A very gay Turkey day Pt. 1

I feel:: sleepy

I left for Houston on the morning of the 22nd to spend Thanksgiving with my aunt Carol, my mother's baby sister. I got directions from Mapquest which took me to Dallas (what the hell kind of directions are those?) and then over and down to Houston. It took us about 8 or 9 hours to get to Houston, but Carol doesn't live in Houston. She lives in Katy, which is about 30 minutes down a tollway (which I thankfully avoided through my getting lost).We wound up in Tomball, which is about 45 minutes away from Katy. I had to stop several times to get directions, because, like a dumbass, I didn't think to bring an actual map. So, in Tomball, I spied a Wal-Mart. I thought,"Wal-Marts have maps, right?" I parked the car and left mom waiting while I went in. I accosted the first person I saw who happened to work in the jewelry dept. about the possible whereabouts of a map of Texas, or more specifically, Houston and it's outlying areas. She looked at me like I had just requested directions to Heaven. (I was going to say Bum-fuck Egypt, but every Southerner already knows where that is.) So, she pawned me off on another lady who worked in the jewelry department. Wow, she gave really good directions and thank God I know some Spanish because we wouldn't have been able to communicate otherwise. I walked back to the car holding my sheet of directions like I had just found buried treasure. I was so tired at that point and also my mom was seriously grinding my last nerve, so I would have done anything short of dancing naked in the street to get correct directions. I called Carol and all she could say was,"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING IN TOMBALL?" So, I managed to calm her down somewhat and explain to her about the directions I had just received. She demanded that I tell her in detail what the directions were, so I did, then she calmed down some more. I know this because the cursing stopped. Well, we finally managed to make it to Katy and got lost again. Carol's directions,"Take W. Little York until you see Deep South Road, go left and then drive until you see Tobacco Road. You are not more than 4 minutes away from my house. Oh and by the way, you'll know where Deep South is because they are building a gas station at that intersection." So, I drove and drove and drove and finally wound up at the very ass end of W. Little York. I couldn't drive forward anymore because that was where the street literally ended. I turned around and drove to the other end of the same street all the while looking for the mysterious and allusive Deep South Road. I called Carol again and told her that we were lost. Another round of cursing,"HOW THE HELL CAN YOU BE LOST? I JUST GAVE YOU DIRECTIONS!". So, she gave us different directions and we tried those with no luck. Keep in mind, all the while I'm trying in vain to find unlit street signs in the dark traveling at about 40 miles an hour in order to keep up with the traffic around me, my mother is in full-on bitch mode. My eye was twitching constantly and for those of you who know me, you know that that means I'm so about to click and turn homicidal. I finally got tired of looking for non-existent street signs in the dark with my mother bitching constantly and I was extremely tired after driving 9 hours straight. So, I just pulled over into the nearest gas station and told my mom to call Carol and tell her to come get us. I pulled in right beside this traveling taco stand. It had painted on it's side in bright colors "Taqueria Viajando Para Servir Ud." I kept staring at that sign and at the little man painted beside the text with his hat on. It sort of calmed me. But what was weird is that all of the sudden I burst out with,"Living tacos? Oh, no that says Traveling tacos." (My mom: looking at me like I'm on crack. Vivir=to live Viajar=to travel. I hope you can understand why at that particular moment, I was a bit confused.) As we sat in my car and waited on Carol to find us, my mom kept nattering on about nothing in particular and I found myself digging dark red rows in my right arm with the nails of my other hand. My mom stopped her buzzing/talking for a minute to ask me if I was alright. Without looking at her and still digging in my arm, I said,"I'm fine." She touched my shoulder then and I looked at her and realized what I had been doing to my arm, stopped, and forced a smiled at her and said again, "I'm fine." She then resumed her buzz-talking. (That's what it sounded like to me, just a constant, irritating buzz. Like a moquito that flies around your ear that you can't kill, but you keep slapping yourself anyway in the vain thought that you might get lucky and smash it into your ear or some other part of your face. Gross, I know, but it stops the buzzing.) In response to her nattering, I turned up the cd that was in the player really loud. Not only that, but I began to sing along with it. I noticed that she stopped talking. I breathed an inward sigh of relief. (Gosh, I'm pretty passive-agressive, aren't I?) Finally, Carol pulled into the parking lot of the gas station where we were waiting with her Beagle, Trevor, hanging his head out of the passenger side window. I followed her back down W. Little York. She turned left right at the corner where a Shell station was (Note I said,"where a Shell station was", not "where a Shell station was being built"). I looked behind me at the street sign (which was facing the opposite direction from where we were) and noticed finally that we had found Deep South Road.

We finally pulled into Carol's driveway. My mother and Carol disappeared into the house. I thought,"So, I guess I get to unload all the luggage by myself?" That was fun. We got settled in and the first thing I did was take a Klonopin. A whole one. We were all sitting at the kitchen table where my mom was telling Carol what a trooper I was for driving all that long distance by myself and how stressed out she thought I was. (You know that kind of conversation where you're present, but the people in the room talk about you like you're not?) About 30 minutes later, and after my Klonopin had kicked in and I was feeling blessedly anxiety-free, Carol asked me if I wanted to take a jacuzzi bath. Who am I to pass up such a thing? I got my towels, my cd player and headed for the bathroom. I had to wait a bit for the water to fill the jacuzzi, but when I got in, ....there are no words. I stayed in the jacuzzi for about half an hour singing and just taking a little swim. After which, I put my night clothes on and fell into bed. I can tell you that never in my life have I ever felt so relaxed. When my mom came in later to go to bed (we were staying in the same room), she took one of my huggy pillows away and I didn't even notice, although, I did wake up sometime in the wee hours of the morning wondering where it was and, grumbling, retrieved it. I talked to Gabe the next day and told him about the Colonopin/jacuzzi experience and my resultant condition. His response was,"I think that's about the closest to Heaven you could get."