Texas-isms vs Midwest-isms

Texas	Midwest
y'all	you guys
parking garage (even if the whole building is used only for parking)	parking structure
tea	sweet iced tea
iced tea	sweet iced tea
hot tea	tea
fixin'	(no equivalent)
sliding glass door	door wall
coke	pop
using regular verbs as reflexives	use of the pronoun "myself" where needed
omission of "to be"	use of "to be"
vehicle (with "h" pronounced)	car

Examples

in Texas:
A: "What kind of coke do you want?"
B: "I'll take a 7-Up"

in Michigan:
A: "what kind of pop would you like?"

Commentary: 7-Up is not Coke!! It's not even cola! For people not from the midwest, they wonder what the heck is "pop"?


in Texas:
I'm fixin' to go to bed now

anywhere else:
I'm going to bed now.


in Texas:
That cat's fur needs brushed. (note: real-life example!)
anywhere else:
That cat's fur needs to be brushed.

Commentary: I would imagine leaving out the "to be" is probably grammatically correct in some language (not English)


in Texas:
I'ma drink me a cup of coffee.
I'm finn'ina buy me a new ve-hi-cle.

anywhere else:
I'm going to drink a cup of coffee.
I'm going to buy myself a new car.

Commentary: Do we even have reflexive verbs in English? I wouldn't even know how to explain this if I hadn't studied Spanish.

And 2 drinks later, I start talking about love...

So I've been thinking- I have my own theories about love, and being "in love," as it were. I think I have a right to it by now. Oh yes, I have been "in love." I have felt the incomparable aching of wishing I could give everything to a person, of wishing I could sacrifice all that I am and all I ever could be, for the sake of someone's eternal benefit.

I disagree with the popular portrayal of love in movies, songs and stories. You don't "fall" in love. it doesn't just happen. it's not like it's something that you have no control over. Love is proactive. It takes effort to be in love with someone.

It's a choice that you make. Sure, certain circumstances probably have to be in place in order for you to choose to be in love with someone. Factors such as personality, proximity, physical attractiveness, (body odor?) may come into play. But once those factors are in place you can choose to love someone or not to love someone. You need to have adequate reason to be in love with someone. If you don't, then your love is as fickle and capricious as a passing mood. That's not real love.

It takes me a relatively long time to get to the point where I am able to truly love another person. But it takes even longer for me to stop loving someone once I've started. It takes me 3 times longer to finally be willing to choose to stop loving someone than it takes for me to start.

You'd think I'd learn to hold back more.

Too Funny not to Share

So the other night I had a dream that a new restaurant had opened at a mall in Austin. I'd like to point out that the mall where it was located does not exist in Austin. However, I'm pretty sure it was a replica of a mall I've been to once in Florida.

Anyways, so you know how there are all these (lame) themed restaurants? (I'm about to piss off whoever's reading this that thinks those kind of restaurants are "cool." Well, deal with it! They're lame!!) Anyways, you know what I mean- like Planet Hollywood or Rainforest Cafe.

So.. in the dream, Trent Reznor had opened up a NineInchNails-themed restaurant. Yes, at a mall. Yes, a place where you would go with your parents. Yes, I thought it was odd.

Walking in, it was much like any commercial-oriented, mainstream-type restaurant. Everything was pristine and squeaky-clean. The atmosphere was cold and unwelcoming, but not dark and sinister. Well, maybe a little sinister. The color palette was a pale, sickly yellow, accented with browns, black and various shades of gray. Although I think when we walked in, NIN wasn't actually playing, it was something dark and angry. By the time we left, "Closer," was stuck in my head (and still was when I awoke).

Although the dream ended before I'd actually had anything to eat, I'm sure you can imagine the kinds of things you might find on the menu. "Head like a Hole Filet of Sole," perhaps (kudos to my friend Paul Marsh for that suggestion, when I told him about the dream). My friend August suggested perhaps "Cajun Catfish blackened like your soul." I envisioned a salad carefully placed on the dish in the shape of a downward spiral. The possibility for juvenile puns is endless.

On that (dark?) note, I leave you...

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What's next?

I often feel that I love my friends in Austin too much to ever leave them. But then I remember that I felt the same way (and still do) about my friends in Michigan. And it didn't stop me from leaving them.