My apologies to my several million readers — in my last entry I promised that I had cracked the code, solved the great mystery of the universe, created a unified theory of physics, found the G-spot, etc. All that is true, but I also said I would be taking down this site and replacing it with something else, and I am going to do that, but first, an update.

I just got back from Texas, and I’m still processing, but it was a very productive trip in that: 1) I drove all over the eastern two thirds of the state (plus half a day in Louisiana just for the hell of it) and got a really good feel for the lay of the land; and 2) I got a good-paying job managing a small farm.

So I’ll be moving in a few months, timing my move to minimize heat stress for my animals. This will give me the foothold I need to get established in Texas while I look for my own place. My new employer understands that my goal is to set up my own farm, as opposed to running his for the rest of my life, and he’s good with that. It’s a rare opportunity brought to you (well, to me) by a massive nationwide labor shortage that I don’t fully understand, but I guess with anything that doesn’t make sense these days you just say ‘Covid’ and everybody accepts that as a viable explanation. These are strange times — a tad dystopian, even. Still, I have job offers all over the country, having made almost no effort to find prospective employers. I never even made a proper résumé. So for anyone reading this who needs work or wants a better job — now’s the time. I can’t think of any time in my life when it has been easier to find work.

Having said that, nothing is ever set in stone, and I haven’t started the job yet. Things could get screwed up — things often do — but if that happens I’ll still move. It might just take a little longer. And now I have a short list of places I’d really like to go, and a much longer list of places I’ll settle for.

With regard to my trip, here are the broad takeaways:

• There are some places in Texas that I really like, maybe a bit more than I expected to. I’m always hesitant to share specifics online because the last thing I need is all you people going there and buying up all the property and driving up the prices.

• The food is better than I expected. I’ve generally had decent food in Texas, but on this trip I had some really good Mexican, German, and barbecue. I also went to the ubiquitous Whataburger and it’s thoroughly mediocre, even as fast food goes.

• The motels were, on the whole, the worst I’ve ever stayed in. A few were OK; a few were quite bad. I did not have a restful trip. In general, nationwide, the quality of affordable motels has gone into the shitter. A few of the issues I had on this trip were black mold, rotten drywall and flooring in bathrooms, bad water pressure, faulty door locks, inoperable lights, dirty air conditioners, noisy air conditioners, hard mattresses, insufficient bedding, bugs in the room, and one night, a small toad. I caught him and put him outside. Also, on my first night, the hotel had two, identical, framed posters on the wall. It didn’t affect my comfort, it just showed a general laziness and lack of attention to detail.

• It was 100 degrees all but one of the days I was in Texas, and it was bearable. Not comfortable, but bearable. And I’ve discovered I like cold milk on a hot day.

• People drive like shit in Texas. They’re some of the worst goddamn drivers anywhere in the country. I could go into great detail but I’ll just get mad.

• There are colleges and universities everywhere in Texas, and A&M extensions all over the place. There are a lot of reasons it can be handy to have a college nearby, so I was happy to see this. I visited several campuses without making any effort to find them.

• There are tiny little ants that crawl up your legs and bite you. They are assholes.

• Buc-ee’s is all at once wonderful, awful, fun, creepy, convenient, and unnecessary. It feels like the setting of a quirky indie film that can’t possibly be a real place, but it is real and I went there a lot. For some reason I never bought gas there or used their restroom, but I did get some rhino tacos, which, to be clear, are just called that — they don’t contain any actual rhinoceros meat.

• Texas ranchers are very set in their ways, and their ways don’t exactly warrant being set in. I find it very odd that in the birthplace of arguably the world’s most famous landrace livestock breed, the Texas longhorn, an animal that thrived on native forage for centuries, everyone is trying, at considerable expense, to cultivate pastures of non-native grasses. (I’m fortunate that my new boss feels the same way I do about this and has already converted all his pastures back to native forage.)

• And last but not least, Austin hipsters are some goofy fuckers.

Finally, I do have to mention this… Setting politics aside, when it comes to Covid, the situation in Texas is dire on paper, but being there, things felt as close to ‘normal’ as they’ve been since the pandemic began. It’s pretty much business as usual there, and I didn’t see the kind of problems I’m seeing here in Washington. Here, things look better on paper, but our grocery store shelves are bare, restaurants are closed again, and people are being turned away from hospitals due to lack of staffing. Some kids aren’t starting school because of staffing problems.

I don’t want to downplay what’s happening in Texas — clearly people are dying, and it’s happening in hospitals, not in restaurants and grocery stores, so of course I’m not going to see it. I also don’t want to shit on Washington leaders’ efforts to protect people, but I do believe that as well intentioned as it may be, it’s all too little, too late. To put it a bit crudely, I think we’re trying to unfuck the prom queen on her baby’s first birthday. We should have given her contraception before the big night, but we didn’t. We should have given her a morning after pill, but we didn’t do that either. We had three months to take her to Planned Parenthood, but we didn’t do that. If I extend this metaphor any farther it’s going to get really despicable (if you’re of a certain religious persuasion you think I already crossed the line), so I’ll just say that little Covid is here now, and he’s not going anywhere.

It’s basically a shit show here — not the big conspiracy some people think it is, and it’s not “tyranny” — we still have elections for fuck’s sake — it’s just a lot of inconsistency and overreach that makes living here, for the moment, untenable. I wish I could leave sooner. I wish I could take the people I care about with me. Buuuut I can’t, so I’m sticking to the plan and getting ready to leave in maybe late November. The rest will fall into place in good time.

Next time I will share the secrets of the universe, I promise.

Update: After doing some research it appears that the little asshole ants I mentioned were fire ants, and I managed to get attacked by them three times in one week. The ants didn’t bite me, they stung. I had always thought that fire ant attacks were far more severe, but I’m reading that many people find them fairly mild. I also thought the ants themselves would be bigger. While I certainly didn’t enjoy the sensation, it felt nothing like the bites from large red ants that I used to get as a kid in California — those hurt so badly they made your ears ring. Hopefully my chickens will eat lots of fire ants.