Life In Visalia

Sometimes you have to sit back and ask yourself what exactly you're doing with your life. I found a perfect moment for this tonight as Beth combed the dandruff out of my hair in her backyard while I reclined in a chair and ate a chili hot dog. How did I get here?

We live in Visalia now, which, if you haven't heard of it before, it's the place that Kevin Costner spent a high school semester before going off to appear in such ground breaking roles as that guy who drank his own pee in Waterworld. Otherwise I think a controversial semi-pornographic indie movie was shot here once too. I don't recommend you watch it. But even without those first two landmarks, Visalia is still actually a pretty awesome place to be.

What I tend to love most is the food. The chili dog I ate whilst having my hair de-dandruffed was from a place called Taylors. I'm not really sure why these little wieners from a tiny stand on the side of main street are so mind blowing, but somehow when you mix barbecue chips into the equation they pretty much become a reason in and of themselves never to move away. Close-by there's also a Mexican place called Colima's that has bean and cheese burrito's that are just as mind blowing despite their simplicity. And let's not even get into the crazy awesome and mostly crazy Indian restaurant down the road where all sorts of goodies will be ordered on your behalf whether you asked for them or not.

Other than that though Visalia can be a rough town if you happen to be looking for a job that doesn't involve picking walnuts or preparing food (but never preparing walnuts for food which strikes me as slightly suspicious). As of lately I've been looking into tutoring jobs in the area since I've always wanted to show inner-city kids that's more to life than ghost riding the whip by dramatically whispering "carpe diem" into their ears and then being shot.

There's a lot I'm looking forward to. Especially the winter weather which I hear can get so intense that schools get canceled on behalf of "fog days." I'm hoping that a downturn in the dry climate might help out with the whole dandruff problem I have going on, which right now is like a blizzard in October. Part of me feels like I should say, who knows where we'll end up next? But a greater part of me is hoping that we can end up where we are. In the meantime, it's at least nice to know I'm happy wherever I am.