exquisite torture

A [wo]man travels the world over in search of what [s]he needs and returns home to find it.
-George Moore, additions mine

When I left Texas in 2002 to take a job in North Carolina, I was more than ready to leave the state. Excepting my year between high school and college in Monteverde, Costa Rica, I had until then lived all of my 23 years in Texas. Of course, it wasn't until I had spent some time not in Texas that I realized how much I loved and missed it. It started with the surrender of my Texas driver's license and license plates and their replacement with ones from the Tar Heel state. Absenceofwill called it first. "You're not a North Carolinian," he said, horrified. Now that's an entirely different issue, but I did find myself oddly compelled to hang the Texas flag on a wall in my apartment. (My aunt theorizes that all "Texans in exile" do so, as part of an unspoken condition of their exile, and challenges me to find an exception.) In the end, it is the reaction of others to my being a Texan that invigorates my pride. Certain bigots nonwithstanding (see my previous post), most respond with a mixture of curiosity ("Do you live on a farm?") and disbelief ("Where's your accent?") when told where I grew up. I think John Steinbeck said it best: "A Texan outside of Texas is a foreigner." And now, as I sit in front of the TV, watching the first World Series game ever in Texas, my yearning for home is that much more acute.

My friend mrsjackbristow (and also the occasional self-declared Mrs. Scott Podsednik, who is, by the way, a Texan!) writes of a similar longing for the Windy City since her White Sox clinched their World Series berth. Writhing with jealousy, she sends me a picture of her sisters and cousin at Game 1. (Now, this shot kind of freaks me out because mrsjackbristow looks just like her sisters, so I thought at first that she herself was there.) I've liked knowing a White Sox fan in this series, as it helps to personalize the conflict, although she and I are way too nice. I had envisioned our talking all kinds of trash at each other during the games, but instead we end up apologizing over IM for our respective teams' scoring. She even told me after the Astros' heartbreaking loss in Game 2 that she hoped the Astros would win two in Houston. I suspect that her desire for the series to go to Game 6 may, just may, be the result of her actually having a ticket to said game. But then again, I'm a suspicious person.

And now on to someone completely different: my friend meggiefreshh (the self-declared Mrs. Jason Varitek--Karen who?), in proper Mass-hole fashion, wouldn't be caught dead apologizing for the Red Sox's successes. Last October I had the privilege of watching with her as her beloved team won its first World Series in 86 years.

We were in Raleigh at the time, and even though the Sox won the championship in St. Louis, she was devastated not to have been in Boston when it happened. (Be assured, however, that she is now, in her words, "firmly planted in the New England soil in which she belongs.") I don't think that I really understood her regret until today.