This week was mostly uneventful—right up until Thursday night.
I’m now through the fourth of five weeks of radiation, which feels great to say. Up until then, I’d been getting through treatment relatively smoothly, outside of sleeping like garbage because of the awful bed in my Airbnb. It’s corporate housing, so I get why it’s not luxurious, but good God does it make long stays miserable.
You know a bed is bad when even your fat, lazy corgi refuses to sleep on it. Tugboat’s been back in Austin for a little over two weeks now, living his best life, probably rolling around on soft carpet and pretending I never existed. The traitorous little loaf of bread with legs will not be pleased when I return next Friday.
Anyway, as I was saying before the bed and corgi rant, things were fine until Thursday. Since I can’t work out like I’d prefer, I’ve been walking in the evenings with a weight vest to feel somewhat human again. That night, I decided to walk to a salad place I’d driven past earlier in the week, on my way to get what were—without question—the worst soup dumplings in all of Houston. Maybe all of Texas. But that’s a story for another time.
So, I threw on my weight vest and started walking through Rice Village, this bougie pocket of Houston where the lawns are surgically trimmed and the houses look like the kind you’d see in an episode of Beverly Hills, 90210—yeah, I know, that’s an old-school throwback reference, but it fits. Big, shiny, and a little too perfect to feel real.
I figured it was about four miles round trip. Turns out I’m terrible at measuring distance—it was closer to eight. At first, it didn’t seem like a big deal. But after I picked up my salad and started the walk home, my stomach started to hurt. Just slightly at first.
I’ll try to say this politely: I hadn’t had to empty my ostomy bag in two days, which should have been a red flag. Infer what you will. About a mile into the walk back, the pain went from “slight discomfort” to “holy hell I’m dying,” and I was sweating way more than the Houston humidity could justify. Right about then, the bag decided to fill—and I was still nearly two miles from my Airbnb.
I foolishly trudged on. From time to time, I’d pass an older couple walking their dog, and I’d try to manage a polite “Evening,” even though I was hunched over in pain, drenched in sweat, and clutching a brown paper bag that could’ve easily contained a suspicious amount of drugs. If I’d seen me, I’d have assumed I was a crackhead.
Honestly, in that last mile, if someone had offered me crack, I might’ve taken it just to dull the pain. It felt like someone was inflating a balloon lined with shards of glass inside my intestine.
I finally had to stop about three blocks from my Airbnb. I sat on the retaining wall of some rich person’s perfectly manicured lawn, and after a few minutes of misery, I threw up all over their flower bed. Thankfully, it was dark enough that no one saw. For a brief second, I considered just lying down on the sidewalk and letting fate take the wheel, but some tiny sliver of common sense told me to keep moving.
When I finally made it back, I didn’t eat the salad. I did, however, spend an absurd amount of time in the bathroom cleaning myself in ways I didn’t know were possible—and wondering if the best way to clean the bathroom afterward was with sulfuric acid or fire. Cooler heads prevailed when I realized that a) I don’t know where to buy sulfuric acid, and b) arson probably violates the Airbnb terms of service.
Other than that little detour through hell, the week was fine. I made another trip to H-E-B—round two of grocery shopping with an ostomy bag—and thankfully didn’t have to murder any bell peppers this time. I’d just applied a new bag that morning, so I figured I was tempting fate, but I love H-E-B too much to stay away.
People keep asking if Houston is growing on me. And while I don’t want to shit on any friends who used to live here (or still do), if Houston is growing on me, it’s an unwanted growth—kind of like the cancer I already have.
The thing that really gets me is the road system. It feels like a city planner handed a crayon and a placemat to a toddler, watched them scribble all over it, and then said, “Perfect. Let’s build it exactly like this.” Somehow it takes thirty minutes to go three miles for a coffee at 11 a.m., and also thirty minutes to go three miles at 5 p.m. I don’t know how you achieve that kind of consistency.
That said, Houston does have redeeming qualities. The people are kind, and the food is incredible—if you take the time to look. I did not do that when I Googled “closest soup dumplings,” which is how I ended up with frozen-Trader-Joe’s-quality bao. In hindsight, that might explain the Thursday night disaster.
But as usual, I don’t like to end on a low note. Right now, I’m sitting at a fantastic coffee shop called The BlackMill, drinking a Mexican mocha latte and eating a biscuit that deserves its own love song.
I’ve found a few great biscuit spots here, but none better than The Breakfast Klub. Partly because TJ, the manager, is the most welcoming human I’ve ever met—but mostly because they just do Southern breakfast right. Biscuits and gravy, chicken and waffles, crispy bacon—it’s all perfect.
That morning, I ended up talking with three women celebrating a birthday. They noticed my pink, sparkly toenails (I’d just had them done for Poppy that morning) and, understandably, thought I was a bit off—seems to be a theme for this post. But once I told them the Poppy story, they softened, and before long, we were laughing about the perks of getting older. They drank mimosas; I sadly stuck with water.
It was one of those random, human moments that sticks with you. And thinking back on it now, I guess Houston is growing on me a little. I still think the roads are a crime against humanity, but the food, the people, and the unexpected kindness make it harder to hate.