Greetings from the greatest place on earth! Well, the "greatest" if you have drunk the Kool-Aid and sat through the indoctrination sessions. For everybody else, it’s just Texas.My return to Texas coincided with the death of Lady Bird Johnson. That made me sad. She was always an underrated person. Let’s be honest, she didn’t have the best chances for being a beloved public figure. Following Jacqueline Kennedy as First Lady must have been miserable. How could one hope to top pill-box hats and historic preservation? I am sure she got tired of hearing things like, "Jackie Kennedy was so young and pretty! Everybody wants to dress like her." or "Jackie Kennedy restored the White House" or "Jackie Kennedy speaks French fluently" or "You know, Jackie Kennedy's husband cheated on her constantly and even slept with Marylin Monroe." Well, maybe Lady Bird never got tired of hearing that last one.
Of course, Lady Bird didn’t help herself by digging bar-b-que pits into the White House lawn. Being from Texas is no excuse for being tacky.
That aside, Lady Bird did at least one thing in her life for which I will forever be grateful: She promoted the continuous seeding of indigenous wildflowers along Texas highways. This made Spring the only desirable time to live in Texas and it was truly spectacular. Trust me, when you live in a flat, colorless void, a little bit of natural color goes a long, long way.
Aside from mourning the death of a national matriarch, my goals for returning to the Lone Star State have been attained. Yesterday, the shipping company came and swooped up the last remaining items that I still had in Texas. Right now, they are hurdling their way to Midwestern Funky Town.
Coming back to this small Texas town has not involved nearly the level of unpleasantness than I expected (knock wood). Don’t get me wrong – Any aspect of moving still sucks. Returning, however, hasn’t really depressed me like I thought that it would. It has made me very, very sweaty (Jesus Christ, it’s hot here), but not depressed.
Probably that has a lot to do with the fact that I know that I am leaving. Most of the bad memories are, well, just memories. If I spend a good amount of time thinking about them, they can make me sad again. So, I don’t. Instead, they are just shadows on the edge of my consciousness about a part of my life long since left behind.
Thanks to a Sassy and generous friend, I am staying a couple more days in Texas for social reasons. I had forgotten and/or taken for granted that there were some really interesting people in town. My time with my Sassy friend, in particular, has been great. She even hand-painted a sassy picture for GayProf:
We have drunk lots and lots of wine and eaten lots and lots of food. We also had a ritual viewing of Legally Blonde.
There have been lunches and cocktails with others in town as well. Still, I long for something outrageously ceremonially to mark my departure. Would it have been so hard for the town to arrange a public holiday where officials spoke about my greatness? Or, at the very least, there could have been a parade so that I could dress like this:
Well, maybe that would be a little silly. Clearly that is a winter hairstyle.
Even without the parade, I have discovered that a good number of people in my former town have found CoG. Why is my secret identity the worst kept secret on the web? Oh, right, because I make only half-assed attempts at concealing it. . . Damn it! Diana Prince made it look so easy.
Oh, well. Time to break out the golden lasso and force them all to forget about me. It's more humane that way. They would try to carry on without me, but they would always feel the crushing void of my absence. To prevent them from accidentally being reminded, I have also removed the entry for Center of Gravitas from the library's card catalog system:
Now I shall rest up before my big drive across the center of the nation. I will close, though, by offering what GayProf would look like should he ever appear as a character on The Simpsons:
