(T)he problem with bubbles

Also, having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card and no fines (at the TGC Library)

Alliteration Week! Remember, any money I get from this newsletter goes to the Uvalde Moving Forward Fund.

Technically using an article “the” counts as alliteration, right?

Good Morning to everyone except Yolanda Saldivar, that minister from the Town of Flower Mound, and Josh Duggar.

Who shot JR? What was Hawkeye holding on that bus?

Those were two questions asked on two shows that were watched by seemingly the whole country and world.

Fun fact: the Queen Mother once asked Larry Hagman about what happened, and even he could not tell HRH.

In the age of algorithms and specialization, where you only see what you want to see, that doesn’t occur anymore. The Left watches Succession. The Right watches Yellowstone. To me, it’s the same show. It’s Dallas decades later. Because of that, it seems like we are in our bubbles more and more.

I have had said bubbles on my mind lately, and I mean them in many different ways. When I was in a Christian school, there was that bubble where we were separate from public schoolers (at least we weren’t homeschooled), there was a Pastor’s kid bubble (at least we weren’t missionary kids), and a Trinity Bubble (where we rarely went above 410 and we sure as heck did not go to the west side or east side or southside.) There’s a north Dallas bubble where I NEVER went to Oakcliff. I even experienced a bubble in New York when I lived there. I was on the Upper West Side which was completely different from even the Upper East Side and very different from Hamilton and Washington Heights.

LA County is not Orange County. Fort Worth is not Dallas. Long Island is not the city and neither is Westchester County. Staten Island? Don’t make me laugh.

Then there are media bubbles. No matter how hard they try, national media organizations, by just being in NYC, DC, and LA, miss out on what flyover country thinks.

Yet, when I was at the fox, I’d codeswitch and take off my badge before I left the building and left the subway station closer to 30 rock. Back in Texas, it was like I was a rock star because I worked there. In contrast, I dare not tell anyone here that I worked at CNN. That’s almost as bad as going to Harvard or Yale.

Sometimes, I wondered if these companies even knew a world existed past the Hudson. Similarly, I wonder if people from west Texas ever think about nyc or la in a non-negative way.

There’s an allure to bubbles. You’re safe in them. You know the rules and how the game Is played. In San Angelo, that means if you go to a tex-mex place, you get white sauce and cheese on your refried beans. If you asked that in the valley, they’d look at you quizzically. I’m not sure where the line in the state is but there’s also breakfast tacos in south texas (shout-out to Jill Biden) and breakfast burritos where I am.

As someone with an MPA from North Texas State, I’ve been fascinated with why bubbles exist. Why is Southlake so different than Lewisville? How would I plan a city if I had unlimited funds? How do you balance tourism in the city versus making sure that residents’ quality of life is maintained enough to where they want to stay there?

How would I correct wrongs that the past had made say in Jim Crow times? In San Angelo, up until recently, we had a Lee AND Lincoln middle school. Our county, Tom Green, was named after a confederate soldier. I always found that interesting. I never understood it, but I had never questioned it either. Just wait until you find out what the mascot of Robstown High school was/is

There are other bubbles too, but I want to focus on religious and ethnic bubbles. I am about a 45-minute drive from where the Yearning for Zion FLDS sect was located. I was around 13 years old when that happened. It was a spectacle. As was the spectacle our mayor at the time made a year late. At least he was not Laura Miller or that one mayor from Coppell.

You see, the orthodontist I went to was the same orthodontist they went to. So it was normal to see the FLDS children at the office. They looked just like you and me at that age except they dressed like they were in Little House on the Prairie or like the Duggars circa 2002.

For me, traveling outside of any bubble was a thrill. From listening to secular music off of a CD burned for me to going out of my way to drive down Military Highway in San Antonio to going to the South Bronx to volunteer. It was adventurous. I yearned for more (not for Zion.) I was like Christian Bale’s character in Newsies when he sang of Santa Fe.

In therapy recently, I started something called EMDR: Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing Therapy.

It’s a practice where you tap yourself while going through past trauma. You have this lockbox

(wow, 2000 election anyone?) where you go and have this memory that’s safe for you. For some, it is a beach in Florida. For me, it was my grandmother’s house outside of La Grange off of 71.

by the way, my therapist told me I did a great job during my session, but all I asked was how was that for you? In my session. Like I needed her to have a good time too. Need to work on that…

Leaving a bubble can be scary. It was for me, but that doesn’t mean I won’t continue to do it. I find myself in awe of this person I know who is originally from California, moved to Dallas, moved to Las Vegas, and is now in San Antonio.

It’s nice to stay in one place. It’s comfortable. But I believe life is supposed to be uncomfortable. That’s where growth happens. I wish it could happen only when good things happen, but I guess that’s why the good days are so good: because we have bad ones. I say that’s one reason to get make that bubble burst even if it’s a little painful. I guess that’s just my opinion, man.

Quickhitters

• We finally had rain in this area. To those readers not from this area, this is a big deal. or as Biden would say “a big F’n deal.”

• I wish I was surprised about Matt Chandler, but I’m not. Too bad they don’t believe women can preach.

• Shout out to Christina Applegate. If you know, you know.

• I’ve been rewatching 80s movies lately, a lot of them do not hold up. Cusack on the Lawn? That’s stalking! No good.

• Can’t buy me love is still my favorite rom-com though. nerdy Patrick Dempsey and Seth green!

• My favorite documentary is Meet the Patels. I wonder if I’d trust my parents to set me up. Only a few more years where that’ll inevitably happen:

• I’m excited to see the new John McEnroe doc. And don’t you dare ask if I cannot be serious.

• I’ll be talking about student loan debt forgiveness soon. Let’s just say my thoughts are conflicted. I was once told by a professor that I should wake up in a cold sweat due to the growing power of the executive. It’s important to remember the founders were most worried about congress being too powerful so they paired the judiciary and executive branches together. That “I’m just a bill” song probably makes zero sense to kids today.

• I was at the local library when I was asked to do a hit for a local station here on how the library was forgiving fines in an effort to not deter citizens from going to the library. Naturally, it made me think of these scenes.

• Songs of the day: