"Texas"

Innocuous vanity plates or symptom of a larger malady?

Read on to find out.

In the five minutes after I depart Houston Hobby airport in my mother's semi-old silver Volvo, I encounter the billboard of the ages. I was shocked so deeply by it, in my first return to Texas in a full year that I could not muster my camera quickly enough to capture it.

It posits ever so unassumingly....

HAVE YOU PRAYED FOR OUR TROOPS TODAY?

The sign worked because the first word I could eventually manage to utter was Jesus, following succinctly by Chriiiist.

I suppose my previous arrogance had been dealt a blow, I thought my mind to be discerning enough to remain impervious to everything but subliminal advertising, but I had now been bested by the LEAST SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE EVER COMPOSED.

Welcome home! my mother said with too much excitement to be sincere just then. I would be reminded on the way home that Texas is the only state in the union actually has the constitutional right to succeed from the United States. It was part of our annexation agreement with the United States after Texas was its own country for nine years in the 1830s and 1840s.

My next thought was how intensely I wanted to be the one who led Texas away from the United States. My bretheren Texan would think me a patriot, to lead the great beacon of morality that is Texas out of the dark blot of liberalism that is the United States. I would then sneakily move back to New York and enjoy that the GOP would suddenly be short of the 27 points Texas has in the electoral college.

Later I watch the local Houston news, which I always love to do when I am home. The Thanksgiving local edition of the news began with these cute Turkey graphics and then some warming, opening footage of our President pardoning a turkey from death before his holiday dinner.

It was a cute little puff piece that ended with everyone feeling all festive-like. The turkeys were so cute, just gobblin' around, you know?

161 Iraqis were killed in five simultaneous bombings in the Shiite district of Sadr City today.

Jesus Christ , a nascent sucker for non-subliminal messages all of sudden, I managed again. I was very impressed with the anchors because they were able to wipe away their saccharine grins by an appropriate margin of time before transitioning into that story. The next story was about how Houston Police dropped the charges of "resisting arrest" against the Fred Weary, the 6'5", 305 pound offensive lineman for the Houston Texans franchise whom they tasered TWICE after pulling him over earlier in the week.

That I have some overarching paranoia while home is more than apparent whenever I see the old streets of Houston, despite how often they've been paved over and gentrified since I lived here six years ago. But when I type this, I realize, my god, I am absolutely delusional, because the insanity of this place never dawns on me while these things are happening.

As we continue to drive home, we pass Lakewood Church.

Lakewood Church is the building Houstonians used to call the Compaq Center, and for years beforehand, the Summit. It was from the stands of this venue that I watched the Houston Rockets win two NBA championships in 1994 and 1995. The concerts of all my angsty teenage musical leanings from the Smashing Pumpkins, the Stones, and Aerosmith to even Metallica and White Zombie took place in what is now a 20,000+ capacity mega-church, led by Pastor Joel Osteen. Lakewood Church is one of, I believe, three such (20,000+ capacity) mega-churches in Houston. I begin my Jesus fits again.

But soon I am home. And it's quiet and 74 degrees. And my cocker spaniel PB greets me at the door and we attack each other on my kitchen floor for the next ten minutes. The rest of the trips has its requisite decadence in cuisine and catch-up sessions over sloppy Tex-Mex food and $2 bottles of beer. I remember how much I miss home, however rose-tinted by the idealized pampering I receive in a short stay.

I catch a Rockets game at our new and even better arena, which could be a church by 2012 if I cross my fingers the way they do in the Exorcist movies. I am docile and relaxed, without fear or paranoia. It's good to see the home team play.

And then Ms.Tamy in her road-busting humvee allows me one more religious supplication.

Jesus Christ.