vacation part II
Here's some more vacationing stories... and what I've learned along the way...
So, I took some time off from work awhile back. I was supposed to drive around the great state of Texas (that didn’t really happen). It was the first real vacation I’d taken in about 5 years. Don’t go feeling all sorry for me. It’s not like I’ve been tied to my desk at work for the last 5 years. I’ve taken some time off from work in the last 5 years, but I rarely went anywhere when I did. I usually stayed at home and cleaned my apartment really well, or went and saw a bunch of movies. I would almost never leave town. My last vacation was a trip to New York. I thought about moving up there for a while, but decided the buildings were too tall, and I needed to see the sky. I came back from that vacation and immediately found my bookstore job, and I hadn’t been on a real vacation since, at least not until two weeks ago. I’ve been back for a while and now that I am back at work, back to the hum-drum of everyday life, I’ve had some time to reflect on the vacation, and life in general, and I think I’ve learned some things about myself…
1) I really like my home state of Texas. No, I am not a cowboy. I’ve never ridden a horse (well, once, but it was an older horse). I don’t own a pair of cowboy boots. I don’t like to camp. I don’t own my own oil well. I am not a John Wayne Texan (then again, neither was he). I was born in Dallas. I have visited the Alamo, San Jacinto, Goliad (Come and Take It!), Washington on the Brazos, (all important sites concerning the Texas Revolution). I drink Dr. Pepper. My dad used to work for Texas Instruments. I am very, very happy for, and proud of the Dallas Mavericks, and would have begrudgingly rooted for the San Antonio Spurs had they won (even though I hate, hate, hate the Spurs). I have eaten ice cream from the Blue Bell dairy farms, I have eaten a steak from the Rattlesnake in Amarillo, TX. I have eaten pastries from West, TX. I’ve been to Marfa, but have never seen the Marfa lights. I’ve been to King’s Ranch. I own a “Don’t Mess with Texas” shirt.
2) If forced to choose between putting in a hard days work, making an honest days wage, and doing absolutely no work, getting to sleep till I wake up (meaning no alarm clock) and loafing around all day, doing whatever I please- well then, I’m going to take the latter option. Sure there’s something to be said for elbow grease, and being a self-made-man, and the romanticism of being an honest, blue collar worker, an average Joe on the street who wakes up, drinks his coffee, puts a sandwich in a silver lunch pale, and takes the train to work, off to “get ‘er done.” Off, to make the goods which make this country great. But I’m not that guy. I sell books to people, and in some cases, I sell books to people who don’t even like reading. It’s not very rewarding. My mornings, while on vacation of slowly waking up, stretching, brushing my teeth while reading my e-mail, and CNN.com, that was incredibly rewarding, and that, my friends, was the life. Unfortunately, that life pays little to nothing at all. See, the way to go about living that kind of life is to come into a boat-load of money… and I’m not talking about a small boat. I’m talking ocean liner sized boat with filled with cash, gold bullion and Exxon stock vouchers. That kind of dough would allow me to lounge to my heart’s content. Yes, I’m pretty sure I would be a professional lounger if I could.
3) I really like television. I grew up on television. I endorse television. I know my endorsement of TV is going to piss off the people at the Parent’s Television Council, and possibly doctors everywhere, but I don’t care. As I said, my last vacation, the trip to New York doubled as a scouting mission, to see if I would like living in the area. A good portion of my friends had moved up to the area (most lived in the New York area, some lived in Connecticut, some lived in Philadelphia- but those places, and friends are but a short train ride from New York, as opposed to the long plane flight from Dallas, TX that I would have had to take in order to visit), so I thought, “Why not move to where my friends are?” I decided that New York was not for me after my first week there. It was crowded, it was loud, it was expensive, it was dirty, they had Lyme Disease to worry about, I couldn’t have a car, thus no singing in the car, the buildings were too tall, no Dr. Pepper, no big skies… The kicker, the exact point and time when I decided I was ready to go home back to my big friendly state of Texas (where I could drive my car into the horizon, underneath the big western skies while singing along to Journey, while drinking a Dr. Pepper and not worrying at all about Lime Disease) was while walking up some random New York sidewalk with my friend Angel Starlight. Walking down the same sidewalk was a shorter, stouter, older lady. Her body resembled one of those blue postal envelope drop boxes you see outside of the post office. I saw her coming at me from about ten feet away. I had already been plenty fed up with the walking traffic of the New York streets (I’m sorry to