Pezrealian

A narrative of an experience two weeks ago.

I went to a gun show today. For the first time in my life I held a gun in my hand. It was a small, heavy subcompact Taurus PT111 handgun. If James Bond were to be a concealed handgun licensed Texan he'd wear this sidearm as an accessory, a play thing among his arsenal of an assassin's weaponry. There were a few things I realized when I held the blue steel in my non-combative hands, they are: I'm not the sort to own such a potentially deadly weapon, I know nothing of how to handle a deadly weapon therefore I needed a dedicated salesmen to help me, and finally, there are many, many armed civilians out there walking among us. Armed to-the-teeth civilians walking, shopping, working, rubbing shoulders with us oblivious non-armed civilians.

I walked into the GRB this weekend looking to walk away with vast knowledge learned from trained professionals dedicated to training newbies such as myself. I wanted a man, or woman, to show me the ropes. To show me the nuances of gun ownership, the rules of engagement. After surveying the entire show floor stocked full of assault rifles, sidearms and dundee knives I made my approach to a table neatly arranged with subcompacts. The tables perimeter was crowded with other eager gun owners making deals and skillfully gauging each weapon's precision. I walked up and picked up the first gun that looked cool. I held it, thought back to my days of Nintendo duck hunting and tried to look as skilled as my NRA neighbors. In secret I was in way over my head. I didn't know the first the sensation to judge whether what I held was an ergonomically correct piece for me or not, I just held it and stiff armed my right arm clutching the gun as if I was Judge Law and Law Maker choosing his sword of justice. I put the piece down, made a slight facial judgment and moved on to the other crowded tables. At this point I realized I needed help. Where was my salesmen, where was the guy who told me that the Taurus PT111 was a good weapon choice for me. I raised my eyes to survey not the showcases but for familiar faces, for help. My hopes were to find one of my co-workers roaming among the strange faces. I found no one.

This is when I realized I was delusional. What in the world was I doing at a gun show looking to buy a gun. I have my own personal reasons for owning a gun but the reality of gun ownership hit me right there. What would I do once I did put down a couple of hundred dollars for a gun and went back home? Where would I keep it? What would I expect to gain from the ownership? Would I expect to feel any more safer with a gun in the house? These are the questions that were running through my head as I made my rounds up and down each isle. I passed so many assured souls holding each rifle, each hand cannon, who were probably 100% sure they knew what they were doing. One hunter dressed as if his habitat was the woods and not downtown Houston shouldered the most impressive rifle I've ever seen in person. This was a rifle seen in Michael Mann movies, in war games, in the news. I was somewhat shell shocked from just the visual stimulation of seeing such a weapon shouldered on a common fellow within a few feet from my body. He by the way was totally in kill mode gripping the rifle with each arm standing with an imaginary kill zone in his sights pulling the trigger to sound off an empty click. I was in awe. I wanted that guy to show me the ropes. Like Rocky Balboa's Italian Stallion trainer this guy was simply awesome. I wanted him to release the chicken and tell me to give chase and catch. To tell me to eat lightning and crap thunder on all my intruding foes. To put the gun in my hands and ask me how the grip felt, how the butt conformed to my hand and if it was comfortable enough to withstand a mini cannon blast. But he didn't. He was absorbed in his ritual of checks and calibrations so I inched forward step by step as my eyes remained fixated on his overwhelming presence on the show floor.

After that brief encounter with Rambo himself I was lost. Lost amid a market of bullets, guns, katanas and survival gear. Going to a gun show is a shoppers paradise for the consummate hunter who walks in for the kill, for the deal, for the discounted prices not found at your corner gun store and goes right back into his camouflaged world armed to the teeth most of the time. Was this new reality for me? Can I really walk out my front door with a gun holstered to my body? Can I at least keep it stashed away somewhere in my house? Walking out the convention doors I had a feeling in my gut telling me to walk away from the experience with nothing more than simply that, an experience. Gun ownership doesn't suit me now but maybe, just maybe in the future I'll be back.

(Written on September 30, 2009)

Have you ever stumbled across a bit of information that you weren't supposed to know? Have you ever read something not intended for your eyes? Are you the man who knew too much?

Well, it is not a good feeling. Some things are better left unknown and untouched. Once known, there is no recovering. You cannot forget certain things. Some things, you just have to live with and try to tuck away somewhere in the very back of your brain hoping one day you will trail back to the days of innocence and live on just as you did before stumbling across this bit never intended for you to see.

