Thursday, March 27, 2014

Butter and hair gel: everyday goods for most, synonyms perhaps for some, and here, in the wilds of Dallas, precious commodities on occasion. A few weeks ago, I wrote off the lengths it took to procure a bar of Kerrygold as a freak occurrence–who could pass up Irish butter, after all? Indeed, who has time anymore to make their own by churning up real Irish people? But when a tube of hair gel proved equally elusive, I had to figure out why.

When I think of a city, I tend to do so from tried-and-true angles. Urban, rural, or somewhere in between. Type of weather. Good places to eat. Shitholes to avoid. Stuff to do. Number of Targets. Traffic. I’m not sure I’ve ever paid much heed to one of the key factors behind traffic, though, and that’s density. Dallas is dense. It’s also big, which diffuses the density, but there’s no getting around it: there are a lot more people here than in Charlotte. It just took a depleted supply of hair product to help me realize this.

I’m starting to settle into the pace of life here. The fact that weather’s been fantastic doesn’t hurt a bit. Allergies haven’t kicked in yet, despite the full-on flower bacchanal going on now. Haven’t used the GPS in weeks, either. There’s so much good food around here, too. Sure, I can’t partake in any of it, given my current caloric allowance, but it’s comforting to know it’s there for the resisting. Deep down, however, I’m bracing for the summer. This is the closest I’ve lived to the equator, and time will tell if I’ve moved to the Chicago of heat.