all New Yorkers. I know you have the same amount of unhealthy pride toward your city as I, and most Texans have toward their state). I joked that I would start wearing football shoulder pads and a helmet and run through the streets, plowing through anybody and everybody, never turning back, never caring who I knocked to the ground, as the New Yorkers didn’t seem to care when they plowed into me. I saw this woman coming toward me. I wasn’t going to change my walking path. I could tell she wasn’t going to change her path. Unstoppable force, I’d like you to meet immoveable object. We barreled head strong, straight into one another. We both stumbled a bit, looked at each other, she gave me an extra shoulder check, as if we were playing hockey, and we both continued on. I looked over my friend Angel Starlight; she looked back at me as if to ask, “What was that all about?” “Angel,” I said, “I hate this town.” So, I wasn’t going to move to New York. That was decided, but I still had another week before my plane flight back to Dallas. I was coming close to being broke in a city where everything cost money, lots and lots of money, so I had to choose my remaining expenditures wisely. On one of my final days in the city I wandered over to the Television and Radio Museum off of 52nd Street. They had a Jim Henson exhibition up, and I thought, “I like Muppets, I’ll check it out.” The exhibition wasn’t much, but I stumbled across the museum’s library, which doesn’t consist of books, but rather old television shows you can order and watch on a small television assigned to you in a large viewing room. The room was half full of people watching old episodes of The Simpson’s and That 70’s Show. I selected a 60 minutes vignette where Morley Safer interviews The Muppets, a couple of old episodes of Sports Night, and I forget what else. I was there for about two hours. It might have been the happiest two hours of my New York trip. Total escapism, which I then decided was what New York, was all about. Most people I know go to New York to see theater shows, to see beautiful paintings in beautiful museum spaces. I, personally, would spend hours looking at lush paintings, intricate sculptures in large, beautiful, expansive museum gallery’s, only to leave the museums to think, “Aww crap, I forgot, I’m still in New York.” The greatest city in the world, some would say, and the best time I had there was watching television, and forgetting that I was in New York altogether. But that was then, right? Surely I’ve grown in the last five years, right? Surely I can learn to appreciate the place that I’m visiting for the differences that the place has from the place where I’m living, right? Waco, TX is between Austin, TX where I was vacationing a couple of weeks ago, and Dallas, TX, where I live. Waco, TX is home to Baylor University, a burned out Branch Dividian complex, and the Dr. Pepper museum. I wandered through the Dr. Pepper museum rather quickly, as I have little interest in how soda is made, mostly I just wanted to sift through the items in the gift shop, and buy a “real” Dr. Pepper, and some sugar cane Dr. Pepper in a can. I felt obligated to buy a ticket for the museum though. So I learned that a Dr. Pepper was initially called a “Waco”, and was indeed created by a real doctor, although I don’t remember his name. I learned that root beer, while having long since been invented, only came to prominence during prohibition. It was sort of interesting to see all the old bottles that the different soda drinks used to be packaged in, but mostly, I was very much bored out of my head while going through the museum. Bored until I found the television that was inset into the wall. The television played about 30 minutes of old Dr. Pepper, and Diet Dr. Pepper commercials. “I want more, more, more, of that Dr. Pepper flavor I’ve been looking for!” and, “Just give me a Dr. Pepper! We want it! Whoa! Just want the doctor ordered!” I sat in the front row of a set of chairs, and watched all the Dr. Pepper commercials, singing along to the jingles, remembering my days as a young lad watching television. It was heavenly. I love television, unfortunately not all people agree with me.
I just looked up some suggestions for television viewing habits for families (kids in particular) as suggested by the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital of Stanford…
- Limit TV viewing to 1 to 2 hours a day
- Do not allow TV watching during meal times
- Limit using TV as a reward for good behavior. Try a trip to the park, a festival, playground, or a visit or a visit to a relative’s/friend’s house instead.
- Watch TV with your child. Talk about what happened on the show. Talk about what was good or what was bad about the program. Talk about the difference between reality and make- believe.
Also, the following stats are from the Parent’s Television Council, a mostly conservative television watchdog group.
- In the 443.5 hours or Children’s programming analyzed by PTC there were 3488 instances of violence- an average of 7.86 violent incidents per hour
- 858 incidents of verbal aggression, averaging 1.93/hr.