It never occurred to me before, but there really is no such thing as forgetting a memory or event. If something was memorable and impacting enough for you to want to forget it, well, by then it is too late. There is no going back from that. That memory is as good as new for a long, long time because once you get there, you are at the point of no return, you will not forget.

This should be about last week shouldn't it. I should tell you all about our trip to New Orleans and how great it was right? I should still be excited writing this shouldn't I. Well I'm not. The trip was needed, it was fun, we came away with memories but I would rather write about other things right now. I would rather purge my brain of the smallest matters that popped into my head today. For example, you (reader) may notice there's a new link to your right named Clean Living for Body and Mind that has magically appeared since you've last visited the smokehouse pezrealian. CLfB&M is a newish blog put together by two people for whom I have a great deal of respect for therefore when I learned they put together a blog on clean living I could not/cannot stop checking their website to see if there's new material to ingest as a daily read. My visitations are almost as compulsive as checking other people's Facebook status's or dare I say FB stalking. (I will quit you facebook, damn you FB I will quit you someday) Here's a bit about the author's. They're qualified to speak as they do. One of the writers is a therapist of a certain form and the other is a student or should I say graduated person of the study of psychology. Like I said, they're qualified. They research with noted references which is impressive because too many bloggers take too many liberties with other people's hard earned researched material. When I read their material I feel as though I'm reading a thesis, an essay, a proposal on clean living being submitted to us us heathens living a dirty life of gluttony and social imbalances. Because really, we're all screwed up in the head so it takes someone else's perspective to make us see the light of truth. CLfB&M's truth is stay away from parabens and try not to be a crazy nut half the time.

In September of 2009, I wrote my first blog post and this is what it said:

"I am Ms. Anonymous. I don't blog, facebook or tweet. I never jumped on the
myspace bandwagon and I only recently started on-line banking. In fact, I try
to fight technological web advancement as best as I can. So writing this right
now is very new to me and I'm not sure yet if I like it."

Here we are five months later. I am now a somewhat regular blogger, I do not even remember the last time I stepped into my bank, and I surrendered, broke down, and did what I have been fighting most.

I have a facebook.

I created it just a few hours ago, and already I know that I will be addicted. I have had conversations with people I have not talked to in months. I search through people's friends lists, read the posts on the walls, and even commented on a picture. I hate it, I absolutely hate that I like doing it. I feel that the world as I knew it four hours ago will never be the same again. I can't go back. I am just going to have to and accept the fact that I really do in fact like being connected with the world. Since regular phone calls are a thing of the past (not that I am complaining about that- I have never really been a phone person), and texting is even somewhat dwindling, it is the only way to keep up. That is, until the next big thing. Hmm, I wonder what it will be? Eyepage? Earnovel?

My weekend NOLA trip is actually what brought this about. As I was driving home Sunday night, I realized there is so much out there and how disconnected we are. It made me want to branch out and poke a hole through my bubble. This was my way of taking positive action in that effort.

On a different note, I met one of our Pezrealian readers while on the NOLA trip. I just want to tell that reader thank you for the positive feed-back. The comments stuck with me, and really meant a lot.

11:22 p.m.
I decided my suitcase was too big and out of fear of seeming high-maintenance I unpacked everything, reconsidered what I really needed to take, and moved it all into a smaller suitcase.

11:38 pm.
Enjoying the last few sips before I go to bed. I am happy I finally found a red wine that is sweet enough for me. Sad to say, it is only one step above "Passover Grape Juice/Wine". Baby steps...Give me a few months and I'll have moved on to Cabernet's and black coffee.

We now have an official "NOLA" road trip playlist. Red Hot Chili Peppers have a song actually called, "Road Trippin'" which seemed very appropriate. Also, Willie Nelsons sings, "City of New Orleans"- it's as country as it gets, but sorry guys, but I just had too...

6:17 p.m.
Sitting on the floor of my room, my bed is covered with piles of clothes for this weekend's travels. As Chris previously posted, a trip to New Orleans awaits our little group tomorrow. I've been wanting to post about this all week, but was either busy, or just too tired to write. I even had creative titles all thought-out and everything, but I guess they will have to wait or just disappear somewhere to the back of my brain.

