An open letter to Everything That Is Bigger In Texas.

Dear Giant-Ass Truck In Front Of Me, et al.:

It has come to my attention—largely through your maniacal, potentially homicidal veering—that you are Unnecessarily Huge. If you are unable to make a turn at an angle wider than 90° without swerving a full lane's width out of your way (and into everyone else's), you are Too Damn Big. To be sure, the terrain in a city with a median household income of $93,000 is unforgiving, but after having outfitted my Ford Focus with a bit of technology that I call tires, I find that I am able to handle anything this Wild West town throws at me: lanes, speed bumps—even corners! You can get them at pretty much any store with the word "tire" in its name. There's probably one within a couple miles of you right now. I bet you can even see it from way the fuck up on the eighth floor of that monstrosity you're driving.

You're welcome,

Jake

P.S. My friend Sigmund Freud was wondering if you could get together with him to discuss some of his theories regarding your apparent obsession with size. However, even he thought the testicles dangling below your hitch made the metaphor too obvious.

This may be half-assed, but at least it's still in time for Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Conversation I had with myself on Saturday:

Me: ICANGOTOWORKDRESSEDLIKEAPIRATEFORTALKLIKEAPIRATEDAY!!!!! SQUEE!!!!!
Also Me: Oh shit, no I can't. Even if I had Dad overnight my Jack Jake Sparrow costume, it still wouldn't get here in time.
Me Again: Wait, I do have a couple of eye patches. And bandanas. And a Jolly-Roger-esque eyepatch-skull-and-crossed-swords shirt. And a skull necklace. And earrings. And tattoos. Just like everyone does.

Apparently, the line between "pirate costume" and "everyday clothes" is not particularly clear in my case.

Blas for everybody in the room.

So, the other day, I was at home, cleaning and packing up the living room. I threw on Eddie Izzard's Dress to Kill for some background noise. Also because it's awesome and hilarious and reminds me of how I said like three years ago that I was going to write some material and actually do stand-up, even once, ever. Also, we're moving. Surprise!

There's a bit right in the middle where Eddie is going on about Christmas and Easter. This is where I was when, for maybe the fifth time in the two years we've lived there, there was a knock at the door. Without pausing or muting the TV, I got up to see who it was. For once, it wasn't a locked out neighbor. Or a different locked out neighbor. It was an arbitrary middle-aged Korean couple.

I'm pretty sure the conversation went exactly like this:

Me: Can I help you?
Them: Hello! We're from the Church of Something I Wasn't Listening To, and we've come to bring you a special message about God.
Eddie: Forget peace on earth, I don't care.
Me: Um, ok.
Them: Something about God. Or Jesus, maybe. Either way, it's very special. And it's in the Bible. Can we come in and tell you more about it?
Me: This may not be the best time.
Them: Oh, are you busy?
Eddie: ...squadron of Spitfires, for fuck's sake!
Me: Yes, my living room is full of boxes. And blasphemy.

Actually, some of that may be completely made up slightly paraphrased. You didn't come here for hard news, anyway. I did feel sort of bad because they were so cheerful and not creepy. Except, y'know, for the trying to talk your way into total strangers' houses bit. There's probably a line of creepiness just on the other side of that.

It's like they have some kind of animal vendetta.

A week ago, 1400 new laws went into effect in the state of Texas. First of all, you should be impressed that I'm even writing about it this soon. Secondly, I know that legislators often get a lot of crap for wasting everybody's time and money, but they've accomplished some really important things this session.

Thank God for HB 2189, which legalized hand-fishing, better known as "noodling," apparently. Finally. After nearly a century of waiting, Texans are now free to walk into a river, grab a catfish by the face, and drag it home with them. I predict we'll see a huge social impact as a result of this critical piece of legislation. Y'know, like a considerable decrease in the number of bears going to prison. Or an increase in replantation surgeries. And prosthetics.

Also, you can now pay someone to take you up in a helicopter so you can shoot feral hogs. I guess this is probably important for people who have no sense of morality population control or something like that. It was pretty unfair when the animals had weapons like running and hiding, and all we had was a gun. Now that we're allowed to use helicopters, the world makes sense again. Until feral hogs invent anti-aircraft tanks. Then we're just fucked.

Because usually, Frisco is the Aspen of Texas.

As North Texans celebrate the glorious "cold front" we've been experiencing, let's not forget how completely fucking normal terrible the skiing conditions were a month ago.