Not so Wasted Days and Wasted Nights

I am the oldest by six years. This meant that my summers were spent terrorizing my younger siblings in to playing school, where I was the evil head master and they were disgusting and vile students. I was such a shit to them, they had no choice but to play outside and entertain me because until July rolled around, I was stuck in a backyard filled with chickens, goats, and some cactus...this is downtown San Jose, California by the way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk7uXaNuWNEBut then the end of June/beginning of July would roll around. You see, from the age of 8 up until my quinceanera, I had the good fortune of being shipped to Texas. I realize how ass backwards this may sound...."good fortune" and "Texas" do not typically jive in the same sentence. But to me, this was all I could think or talk about.

My godparents moved to Texas when I was seven years old. They had a ranch about an hour south of Austin. But it might have been hours and hours away because most of my time was spent on that ranch in a town that was notorious for its great pecan...I wish I was joking. But it didn't bother me because I was care free, kid free, and my days were spent watching Mexican smut television and eating my godmother's home made tortillas. As to why I wasn't a tumbler is beyond me. My tummy days came way later. We would take a drive in to town, blasting Selena y los dinos, or some other tex-mex station. One year, at the age of thirteen, I earned my right of passage and was allowed to drive the truck from town to the ranch...I didn't kill anyone...but I did scare the shit out of everyone in the car. It should also be noted that my driving skills come from learning to drive in a monster truck on the solitary highway of Texas....so yeah...

Once in a while when my aunt Linda was in town we would take a trip down to Corpus Christi, where we would try to swim in an ocean but couldn't because of the warm salt water scratching the sight out of my eyes. Also, my aunt and godmother don't swim...so I would have been fucked. Other times we would drive to Mexico, spend the day in Piedras Negras buying candy and eating tacos from the street vendors.

I have spent a lot of summers in other places in the world. But I have to admit, Texas is place I loved to be.