YA'LLs and whatnot.

For any of you that may have be out of the loop or may have simply forgotten, I originally hale from South of the Mason-Dixon. I was born and raised between South Carolina and Kentucky until my mom opted for the adventure of our lives and packed us girls up and headed West when I was 15. But that's a story for a different day.

The reason I mention my Southern roots is because my time here in Texas is really stirring up some crazy vocabulary for me... My accent picks up around here, and folks can actually pick out that I am Southern (albeit, I am not Texan, but they still accept me nonetheless). I say "folks", for another thing. And for a while now, I no longer reference "the girl", but instead, she's "the gal".

And the biggest one of all is that I just wrote a business email and upon proof reading it, I realized I wrote (wrote! not just said) "ya'll" twice! Not even just once, but twice. But before I corrected my colloquialism, I reminded myself that I was emailing a sweet Texas gal who surely said ya'll also...so I decided to roll with it.

Everything's hotter in Texas.

I do not personally know this cow, but I thought he was a great guest star on le blog today

to go along with my Texas theme, no?

Even though I spent half the working day flying yesterday, I did not disconnect from email for more than 30 minutes from rolling-out-of-bed-in-LA to falling-into-bed-in-Dallas.  Phew...it was just one of those days.  Even on the plane, I had my laptop on until it died, at which point, out came the iPad to wrap up the imperative correspondence and sending of spreadsheets.  And then there I was until 11 pm Dallas time before I realized that my computer clock was still on California time and I needed to start to wrap this Excel Worksheet Party up!  Oof.  Sometimes a three-day weekend leading to a four-day week makes for just as much work scrunched into not as much time.  Thoughts?

I do love me some Texas though.  I arrived at my fave hotel in Downtown, asked for my fave floor (floor 24...it's all hardwood floors and feels like a cozy apartment), and lucked out with a swanky upgrade to the king suite.  Love that!

If you follow me on Facebook though, you would have seen that as soon as I touched down at DFW and exited the airport, I checked in with the caption, "I wonder which is more humid, Texas or Hell."  So, as much as I love me some Texas, I may or may not love the heat and humidity levels 'round these parts.

Heading to Dallas.

Off I go again - this time, back to the Lone Star State!  I do love visiting Texas, and I'm looking forward to my time there this week.  I'll be in flying into Dallas today, working my magic for Fashion Market Week there, and then heading back to LA on Sunday.  It'll be a quick trip, but a good one I'm sure, nonetheless.

Speaking of Texas, my latest obsession on Netflix is "Friday Night Lights".  Have you watched it before?  I'd had a few people recently recommend to me that I check it out, so I finally did.  And, my oh my, can we say: Tim Riggins.  Yowza.  Ladies, if you do not know who I am speaking of, do yourself a favor and google image this character.  And you, too, will be saying, Yowza.  I could go on and on with commentary on FNL (like how I think Eric + Tami have such a great marriage, how Jason Street gets on my nerves, how I think Buddy Garrity's character is actually somewhat genius, blah blah), but I'll spare you all the detail, and I'll just encourage you to check it out if you haven't yet.

Oh - and how was your Memorial Day Weekend?!  Mine was really fantastic - leaves me wanting three day weekends every weekend.

xoxo.

Possibly the best quote of my life.

“I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. And I don’t want to get to the end, or to tomorrow, even, and realize that my life is a collection of meetings and pop cans and errands and receipts and dirty dishes. I want to eat cold tangerines and sing out loud in the car with the windows open and wear pink shoes and stay up all night laughing and paint my walls the exact color of the sky right now. I want to sleep hard on clean white sheets and throw parties and eat ripe tomatoes and read books so good they make me jump up and down, and I want everyday to make Gods belly laugh, glad that he gave life to someone who loves the gift.”

—	Shauna Niequist

Stereotyping the city life.

This.  Makes me laugh.  And makes me miss New York.

The ad is put on by Manhattan Mini Storage (it's like a Public Storage, but Manhattan version) and they always have such funny ones.  For instance (and warning - these are absolutely geared toward the Democratic audience that is New York City):

"Remember, if you leave the city, you'll have to live in America."

"If you store your stuff outside the city, it may come back Republican."

"Your closet's so shallow, it makes Paris look deep."

"If you don't like Gay Marriage, don't get Gay Married."

"Michelle Bachmann says God told her to run for president.  How come God never talks to smart people anymore?"

"Nobody becomes famous in Des Moines."

And on the note of stereotyping cities, etc., I had to report some of the conversations that I overheard yesterday while hiking in Fryman Canyon here in LA. 

First of all, one woman that was keeping at the same pace as me was on her phone the entire walk up the mountain and the entire walk down the mountain.  And she was shrill - before I saw her face (she was walking behind me), I was actually starting to wonder if Kathy Griffin was my hiking buddy for the day.  But alas, it was not Kathy, just some other obnoxious woman.  I mean, if you can't get off your iPhone when doing a great sunset hike, when do you get off your iPhone?!

Other than Kathy Griffin, I also was walking alongside two ladies at one point - both probably late 40s, both slender as could be and 5'11'' or so (I am 5'9'' and they were both taller than me).  Poor ladies, one of them was talking about her ongoing divorce and how her ex-husband-to-be was berrating her with angry phone calls.  And then she proclaimed that she was going to take his ass for all it's worth.  Such therapeutic chatter while getting your cardio on.

And then last but not least, there were the guy and gal who were probably around their mid-20s who were walking behind me down the mountain.  They must be in the industry (the film industry...here we just call it the industry) because they were hashing it out over this actor and how he got his break and which studio is best to work with and all about IMDB and geez louise, what ever happened to quiet and solitude and enjoying nature on a hike?

You can bet I won't forget my iPod to block out everyone's chatter for tonight's hike.