- 250 incidents of offensive language, averaging .056/ hr
- 595 incidents of disruptive, disrespectful or otherwise problematic attitudes and behaviors, averaging 1.34/ hr
- 275 incidents of sexual content, averaging 0.62/hr
See, these guys say less television. I say, as much television as you want; and parents, stop letting other people raise your kids, and try parenting your children. TV makes me happy. My family watched TV all the time while eating. My brother and I were allowed to watch television when we got home from school for an hour (which was when the cartoons were on)- then we had to do our homework, and couldn’t watch TV again till we finished… it really didn’t matter how much TV we watched, as long as we got what we needed to get done, done. As a family we rarely talked about what we saw on the TV. If there was something on the television that people might deem unsuitable for children, my parents let us kids make the decision. I remember watching The Elephant Man as a kid. I was freaked out. I went to my mom and complained about the movie the next day. “If it scared you, why did you keep watching it?” she asked. I really didn’t have an answer. I was taught to take responsibility for my actions. And I was allowed to watch whatever television I wanted, and because my parents did a good job in raising me, I wasn’t going out of my way to sneak peeks at The Red Shoe Diaries. I love TV. If I could, I would watch TV all day, while lounging.
4) I wouldn’t really watch television all day. It took 4 days of almost doing nothing but lounging around in and apartment in Austin before I got bored. I was walking around a Lowes Hardware store with my friend Over-Opinionated Girl, when I remembered that I could walk around a Lowes Dallas. I was in Austin. I should be jumping in a river, or eating barbecue, or trying to catch a bat while stumbling around drunk or something. I became highly volatile in that Lowes. It only took a mater of seconds for the transformation to take hold. I was the Incredible Hulk. Just like that, it was time to start taking vacationing seriously. That day I made Theater Guy take me (I didn’t have my car) to the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum, where I bought a shirt, and thus validated my whole vacation. Now, if only I could find that fire in everyday life, where I could say, “No, I’m not just going to sit on my ass on my days off of work! I’m going to work on my resume, and work on my short stories, and go back to painting!” One of these days, that will happen. I am after all in my 30s now.
And that’s what I learned from my vacation: I’m in my 30s now. I should really start thinking about the future. I have loads (not loads- well, loads if your working on a retail worker’s pay scale, which I am) of debt from college. And the metabolism gets slower, and the memory starts to go, then it’s blindness, then death. So, I’ve got my work cut out for me. I guess it’s a good thing I got my vacation in, cause it’ll be 5 years before I get to take another one, and I’ve got a lot of work to do.
So, I took some time off from work awhile back. I was supposed to drive around the great state of Texas (that didn’t really happen). It was the first real vacation I’d taken in about 5 years. Don’t go feeling all sorry for me. It’s not like I’ve been tied to my desk at work for the last 5 years. I’ve taken some time off from work in the last 5 years, but I rarely went anywhere when I did. I usually stayed at home and cleaned my apartment really well, or went and saw a bunch of movies. I would almost never leave town. My last vacation was a trip to New York. I thought about moving up there for a while, but decided the buildings were too tall, and I needed to see the sky. I came back from that vacation and immediately found my bookstore job, and I hadn’t been on a real vacation since, at least not until two weeks ago. I’ve been back for a while and now that I am back at work, back to the hum-drum of everyday life, I’ve had some time to reflect on the vacation, and life in general, and I think I’ve learned some things about myself…
1) I really like my home state of Texas. No, I am not a cowboy. I’ve never ridden a horse (well, once, but it was an older horse). I don’t own a pair of cowboy boots. I don’t like to camp. I don’t own my own oil well. I am not a John Wayne Texan (then again, neither was he). I was born in Dallas. I have visited the Alamo, San Jacinto, Goliad (Come and Take It!), Washington on the Brazos, (all important sites concerning the Texas Revolution). I drink Dr. Pepper. My dad used to work for Texas Instruments. I am very, very happy for, and proud of the Dallas Mavericks, and would have begrudgingly rooted for the San Antonio Spurs had they won (even though I hate, hate, hate the Spurs). I have eaten ice cream from the Blue Bell dairy farms, I have eaten a steak from the Rattlesnake in Amarillo, TX. I have eaten pastries from West, TX. I’ve been to Marfa, but have never seen the Marfa lights. I’ve been to King’s Ranch. I own a “Don’t Mess with Texas” shirt.
