it's over. move to somnia.

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Houston: a multiperspective description

Annie (friend and fellow visitor): Everything looks unfinished and decrepit here. It's like Mexico. Something--an overpass, an offramp--is left sitting around, not being worked on for years, and by the time it's done, it already looks old.

Margaret (my aunt, a resident): The road construction everywhere around town mostly comes from two sources: the 2012 Olympic bid...

Annie: I wouldn't want the Olympics to show up here. This isn't the face I'd want America to present to the world. It's weird to think that I and the people who live here vote for the same President. I feel like I have nothing in common with people who live here.

Margaret: ...and what I call the Bubba Rail. [Pork, anyone?] It's going to go from the baseball stadium to the football stadium, even though the majority of people who would use it are coming in from west of the city. There are also some infrastructure improvements [sewer and fiberoptic cable, I think] going in.

Annie: The road and highway system here is crazy. You'll be driving along and the lane you're in will just end. No warning. Suddenly there's another car right next to you.

Margaret: It's a concrete jungle.

Annie: There are often no signs explaining upcoming exits--you're just expected to swerve across six lanes of traffic? Highway onramps are frequently just unmarked, and are dangerously short. And I've noticed that all the billboards advertise cars or beer.

Me: Or "gentleman's clubs." Houston is the only large city in the United States without zoning. Anything goes, so long as you can pay for it. That's why you'll see a 30-story apartment complex surrounded by single-family homes (as is the case across the street from my grandmother's old house), or a playground amidst a group of industrial buildings. It's humid and hazy and spread out; you look around outside and it feels abandoned.

Annie: Why would anybody go outside in such disgusting weather? [And it's only April.] I don't think I ever need to come back here.

[This is the product of separate conversations, fused for continuity.]
peachy as always, Mike at 12:38 PM