Houston is a tangled commingling of freeways and commerce.  Flat and fat buildings edge the horizon upwards, but quit real quick. It’s like, hey.  Hot and humid, hotels and downtowns, driving in SUVs and barbecue lunches that slide downwards into night.

Salt intake is up.  Lime intake is up.  And the research piece is as pure as it gets.

The best part of research is the first market.  Everything’s fresh, you’re focused, the tricklings of real world needs haven’t yet begun to appear in your inbox. 

I began my hotel soap stash and started indulging with the barbecue immediately.  You work up an immense appetite on the road. 

Unfortunately, it’s not always possible to work out the stress.  No bike, limited time to run, the lure of drink after drink to just de-wire and get to sleep.

 

 

Research usually requires a partner, a second sounding board.  I had a good partner.  A good partner is adaptable.  A busted hotel room or a missed flight isn’t going to cause a meltdown.

A weiner chihuahua freaking on a leg for an hour during an interview isn’t going to break their cool.   

Example of a research partner gone bad:  all complaints and freaking out and comments that get you to stop cold on a New York street and yell, “What the fuck!  Did you just say Aunt Jemima?”

 

No.  But my job indeed was to stereotype Texans:  AND I’M LIKE HEY, AND I SAID HEY, AND IT’S’ LIKE HEY. 

SUVs and this innocent American kind of superiority.  Good hearts.  Cool, calm and collected.  A blend of East Coast standoffishness and Southern cool. And the sweet Hispanic families that make me want to shrink down, put on a Spongebob shirt, blend in and go home with them to play XBox and eat frozen juice pops.

The Houston experience included a beat down hotel ten miles out from the airport, down a twisted highway-in-progress, with a hot tub missing a good six inches of water.  It was a lot of turning around and a GPS system called Neverlost that might as well have been called Getlostalot or Toolatetoturn or MostUturnspossible.

 

Houston nights: lying in a massive and suspicious bed, drinking beers and melted ice water from the ice bucket, texting the most random people in search of human response, typing until you pass out, then getting up early as sin to get back into the humid sunshine, back into the SUV, packing video gear to go meet some fresh souls.

Houston passed in a blur.  Dallas and Baton Rouge sped up and intensifed…