lone star state

I've been thinking quite a bit about Texas recently. Oh who am I kidding - I can leave off the "recently". It seems Texas is never far from my thoughts. Kinda funny, for a state that I left in 2000 and haven't returned to since. I've been away for eight years. That's the same number of years that I lived in the Lone Star state. Eight years in which I grew up, screwed up, lost myself, found myself. All in that great wide expanse of space called Texas.

I still get homesick whenever I drink a Shiner Bock, get a scent of sagebrush, or dream about the prairie. I can't wait to go back one day. The last time I saw Texas was the Dallas skyline through tears.

girl detectives

I just received the sweetest treat from one of my sisters - a vintage Trixie Belden book (The Mystery Off Glen Road). I couldn't find a cool cover shot of that one, so
I just went with the Mystery on Cobbett's Island, which is my very favorite Trixie book. Trixie Belden was a huge part of my childhood. In third grade I found a copy of Trixie Belden and the Mysterious Code in my school library. Read it, loved it, and noticed that it was number seven in a series. My little school library didn't have any other Trixie books, so thus began my sporadic pilgrimages to the closet bookstore (some crappy Waldenbooks-type mall store) with pockets full of saved up coins to buy more Trixie.

I'd already read Nancy Drew, and while I appreciated Nancy, with her dreamy boyfriend Ned and her cute little roadster and her perfect titian hair, she was no Trixie. I don't know how many times I've reread the books now. I do know that I used to pretend that I lived in the Hudson Valley on Crabapple Farm and solved mysteries.

inspiration

It's been a while. I've been lazy. But I have now been inspired to type some words again. And what inspired me? Do you even have to ask?

Conor Oberst.
New album.
August 4.
Tour!
Of course, he's not playing my fair city (why?), but I'm up for driving to Tupelo, Mississippi.