New Jersey and Texas Shouldn't Feature So Prominently in My Life

I'm not a fan of Texas. I cheered when Natalie Maines made her famous comment. I hate George Bush.

I'm not really a fan of New Jersey, either. I drove the Turnpike over and over when I lived in Maryland and I hated every minute of it. I know a lot of people from New Jersey, and most of them are cool, but they're the ones who escaped.

My sister has lived in New Jersey since she got married in May 2006. She just left and moved to Texas. My niece will be born and bred there and although she'll have a Yankee mom and an entire Yankee side of her family, she'll be Texan, just like her dad, who for a Texan, is pretty normal.

And now, the new man in my life has been swept off to Jersey first and Texas for the next 45 days -- moblilized in the Army Reserve. He'll wind back up in Jersey in mid- to late-February for the year. I suppose it's a good thing that I learned the way to Northern New Jersey, complete with the Merritt Parkway trickery when my sister lived there, and am so very familiar with the Turnpike because it seems I might soon be making trips that-a-way again.

I find it odd that my sister made her way from Jersey to Texas at the exact moment that he (let's just settle on calling him "he", shall we?) made his way from Boston to Jersey and now, one week later, will follow on to Texas.

And the irony is not lost on me that I have avoided Texas like the plague, only driving through the panhandle in 1997 because it's tough to drive from Maryland to L.A. without doing so. Now I'm trying to figure out how in the world to finance three (yes, THREE) trips to Texas this winter.

Found this the other day: "If I owned Texas and hell, I'd rent out Texas and live in hell." Hah! That's what I say to that. Texas stole my sister and my neice and now it's kidnapped him for 45 days. Strong forcefield we're dealing with here.

I jest, of course. My sister has my full support in her choice to become a poser-Texan and to raise true-Texans. It'll give me something interesting to do as an aunt: teach my neice and her subsequent siblings about their heritage as Bostonians by parentage and make sure they stay in the Red Sox Nation. It'll be a tough job, but I'll take it on with the sincerity and seriousness of a Puritan.

That dude is Cotton Mather, for those of you who might not know, whose name was the first that sprang to the mind of my very supportive boss when I said I needed a photo of a Puritan for a blog post.

So there you go. I've lived in 6 states and visited around 35 and somehow managed to avoid a serious relationship with New Jersey or Texas until now. The universe is in charge -- don't you forget it.