You can take the woman out of Texas...

but you never really take Texas out of the woman. Ever.

I just had the oddest conversation in a Thai restaurant/bar here in Seattle. Three people randomly sitting at a bar, who all went the Texas->California->Seattle route. We all talked to each other, reminiscing about such things as Taco Cabana (who has lived in a Texas city and never once had a 1am moment of loving life at a Taco Cabana eating a roast chicken or fajitas?). But, more importantly, we talked.

White people in Seattle don't talk to strangers. People in general in Seattle don't talk to strangers.

But we talked... about everything from Taco Cabana to Deep Ellum to CHOP to the fun times of living near the Upper Haight. That's a weird set of coincidences to know all of those places. But, even more, to meet people in Seattle who talk to you, they are almost always going to be people from Texas, who ended up in this cold northern city through a myriad of circumstances.

And there's such a comfort in that. That home will always be with you, no matter where you go. There's always going to be some Texan nearby who will talk with you about any random bullshit, be it crappy Tex-Mex, or bars in San Francisco, or leftist activations in a park in Seattle. Home is always where the heart is, whether you left it in San Francisco, or it got left in some crappy back alley off Dirty Sixth in Austin.