Houston IT Drone

There were good waves in Saint Augustine last week. I was looking at them on the internet from my hotel room in Houston. Yuck, Houston sucks. Actually, it's not that bad if you like restaurants, skyscrapers, and big highways. I took a walk one night just to get myself moving around. The cars were blasting past. It was just me and the Mexicans on the sidewalks. I stopped into a grocery store to get some stuff I like to eat and then I was really a legitimate member of the lower class, carrying my plastic grocery bags down the sidewalk, taking a rest on a bus stop bench. All I needed to complete my initiation was a package of off-brand cigarettes in the pocket of my shirt.

It was actually restful, in a strange way, to be disconnected from the transportation grid and on my own. There was a skyscraper with a fountain in front of it, and I realized that I could cut across the lawn and sit next to the fountain if I wanted. I didn't though, because it was too damned hot. The heat drove me back into my hotel room where the television was waiting. Most everything on television makes me sick, but I'm usually too weak to resist. To make the experience more tolerable, I like to flip through the channels that are not on the menu. You can find strange things there sometimes, such as snowy porn on channel 65. This is doubly valuable. One, because snowy black-and-white images make me nostalgic for my pre-cable childhood, and two, because the porn is bad and the people not at all attractive. Without the low-fi reception, it would be unwatchable. The experience is not arousing in the least, but I feel reassured by the sight of these people's blurry, abstract pursuit of sexual pleasure. At least someone, somewhere, is having a good time.