I can think of two spaces in Texas that put me at risk of hypothermia. Rothko Chapel in Houston, and Tending, (Blue) in Dallas.

I’ve visited both. I’ve sat silently inside their cold mouths and, in both spaces, felt a pang of gratitude for finally being spit out into warm air.

Rothko Chapel:

Tending, (Blue):

But these spaces aren’t cold in the same way that climate-controlled homes of suburbia are cold. In fact, Tending, (Blue) is open-aired. James Turrell, the artist, considered it a skyspace.

I walked through these frosty glass doors and down a purple-lit hall that funnelled me into an inner sanctum with canted stone walls making up the 4 sides of a square. The walls also served as a bench. I sat down and leaned back and looked up through a smaller square-cutout in the ceiling:

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Tags: (blue), ::ART::, dallas, houston, james turrell, mark rothko, rothko chapel, tendering

Toronto Raptors

Houston Rockets

Tags: ::SPORTS::, funniest youtube videos, houston, live television blooper, raptors, rockets, sunday humor, toronto, video clip

If you’re in the mood for a good laugh, try to remember your first job interview.

Maybe yours won’t make you laugh like mine, but it’ll probably make you smile at the memory of a much younger, more callow and inexperienced version of you.

The details of my first job interview are a little hazy, but I definitely remember the gist of that day. I was heading into my junior year in high school. I was living in Houston, TX. Since I had no car, I could only apply to jobs within walking distance.

Right around the corner, Kroger, the grocery store. I applied for a job as bag boy, and I really wanted to get this job, not so much because of the prestige that came with it, but for the regular paychecks, which would help me buy food on weekends.

A woman called me in for the interview shortly after I filled out a one-page application with references, experience, and location.

All my references were either friends or family. I had exactly no prior experience. But at least I lived right around the corner, so my hours were about as flexible as could be, and I could show up for the job on short notice, it being summertime.

∞

Tags: ::ESSAYS ABOUT REAL LIFE::, bag boy, extrovert, first job, houston, interview answers, interview questions, introvert, kroger

Although I wasn’t born in Houston, I did a lot of my growing up there. Briar Grove Park saw four, maybe five years of my life.

I don’t remember the neighborhood ever being outrageously decorated for Christmas, but this year one single-family house raised the bar and got noticed by more than just Briar Grove Park denizens.

The explosion of merry lights got the attention of the local news, which featured this amazing house, located on Briarbrook Dr, catty corner to a longtime friend’s house.

I took piano lessons several houses up the street.

My piano teacher was gray haired, bespectacled, and, after her kids left in pursuit of adulthood, lived alone with her Golden Retriever. She always wrote in cursive with a #2 pencil that could have been sharper, but was always just right.

She taught me how to play Bach’s Minuet in G Major, abridged.

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Tags: ::ART::, ::REAL ESTATE::, briar grove park, christmas decoration, christmas lights, houston, js bach, local news, memories, minuet, pic

by Michael Davidson

Chapter Five

Tags: ::CREATIVE WRITING::, houston, Short Stories, story about infidelity