2) If forced to choose between putting in a hard days work, making an honest days wage, and doing absolutely no work, getting to sleep till I wake up (meaning no alarm clock) and loafing around all day, doing whatever I please- well then, I’m going to take the latter option. Sure there’s something to be said for elbow grease, and being a self-made-man, and the romanticism of being an honest, blue collar worker, an average Joe on the street who wakes up, drinks his coffee, puts a sandwich in a silver lunch pale, and takes the train to work, off to “get ‘er done.” Off, to make the goods which make this country great. But I’m not that guy. I sell books to people, and in some cases, I sell books to people who don’t even like reading. It’s not very rewarding. My mornings, while on vacation of slowly waking up, stretching, brushing my teeth while reading my e-mail, and CNN.com, that was incredibly rewarding, and that, my friends, was the life. Unfortunately, that life pays little to nothing at all. See, the way to go about living that kind of life is to come into a boat-load of money… and I’m not talking about a small boat. I’m talking ocean liner sized boat with filled with cash, gold bullion and Exxon stock vouchers. That kind of dough would allow me to lounge to my heart’s content. Yes, I’m pretty sure I would be a professional lounger if I could.
3) I really like television. I grew up on television. I endorse television. I know my endorsement of TV is going to piss off the people at the Parent’s Television Council, and possibly doctors everywhere, but I don’t care. As I said, my last vacation, the trip to New York doubled as a scouting mission, to see if I would like living in the area. A good portion of my friends had moved up to the area (most lived in the New York area, some lived in Connecticut, some lived in Philadelphia- but those places, and friends are but a short train ride from New York, as opposed to the long plane flight from Dallas, TX that I would have had to take in order to visit), so I thought, “Why not move to where my friends are?” I decided that New York was not for me after my first week there. It was crowded, it was loud, it was expensive, it was dirty, they had Lyme Disease to worry about, I couldn’t have a car, thus no singing in the car, the buildings were too tall, no Dr. Pepper, no big skies… The kicker, the exact point and time when I decided I was ready to go home back to my big friendly state of Texas (where I could drive my car into the horizon, underneath the big western skies while singing along to Journey, while drinking a Dr. Pepper and not worrying at all about Lime Disease) was while walking up some random New York sidewalk with my friend Angel Starlight. Walking down the same sidewalk was a shorter, stouter, older lady. Her body resembled one of those blue postal envelope drop boxes you see outside of the post office. I saw her coming at me from about ten feet away. I had already been plenty fed up with the walking traffic of the New York streets (I’m sorry to all New Yorkers. I know you have the same amount of unhealthy pride toward your city as I, and most Texans have toward their state). I joked that I would start wearing football shoulder pads and a helmet and run through the streets, plowing through anybody and everybody, never turning back, never caring who I knocked to the ground, as the New Yorkers didn’t seem to care when they plowed into me. I saw this woman coming toward me. I wasn’t going to change my walking path. I could tell she wasn’t going to change her path. Unstoppable force, I’d like you to meet immoveable object. We barreled head strong, straight into one another. We both stumbled a bit, looked at each other, she gave me an extra shoulder check, as if we were playing hockey, and we both continued on. I looked over my friend Angel Starlight; she looked back at me as if to ask, “What was that all about?” “Angel,” I said, “I hate this town.” So, I wasn’t going to move to New York. That was decided, but I still had another week before my plane flight back to Dallas. I was coming close to being broke in a city where everything cost money, lots and lots of money, so I had to choose my remaining expenditures wisely. On one of my final days in the city I wandered over to the Television and Radio Museum off of 52nd Street. They had a Jim Henson exhibition up, and I thought, “I like Muppets, I’ll check it out.” The exhibition wasn’t much, but I stumbled across the museum’s library, which doesn’t consist of books, but rather old television shows you can order and watch on a small television assigned to you in a large viewing room. The room was half full of people watching old episodes of The Simpson’s and That 70’s Show. I selected a 60 minutes vignette where Morley Safer interviews The Muppets, a couple of old episodes of Sports Night, and I forget what else. I was there for about two hours. It might have been the happiest two hours of my New York trip. Total escapism, which I then decided was what New York, was all about. Most people I know go to New York to see theater shows, to see beautiful paintings in beautiful museum spaces. I, personally, would spend hours looking at lush paintings, intricate sculptures in large, beautiful, expansive museum gallery’s, only to leave the museums to think, “Aww crap, I forgot, I’m still in New York.” The greatest city in the world, some would say, and the best time I had there was watching television, and forgetting that I was in New York altogether. But that was then, right? Surely I’ve grown in the last five years, right? Surely I can learn to appreciate the place that I’m visiting for the differences that the place has from the place where I’m living, right? Waco, TX is between Austin, TX where I was vacationing a couple of weeks ago, and Dallas, TX, where I live. Waco, TX is home to Baylor University, a burned out Branch Dividian complex, and the Dr. Pepper museum. I wandered through the Dr. Pepper museum rather quickly, as I have little interest in how soda is made, mostly I just wanted to sift through the items in the gift shop, and buy a “real” Dr. Pepper, and some sugar cane Dr. Pepper in a can. I felt obligated to buy a ticket for the museum though. So I learned that a Dr. Pepper was initially called a “Waco”, and was indeed created by a real doctor, although I don’t remember his name. I learned that root beer, while having long since been invented, only came to prominence during prohibition. It was sort of interesting to see all the old bottles that the different soda drinks used to be packaged in, but mostly, I was very much bored out of my head while going through the museum. Bored until I found the television that was inset into the wall. The television played about 30 minutes of old Dr. Pepper, and Diet Dr. Pepper commercials. “I want more, more, more, of that Dr. Pepper flavor I’ve been looking for!” and, “Just give me a Dr. Pepper! We want it! Whoa! Just want the doctor ordered!” I sat in the front row of a set of chairs, and watched all the Dr. Pepper commercials, singing along to the jingles, remembering my days as a young lad watching television. It was heavenly. I love television, unfortunately not all people agree with me.
