Hello, I’m SEK and I live in Mississippi.

At least until I find a place in Baton Rouge. I feel obligated to write this post because of the concern espoused in a previous one about my travels in Texas. I attribute making it through unscathed to the gigantic Lincoln Navigator I was piloting: I looked far too wealthy and American to be pulled over.  Now here are some completely random notes:

• Texas is too big. I’m familiar with its eastern bits — my parents live in Houston and my wife studied at UT — but that stretch between El Paso and San Antonio has no business existing.
• It doesn’t matter how large your vehicle is when you share it with two howling cats who don’t even have the decency to harmonize. It just doesn’t.
• The In Our Time podcast is as good as advertised. Given that I can attest to the quality of the material on matters I’m expert in — Joyce, Yeats, Alfred Russel Wallace, the history of evolutionary theory, etc. — I’m going to be quick to flash my vast store of new-found knowledge. (“Did you know there’s no solid evidence Marco Polo existed?” is something I will be saying at a dinner-party in the near future.)
• Southern California produces better Mexican food than Texas and no cuisine in the world is comparable to Louisiana’s. These are facts that cannot be disputed.