Texas: Gracious People, A Good Shirt, and a Little Bless Your Heart

Some people think I must be extroverted to take a trip like this, where I meet a lot of people from the blogosphere and beyond. I’m actually an introvert. If I had a lot of money, I’d likely live in some hut on an island, and spend my days lolling in sunshine and obscure thoughts. I’d also write terrible poetry and talk to myself a lot. It’s probably a good thing that I’m poor. I know it’s a good thing that I’m on this trip, because I’ve met some amazing people, who make the world feel like a warm, welcoming place.

I arrived in Dallas on January 3, where I was invited to lunch with Donna McLallan of GM and her PR team from Fleishman Hillard.  Donna arranged for me to join her for a tweet-up in Flower Mound with her blogging friends Allie Van Wagoner, Andie Smith, Holly of Burbmom.net, Sarah Solomon, and several others. Bruce Nunally was also there — he’s been a friend since the start of my journey, and it was great to finally meet him in person.

The Texas leg of my journey was about self-improvement. I got a jump start in Dallas at the Park Plaza salon in the Preston Center, where colorist Scott and stylist/makeup artist Cassie did what I could never do on my own, which is give me a style. I was weary of highlights, but the way Scott did it makes the color look natural and bonus — my gray is gone. Cassie taught me some makeup tips, and how to keep the new style she gave me with a round brush and a hair dryer. I haven’t perfected those techniques yet, but at least I no longer have that godawful styled-by-CNN look going on.

Friends, of course, are supposed to tell you when you look bad. Most of my friends don’t.  They just let me walk around in hideous clothes. Not so with Laura Jayne, who called me from New Mexico to tell me to get rid of a sweater which, she said, looked like a Goodwill buy from ten years ago. I vehemently disagreed — I bought it from Kohl’s and it’s been my favorite sweater for only the last five years. However, when my Texas host, Dr. Nancy McClellan, offered to throw it away for me — now — I got the hint. The brown sweater is history.

Nancy is a chiropractor who also specializes in acupuncture.  We traded services — a massage for a chiro treatment — and it was the first time I’ve been able to practice those skills in a couple of years. I really liked being a massage therapist — it was nurturing and soothing, and gave me an excuse to play Mike Oldfield’s Voyager CD all day — but I didn’t like not being able to pick my clients, or the varied hours, or the high cost of rent. I kind of had a fear of chiropractors before Nancy, but her treatment was gentle and my back felt great after the adjustments she made.  As an aside, I found Nancy’s beliefs interesting — not just because they’re different than mine, but because she’s as calm, affable, and kind as her belief system promotes. She’s a person who lives her ideals, even if they are out there on the periphery.

My new tweet-up friends, Allie and Andie, attended the Detroit auto show with me. They’re very much like that married TV couple, Lucy and Ricky, but they’re both straight women married to other people. Allie is constantly getting into trouble — including spilling her luggage (and her banana pj’s from “The Walmart”) in crowded lounges, and messing up the settings of her fancy-ass camera — and Andie (who looks like Jodie Foster’s sister in person) is always there to bail her out. The two of them together are hysterical. Allie has an obsession with Walmart and Dr. Pepper, and Andie is a gifted photographer. They taught me that “well, bless your heart” is Texan for “I don’t think I like you very much.” I’ve graduated from Texas Euphemisms 101, but I still can’t figure out why they foisted George W. Bush on the rest of the country. Maybe they were blessing our hearts.

After Dallas and my short trip to Detroit, I moved onto Houston, where I met blogger Erica Mullenix and her children, Jordan, Jon Alex, and Ehren. Erica horrified me with a story about about her daughter’s near death at the hands of a babysitter. Jordan was 11 weeks old then, and is 15 now. The years in-between have been filled with challenges and therapy appointments, but you’d never know that by talking with Jordan. She’s a very sweet girl, and filled with love for others — a quality she obviously gets from her mother, who made me feel like a part of the family almost from the time I met her.

While I was in Houston, I also met with Lindsay Aronstein, who owns the only Rebecca & Drew store outside of New York. If you haven’t heard of them before, their specialty is women’s blouses — and they make the only ones I’ve found that don’t gap or pull between buttons, which is what happens to women who have a chest. Lindsay was a pharmaceutical representative for several years before deciding to open her own business. She’s passionate about the Rebecca & Drew line, and was a big fan of their products before she bought the franchise. We talked about our mutual appreciation of corporate independence, and how important it is to love what you do for a living. We also talked about weight. Lindsay is in great shape, but she works at it daily. Her husband is in the process of trying to get fit. She shared their personal trainer, Shaun Eckhardt, with me. She also gave me the only really good shirt in my wardrobe. You’ll likely be seeing a of it in upcoming photos.

I went straight from Lindsay’s shop to Shaun’s fitness center (and yes, he also models–can you tell?) Normally, I find the whole weigh-in/discussion process a little depressing. That wasn’t the case with Shaun. He was knowledgeable and matter-of-fact, but most of all sincere. He gave me nutrition advice and an exercise schedule to follow while on the road, and I’m going to follow his program religiously. I suspect, judging by his other clients, that the program will work if I do.

I’m in Austin now, but haven’t yet made the trek out to see the city. I’ve been working on my book, and on scheduling the next states I’ll visit, which include Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and Illinois. The Southern states are hardest for me because the fewest amount of my readers are from there, and I don’t yet have hosts lined up. That’s hard on a meager budget, but it wouldn’t be a journey across America if I skipped these story-rich states.

Speaking of budgets, I am down to two cups of coffee a day. I’d be proud of me for shaking (somewhat) free of the caffeine devil, except that I have a new addiction called Vitamin Water.  Connie Burke from GM got me addicted to this in Detroit, and as hosts like Chrisy can attest, I don’t even like water. It tastes like dirt and chlorine to me. Vitamin Water doesn’t taste like water, and that’s a good thing.

True story: While driving in Austin, I passed this woman on I-35. Her sign said “Standing on my last leg.” And she really was. I gave her a bottle of Vitamin Water and the change in my pocket — about eighty cents. She said “well, bless your heart”.

Tagged as: Road Trip Stories, Texas