Actually, I am really glad Chris wrote the trip's agenda, because it is helping me decide what to pack. So far, all I have in my suitcase is pajama's (and my glass of red wine because I didn't want to set it down on the cream carpet). Okay, my packing has officially begun.

6:18 p.m.
Work-out clothes: Check
Good-butt jeans: Check

6:22 p.m.
Tops: Check

6:26 p.m.
Tanks, cami's, socks, tights

6:28 p.m.
Took out some tops because realized I have over-packed

6:32 p.m.
Shoes. 5 pairs seems a bit excessive for 3 days...but I don't know what the weather will be like and what I will feel like wearing so it's justified, right?

6:48 p.m.
Toiletries: Check

7:00 p.m.
Miscellaneous chargers, camera, make-up, etc.: Check

Okay, I think I am all ready. I am usually a pretty light packer, but since we are driving and I feel like I have more room and do not have to worry with fitting everything into the overhead compartment, TSA safety regulations, etc., I think I over did it just a little bit. Oh well, I would rather have more than enough than be there wishing I had something I left at home.

I'm excited!

Now just need to make a playlist for the drive up there, re-arrange some money around, and I will be good to go.

NOLA trip outline for this weekend. But first a disclaimer: I'm foregoing watching Lost tonight to get this done and over with so I better amaze myself by the time I scribble the last word and hit Publish Post. With all the action going on in my life right now: joining an awesome gym, doing my awesome taxes, paying off a huge student loan, still gainfully employed, discovering Central Texas on the weekends and finally getting closer to sliding into my old 32x30 pants my wondering mind churns out five hundred word essays like clockwork, but, getting my ideas down on this page proves to be more difficult. But I take solace in a bloggers mantra: quality not quantity. So here goes this weeks post.

Thursday evening kick-off. After work Thursday evening three brave souls will embark on an adventure to a city basking in the revels of carnival, a superbowl victory and a renewed sense of hope in the future of the city of New Orleans. No other city has been through more bastard child treatment than the city of New Orleans. After hurricane Katrina swept through the city/region I honestly did think the end of times was upon the Greater Metro Area of NOLA. I had terrible thoughts of the Book of Revelation manifesting it's dark words all within the 504 area code. In some ways this did happen for many unfortunate people trapped within the flooded streets that fateful week. My fears are part of why I decided to stay here in Houston. My disaster scenario was of the Mississippi River waters flooding over it's levies continuously eroding the great old city streets and neighborhoods reaching Lake Pontchartrain and reforming the ancient Mississippi River Basin reducing NOLA to a thought, to history. For me, this period was the beginning of the end for all people trying to eek out a living on land that was being repossessed by mother earth. These were my fears. This was my reasoning that I'd mull over day and night on why I should not go back. I was afraid to go back only to retreat again in the future only with more at stake. Running away from the inevitable with more possessions, more worries. Those days, those weeks were the hardest times of my life. Yet, in retrospect it was the single most important, logical choice I've ever made. I weathered a great storm of a century than battled with another internal storm of choices to make and made it out alive. Alive and well.

We plan to detach and disembark Sugarland around 4:30pm and be out of Houston's sprawling city limits by 6:30pm.

Traffic heading East in Houston can be a serious situation during evening rush hour so the route will be Beltway 8 circumventing the entire inner city conflagration then intersect and merge onto Laporte Freeway 225. 225 will take us to 146 North. 146 North connects to I-10 East, downstream of Baytown (construction) city.


View Circumventing Inner City Headed East To I-10 in a larger map

From this point I expect some delays but nothing as dense as East Houston traffic. Be in Beaumont by 7:30pm. Exit all of Beaumont by 7:40.

Swamp scenery for the next four hours driving east on I-10 through Sabine Pass, Lake Charles, Lafayette and finally Baton Rouge. Pit stop in Gonzales?

We're there. Drive time: 5 1/2 hours. Personal best time previously recorded: 4 1/2 hours.

The next morning.

Friday early morning jog at Lafreniere Park (Group is optional).
Friday morning ride down the St. Charles Street Car into the CBD from Jenn and Rich's house at St. Charles and Louisiana.















Walk to French Market via Royal Street. Visit The Cabildo on the way. Point at the building where my old job-Bella Juna Restuarant (now The Foundry, Bella Luna Catering)-was on the Riverfront.