It’s Texas and it’s hot. That’s fact, history, ongoing, and all the California and New York ex-pats in the world aren’t going to change that.
You East and West Coast folks can, and have, changed housing prices here by 93%. That’s nearly double. Do they print their own money on the coasts?
You’ve altered the culture of historic neighborhoods. You’ve declared Tex-Mex inedible, and asked for flavored margaritas, both of which are sacrilege. But you can’t change sole-blistering, underwear-soaking, make-up-melting weather. Go ahead. Try. We’ll wait.
In Texas, I’ve gotten burn scars from touching metal parts of my purse after carrying it in the sun. This is not hyperbole.
I wear as little as possible in this weather. Californians are cool with that. Just visit Venice Beach.
Yankees can’t quite get the hang. You’re used to layering. We’re used to the sheerest fabric over flimsy or nonexistent underwear. There is no choice but to free the nip. I’ve removed my bra at night, when I was foolish enough to wear one, and it was soaked through with sweat. This is while working from home then going to the grocery store, not jogging. Again, not hyperbole.
So unless you’re down with no underwear, sheer fabrics such as linen and cotton, and your hair hanging in wet droops down your face, you might not want to move here. If you’re here, you might want to go back.
When you leave, take back your high-rises that infringe on authentic local culture, about which you then complain.
“It’s too loud,” you whine to city government after you move in, sight unseen, to a new building — next to bars crowded with college students who otherwise attend classes a few blocks away. Did you even visit first?
No, you just saw that house prices that have gone up 93% for us still cost less than that loft in Manhattan or the two-bedroom shack in Los Angeles. So you send mounds of cash money, come on down to the Southwest and the bowels of Texas, then complain. About everything — but particularly the heat.
“It’s too hot,” you constantly lament when the temperatures hit over 100, often even 108, 109, 110, or 111. Yes. It’s summer in a state that borders Mexico. Summers are hot the further south you go. It’s simple meteorology and geography.
I see you out jogging in your tiny outfits, wet cloth around your neck, swimming on land through the visible water of humidity and your own sweat. Did anyone tell you heat stroke kills? I’m thinking not, or you didn’t believe them.
Believe.
I grew up here. This is my equivalent to your parents saying, “I walked ten miles in two feet of snow to school every day.”
Although, if you move to the panhandle of Texas you could walk, snowshoe, or cowboy boot your way to school in a blizzard. I’ve driven through three there. Yep. We Texans will brave any damned thing and believe we can do it. It’s that pioneer, Hispanic rancher, freed-slave entrepreneur, Black, White and Hispanic cowboy and cowgirl genetics. If you don’t have any of that in you, you might want to stay home.
Texas is a BIG state. That’s not a brag, it’s a fact. You want desert, we got that in west Texas. You want piney woods, we got those in east Texas. You want mountains, we even have those in south Texas. Blistering heat that gives over to blinding blizzards? Go north to Lubbock and Amarillo, young person. It’s too dangerous there for retirees.
Rolling hills, cold springs, wine country, and all the other amenities, such as the willingness by the city council to let you knock down iconic buildings and buy out entire ethnic neighborhoods is what you want? Come to Austin.
If you do, though, know that 108 degrees in the summer is not a fluke. It happens a lot. If you choose Houston instead — 45 minutes from the ocean — you get that heat combined with humidity that makes saunas jealous.
So if you’re living in sunny California where it’s currently 75 degrees in the day and 66 at night — and you’re an active outdoor type — you might want to reconsider that move to Austin. It’s 10:30 p.m. as I write and it’s 94 degrees. We consider that porch weather.
Yesterday when it hit 109, a small miracle lit up the sky with lightning, and a short rain ensued. The temperature lowered to 92 degrees, and we were all out running errands as fast as our melting rubber soles would carry us before the rain stopped, and the heat wrought vengeance by steaming all the tiny puddles left behind. There’s no rational way to describe how 92 degrees can feel cool.
Worst of all is Texas’ electric grid. As in many things Texan, pride goes before a fall or a fail.
Pride goes before everything here. Football games — which kids start practicing for in August when temps are still in the 90s-100s — are sacrosanct. Football is god here, so heat exhaustion and heat stroke while practicing on shadeless fields wearing pads and helmets is a small price to pay for that worship, according to Texans.
Texans’ pride in their electric grid is all about independence from the federal grid. Hence the failure of electricity and water during the freeze of 2021, and the inability to tap in to other grids for relief.
That was scary, but at least we were able to wrap up in layers, stay in bed, snuggle with our pets, and survive the cold. When it hits 108 here day after day — and if the grid fails — everybody’s goose is cooked. Even if you do run around as naked as a plucked goose. And there’s no rescue from the feds because — “Texas independence.”
So, if you’re a libertarian who thinks you can survive any grid failure for days on end because “Screw the federal government,” come on down. If you’re an East Coast person, visit in the summer first before moving here. Believe me, the money you save on buying a house can be eaten up by electric bills in both winter and summer. If you’re from the West Coast, I don’t know what to tell you.
There’s no roller skating, jogging, or beach volleyball here in 108 degrees. What are you thinking?!?
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This post was previously published on New Choices.
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