It's pouring here.
For the first 25 years of my life, I lived in Phoenix, Arizona. I didn't even travel beyond the Southwestern United States until I was 22, and even then, it was only a month here, a few weeks there, in between semesters.
Now, I've graduated, married, and for the past 6 weeks I've been living in Dallas, Texas.
Texas is big. This, I knew beforehand. What I didn't know, was the myriad ways that its size is expressed.
First, you have the obvious - that it's a huge state. Over half the trip from Arizona to Dallas was just going through Texas.
When I got to Dallas, however, I realized that things are still big. The metropolitan area I'm in is what they call the DFW Metroplex. Dallas, Fort Worth, and I think sometimes Denton are the major cities in this area. It's like having two Phoenixes at approximately New River and Chandler, with satellite suburbs around and in between, and a mess of freeways connecting it all (sometimes with toll roads).
Then, I get to my neighborhood. The closest grocery store is about half a mile away, but the next-closest ones to that are about 2 miles away. Plus, there's a couple lots of ranch land not 2 miles away from here, yet half a mile from that is back to suburbia with major grocery chains, restaurants, clothing stores, a wig store, and a store called "Paint Yer Pottery". It's like suburban ranch land mixed with apartments and what I'm used to thinking of as suburbia. If you go the back-way to places, it's like a half-countrified green suburbia, but if you take the major roads, it's more of the usual suburbia with strip malls and such, yet sometimes even in between intersections you get large spots of undeveloped land.
Speaking of ranch land... it's green. Not yellow-green like the naturally-growing Phoenix grass, and not expensively-imported green like Scottsdale. It's just green, and it grows.
The weather is also different. Phoenix is a desert. Dallas is not. We get random rain that pours down... the kind of rain you see in movies, where everything is pouring and wet, and beautiful. Cracking thunder. And no pre-rain dust clouds.
I'm also living in an apartment, for the first time in my life. It is... different, smaller. Though I suspect that just about any new place, whether it be an apartment or even another house, would still have differences. Room by room, though, I'm getting things more home-like.
Married life is good. While we were engaged, Ariel and I attended a seminar on relationships and such. The rabbi who was speaking mentioned how people are afraid that when they get married, they'll change into completely different people. He said "When you're married, you don't change. You're still "you" - you're just a married "you"." So far, it's proven to be true.
Now, I've graduated, married, and for the past 6 weeks I've been living in Dallas, Texas.
Texas is big. This, I knew beforehand. What I didn't know, was the myriad ways that its size is expressed.
First, you have the obvious - that it's a huge state. Over half the trip from Arizona to Dallas was just going through Texas.
When I got to Dallas, however, I realized that things are still big. The metropolitan area I'm in is what they call the DFW Metroplex. Dallas, Fort Worth, and I think sometimes Denton are the major cities in this area. It's like having two Phoenixes at approximately New River and Chandler, with satellite suburbs around and in between, and a mess of freeways connecting it all (sometimes with toll roads).
Then, I get to my neighborhood. The closest grocery store is about half a mile away, but the next-closest ones to that are about 2 miles away. Plus, there's a couple lots of ranch land not 2 miles away from here, yet half a mile from that is back to suburbia with major grocery chains, restaurants, clothing stores, a wig store, and a store called "Paint Yer Pottery". It's like suburban ranch land mixed with apartments and what I'm used to thinking of as suburbia. If you go the back-way to places, it's like a half-countrified green suburbia, but if you take the major roads, it's more of the usual suburbia with strip malls and such, yet sometimes even in between intersections you get large spots of undeveloped land.
Speaking of ranch land... it's green. Not yellow-green like the naturally-growing Phoenix grass, and not expensively-imported green like Scottsdale. It's just green, and it grows.
The weather is also different. Phoenix is a desert. Dallas is not. We get random rain that pours down... the kind of rain you see in movies, where everything is pouring and wet, and beautiful. Cracking thunder. And no pre-rain dust clouds.
I'm also living in an apartment, for the first time in my life. It is... different, smaller. Though I suspect that just about any new place, whether it be an apartment or even another house, would still have differences. Room by room, though, I'm getting things more home-like.
Married life is good. While we were engaged, Ariel and I attended a seminar on relationships and such. The rabbi who was speaking mentioned how people are afraid that when they get married, they'll change into completely different people. He said "When you're married, you don't change. You're still "you" - you're just a married "you"." So far, it's proven to be true.