. More about it later, but it did reaffirm something for me. Nudity, just for nudity’s sake, not sexy. Don’t get me wrong, when I was a young…er lesbian, I enjoyed an occasional nude lady, though it was never anything to get all swoony over. For, you know, uh, excitement to transpire, the nudey lady had to be doing something. Like, you know, getting reacquainted with her own nudey body or kissing another nudey lady – without doing that terrible porn tongue-dueling thing that is SO not sexy.

Well, tonight, I saw several women in so little clothing, they may as well have been nude. And it reminded me of a thought I had recently, regarding how hot women are in layer wintered clothing.

A scantily-clad woman is like someone giving you your birthday present unwrapped.