Here’s mine from Botswana. Not the best picture, but it was the first giraffe I’d ever seen in the wild. I got hundreds of better, closer giraffe pictures over the next two weeks, but this one was special because it was my FIRST GIRAFFE. Our safari started as a “walking safari,” and we were just walking along in the…

I’m not one of the ones saying the city “should” build more affordable housing. Did you mean to respond to me, or someone else?

We live in an “ask for forgiveness rather than permission” culture, for sure. But it’s impossible to know about all the risks unless you’re aware of stories like this fire. I would have probably attended this party in my 20s without thinking twice. Agreed with all your posts that more practical risk-avoidance…

Thank you for posting this. And I am so incredibly sorry for your loss.

Nobody is saying they’re “owed” the privilege of living anywhere. I’d argue the people living in a warehouse “collective” in the city are just as gritty and scrappy as those who pack up and move to BFE.

People die in Airbnbs, too, because they don’t get inspected like hotels do. But all people care about is that they get to rent out a giant house for $100 a night instead of staying in a “lame chain hotel.” I was the only one who checked the smoke detectors the last time my friends rented a party house on Airbnb.

I live in a place that tons of people (on this site especially) think I should “just move away from” (due to its politics, not its cost of living).

Totally. I used to put my face right up to it too, to feel my nose prickle from the static.

I have no clue what I’d do with MORE SPACE.

Buc-ee’s for fudge and jerky! Czech stop for kolaches and klobasneks!

I always take out-of-towners to some kind of special showing/event/party/quote-along/sing-along/Master Pancake at the Alamo Drafthouse and, if nothing great is going on, I just take them to a regular movie there. They’re always like, “Wait... we’re going to a MOVIE THEATER??” And I’m like, “Oh, you just wait.”

I’ve been meaning to try Hruska’s for years! We don’t get down that way very often, unfortunately.

Honestly? They are pretty good but have gone WAY down in quality since Torchy’s has rapidly expanded to a million locations. They’re always mobbed at certain popular locations, and I have long since decided they are no longer worth the wait. But the queso? Still pretty awesome. I always take out-of-towners to Torchy’s…

They closed my childhood Fazoli’s, too! I was ruined when I found it was gone.

Racism in the states is out in the open and a regular topic of discussion. And, therefore, it gets ugly. So it might seem like there’s “more racism” here. But the casual racism that is allowed to go unchecked (or that’s even chuckled at) in other countries is astounding.

My own parents aren’t much better. We’re looking at houses but want to stay close to the city, and when I told my parents we were looking at places between 1,100 and 1,500 square feet, my mother audibly gasped and was like, “But how would you LIVE like that?” Gee, well we’ve survived six years in an 850-sqf apartment,…

The first time I dragged my fancy Dallas husband to Fazoli’s in Waco, he got food poisoning. I still make him stop there, though. He glares at me as I eat my pasta and breadsticks.

It is AMAZING. You must go and eat all the kolaches. If you arrive and see a line spilling out the door, fear not — it’s always that crowded. The line moves pretty quickly and the baked goods are well worth the wait.

The in-laws are constantly like, “Oh, Cousin so-and-so just bought a LOVELY house in [desolate exurb]!”

My parents LOVE Chip and Jo. For my parents, Chip and Jo are #couplegoals. They want to retire in Waco. I live in Austin, and they seem to think I’m going to visit them up there, and I’m like, “AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHH fuckno.”