League of Melbotis

I'm officially "the guy from out of state who won't shut up about his home state." As much as I loathed these people before, i am now one of their ranks.

I think it's that Texas has been my context for 20+ years, and Arizona is kind of... blah. Not much interesting happens here. Nobody is from here, nobody gives a damn about Phoenix as much as the proximity to Sedona, and for the most part, you get the feeling folks weren't that attached to the places they came from in the first place.

I find that, as not one interesting thing has happened since I moved to Arizona, I tend to have to use my past (ie, my stay in Texas) as a reference for all anecdotal points, evidence, storytelling, etc...

So, yesterday, someone was talking about textbooks in public education, and I mentioned how Texas doesn't allow for a proper explanation of evolution in it's textbooks for grades K-12 and the implication for publishers across the country. We drifted off to other topics (including a discussion about Giants, which was kind of fascinating), but somehow ended up on the planets, and were trying to figure out how big Mars is.

"Is it as big as Texas?" someone asked me, rather pointedly.

I kind of laughed, but it suddenly became very, very clear... everyone is sick to death of hearing about how things were in The Lone Star State.

Whether I like it or not, i am still in Arizona. THis fact is not going to change until something drastic occurs. But I also need to respect that for some reason, these people adore this place. And I need to quit looking backward and start looking more at this place and what it has to offer. Arizona is, and can be, many things. I may not like all of them, but I wasn't exactly Little Mary Sunshine about all that went down in Texas, either.

I will henceforth quit referring always to how "it's this way here, but in Texas...", ecause it's dumb and it doesn't matter what they do in Texas (even if it is better).