I just looked up some suggestions for television viewing habits for families (kids in particular) as suggested by the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital of Stanford…
- Limit TV viewing to 1 to 2 hours a day
- Do not allow TV watching during meal times
- Limit using TV as a reward for good behavior. Try a trip to the park, a festival, playground, or a visit or a visit to a relative’s/friend’s house instead.
- Watch TV with your child. Talk about what happened on the show. Talk about what was good or what was bad about the program. Talk about the difference between reality and make- believe.
Also, the following stats are from the Parent’s Television Council, a mostly conservative television watchdog group.
- In the 443.5 hours or Children’s programming analyzed by PTC there were 3488 instances of violence- an average of 7.86 violent incidents per hour
- 858 incidents of verbal aggression, averaging 1.93/hr.
- 250 incidents of offensive language, averaging .056/ hr
- 595 incidents of disruptive, disrespectful or otherwise problematic attitudes and behaviors, averaging 1.34/ hr
- 275 incidents of sexual content, averaging 0.62/hr
See, these guys say less television. I say, as much television as you want; and parents, stop letting other people raise your kids, and try parenting your children. TV makes me happy. My family watched TV all the time while eating. My brother and I were allowed to watch television when we got home from school for an hour (which was when the cartoons were on)- then we had to do our homework, and couldn’t watch TV again till we finished… it really didn’t matter how much TV we watched, as long as we got what we needed to get done, done. As a family we rarely talked about what we saw on the TV. If there was something on the television that people might deem unsuitable for children, my parents let us kids make the decision. I remember watching The Elephant Man as a kid. I was freaked out. I went to my mom and complained about the movie the next day. “If it scared you, why did you keep watching it?” she asked. I really didn’t have an answer. I was taught to take responsibility for my actions. And I was allowed to watch whatever television I wanted, and because my parents did a good job in raising me, I wasn’t going out of my way to sneak peeks at The Red Shoe Diaries. I love TV. If I could, I would watch TV all day, while lounging.
4) I wouldn’t really watch television all day. It took 4 days of almost doing nothing but lounging around in and apartment in Austin before I got bored. I was walking around a Lowes Hardware store with my friend Over-Opinionated Girl, when I remembered that I could walk around a Lowes Dallas. I was in Austin. I should be jumping in a river, or eating barbecue, or trying to catch a bat while stumbling around drunk or something. I became highly volatile in that Lowes. It only took a mater of seconds for the transformation to take hold. I was the Incredible Hulk. Just like that, it was time to start taking vacationing seriously. That day I made Theater Guy take me (I didn’t have my car) to the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum, where I bought a shirt, and thus validated my whole vacation. Now, if only I could find that fire in everyday life, where I could say, “No, I’m not just going to sit on my ass on my days off of work! I’m going to work on my resume, and work on my short stories, and go back to painting!” One of these days, that will happen. I am after all in my 30s now.
And that’s what I learned from my vacation: I’m in my 30s now. I should really start thinking about the future. I have loads (not loads- well, loads if your working on a retail worker’s pay scale, which I am) of debt from college. And the metabolism gets slower, and the memory starts to go, then it’s blindness, then death. So, I’ve got my work cut out for me. I guess it’s a good thing I got my vacation in, cause it’ll be 5 years before I get to take another one, and I’ve got a lot of work to do.