you know you're out west when........

As you may, or may not, know, I've been straddling two cultures for the last year and a half: Texas and California. Since December of 2006, I've been traveling back and forth between Houston and San Francisco on a regular basis, spending more time in San Francisco last year than I did in Houston.

I recently, at the behest of my company, took the plunge and actually moved to San Francisco. It was tough, because even though I was practically living in San Francisco anyway, I still considered Houston home. Now that I've cut my ties to Texas, I'm going through the shock of realizing that I am actually living in California now.

Don't get me wrong. I love the Bay Area. There's much to love here. But, I also loved living in Houston. In a way, it's the antithesis of San Francisco, its' polar opposite. Houston doesn't have the things I don't like about the Bay Area, and the Bay Area doesn't have the things I don't like about Houston. If I could merge the two together, I could create the perfect city. Oh, wait a minute, if I merged the two together, I would create Los Angeles.

Anyway, I was getting my hair cut today, and the stylist (who did a faaabuuulous job), asked me where I was from, and I told her I had just recently moved to the Bay Area from Houston. She started asking me about Houston. "What's the land like?" "Flat," I said. "Very coastal." Then we talked about the weather, and I explained that, while it gets hot and sticky during the 3 summer months, the rest of the year is pretty perfect, just like today in the Bay Area.

Then she said the magic words, the words I've been hearing a lot lately: "I haven't spent any time BACK EAST." That's when it hit me that I really, truly have moved to another land. In Texas, "back east" refers to New York or Massachusetts, or some place like that. When you start hearing Texas referred to as "back east," you know you're in a whole new world.