With summer heat still in its hellish full swing, it’s hard to get the mail without producing enough sweat to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool. And that’s at night. Go outside during the day? Forget it. You’re better off standing naked under your air conditioner until the sun goes down…

I walk into the dark, smoky bar. It’s a full house tonight, and every head turns as I make my way to the front of the room. I pop open my guitar case, brandish a Gibson, and step on stage. I tease the crowd with a little strumming. “This is…

For years, the Hooters restaurant chain has aroused both groups of wing-eating dudes and the tempers of militant feminists. Questions have been raised: Are Hooters girls objectified? Are the wings really as hot and tasty as the ladies who bring them? Will they ever get rid of those horrible orange…

I’ll just come out and say it: The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino horrifies me. It’s a depraved place full of slot machines, waitresses in hot pants, and plenty of people betting way more than they can afford. But that grand little nation of contrived decadence also fascinates me…

When I was growing up, my father and brothers were very competitive, or, more accurately, completely ruthless at videogames, board games, sports, bowling, air hockey, and especially go-carts. My dad is a great man, but he would completely kick my little toddler ass at Candy Land and any other board…

To me, the word hurricane conjures up thoughts of fruity rum cocktails, utter destruction, and complete inconvenience (not necessarily in that order). I’ve seen news footage of the devastation leveled by Hurricane Katrina, and I can’t ignore local whispers of the extended power outages Wilma caused. Frankly, I don’t have…

When I was young, my parents took me to Hawaii. I remember wholesome family fun there, swimming in the ocean and visiting some volcanoes. We checked out both Maui and Oahu, but all in all, we didn’t do anything more exotic than drink from a coconut or search for seashells…

My dad occasionally speaks of our family clan’s unluckiness: “We never win anything.” I’ve never asked why he thinks that, but knowing my eccentric assortment of relatives, I don’t doubt that one of them could have pissed off some voodoo queen enough to get the whole family hexed. Whether luck…

I haven’t been away from my home state of Texas that long, and occasionally I like to remind myself what it means to be a Texan. Yeah, we execute the mentally challenged, we thump our Bibles, and sometimes we forget that we’re part of a larger country. But we do…

Oh, Memorial Day weekend, three wonderful work-free days to spend drinking, lounging, grilling, and marinating in unadulterated American pride. After all, the average hard-workin’ Joe Schmoe doesn’t get many free Sunday nights to spend hanging with old friends, leaving a pile of empty Pabst Blue Ribbon bottles in his wake…

I have five uncles, and none of them is filthy stinking rich. That said, all five are considerably wealthier than a certain wayward, estranged niece (me). I live several hundred miles from any of them, though, and don’t receive many invitations to visit. But in my mind, reclining in a…

Some teenaged girls develop obsessions with hot celebrities like Johnny Depp or Justin Timberlake. Some go gaga over the blue-eyed high school quarterback. Some fall for their older brother’s sexy best friend — the one with the washboard abs and broad shoulders. Yeah, I’m a sucker for blue eyes and…

Animal heads and mounted skulls give me chills. Nothing strikes fear in my heart like a room that celebrates Bambi’s untimely demise by having his decapitated head bolted to the wall. And like so many of my irrational convictions and strange fears, this started when I was a little girl…

Sometime in the naive years before puberty, I told my mom that it wasn’t fair how I had to wear a shirt when my dad and brothers didn’t. She absolutely did not see how “fairness” had anything to do with it and promptly administered a firm and enduring lecture on…

Personally, I satiate my inner songstress with an occasional Iron Maiden sing-along in the solitary confinement of my Hyundai (my inner songstress also happens to love ’80s hair metal). I do a mean karaoke rendition of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” — I wouldn’t call it harmonious, but it’s hardly…

I like to think I’m a little more culturally savvy than your average cookie-cutter blond American girl. I’m a hookah pro. I love licorice from northern Europe. I can swear in at least six different languages. And I’ll drink alcohol that’s been imported from just about anywhere. Still, there’s something…

There are plenty of good reasons for women to be bitchy: the glass ceiling, social oppression, pantyhose, bad pick-up lines, double standards, uncomfortable shoes, and, of course, cramps. When I feel particularly picked on, I go for a long walk, make a cup of chai, and turn myself into a…

Sure, I’m a girly-girl. I like pretty shoes and lipstick. I’m so sissified that a cockroach scurrying through the kitchen can send my voice traveling up to glass-shattering octaves. I don’t wear leather, I’m not pierced or tattooed, and the closest I come to a fight is punching an imaginary…

The club life isn’t all sex and glam. It’s also expensive drinks, sleazy swinger dudes, uncomfortable clothes, self-doubt, and unpredictable music. Of course, I love the super-sexed, Mai Tai-sipping meat-market mating dance of youth bar-hopping. But sometimes I just want to listen to music from before my time, sip beer,…

With the month of March drawing to a close, a bar-hopping people-watcher like me has had her fill of sightings of sunburned youths in Greek-lettered T-shirts. Scores of them. They leave beer cans on the beach. They stumble along A1A. They’re raucous, super friendly, and brimming with college dorm energy…