In Between Dallas and Austin

Chapter One - In Between Alive and Dead

Chapter One

In Between Alive and Dead

I’ve always hated labelling people, but if I had to give myself a descriptive term to classify me, the most appropriate would probably be nerd.

When I say nerd I don’t mean it in the overly cliché, geek glasses, bad hair-do, no skills in color matching clothing, Revenge of the Nerds kind of nerd. Let’s all agree that Revenge of the Nerds did absolutely nothing good for the nerd community and is ninety minutes of my life I’ll never get back.

By saying nerd, my point of reference is John Green, which is like my general point of reference (him and Hank that is) and by that I mean that I’m too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness, that I’d rather be intelligent than be stupid, that I’d rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that I believe that there are things that matter more than the arrest record of Lindsay Lohan.

Safe to say I’m a nerdfighter (by that I don’t mean I fight nerds, I mean I’m made of awesome) which can be slightly prideful if you think about it, but I don’t hear anybody complaining.

Now, while I’m defining myself, I’d probably also need to mention that I’m slightly OCD (and that is putting it mildly). It’s little things sometimes, like being unable to leave my room if all my drawers aren’t closed correctly, or if my pillows are meticulously arranged on my bed, or if any of my frames are crooked. And sometimes it’s really stupid stuff, like when I take a glass, I do it with both of my hands or I switch them frequently because I need both of my hands to be equally cold or equally warm.

One could have thought that, that whole neat freakness would have rejoiced my mother, but oh sweet bonions on a cracker, no. She about enjoys it as much as when I tell her I’m not a Republican. At least my Republican parents aren’t die hard gun wielding low tolerating Texans like some of our neighbours are.

I don’t know why but when you say Texans, people often put their judgemental hat on. I mean, seriously, Texas is really not that bad. So what if people start saying we gave them George W. Bush? We only had him for governor and he might have grown up in Texas but the clown’s from New Haven, Connecticut. We might have been stupid enough to take him as our governor but the rest of the United States choose him from president so we’re not the only fools in our great country. And we totally gave y’all Matt Bomer, Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Jim Parsons, Patrick Swayze, Summer Glau, Janis Joplin, Chace Crawford, Michelle Rodriguez… the list goes on and you’re welcome.

And I guess the fact that I’m not a football fanatic doesn’t exactly work in my favour either to fall in the good grace of my parents.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against football. Technically speaking though, I couldn’t even if I wanted to. My father used to play in the football team in High School, so that means I have to care about it. But then again, football players haven’t always been a good thing for this family (actually it might have been a good thing for this family depending on how you see it), and technically they’re the reason why I’ve never had a boyfriend. The thing is, my mother was a cheerleader, (when I really think about it, what a disappointment must I be) and my parents were High School sweethearts. And then my mother got knocked up during their first month of college. She never got a degree.

Fast forward seventeen years later, the result of this fruitful mistake, my older sister London, also got knocked up by her football playing high school sweetheart (it’s like the women in this family don’t understand the basic concept of contraception). With that in mind, it’s easy to understand where my parents stand now on the whole me-dating-anyone thing. And the fact that I try to stay as far away from fertile football players as I can.