Tex Jex

Know, O reader, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars--Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingaria with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom in the world was Texas, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Jex, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet.

Apologies to R.E. Howard, but since Texas was his homeland, I deigned it apropos.

I am having a Viking rebirth. Everything I own has been loaded into my ship, and I have set forth not to burn at sea, but to carve my kingdom upon the earth.

My Manifest Destiny is not to load my wagon and head west, but to load up my truck, Bucephalos, and conquer my known world.

I was driving for 12 hours, of course there's going to be multiple esoteric references. Deal with it. And yes, I named my truck Bucephalos.

Today is the first day I have set foot in Texas. I have come through the fires of the Arizona Desert, and the wind and rains of Hurricane Alex. This state is trying its damndest to expunge the Jex, but we're tenacious little bastards, and we're going to rip its bloody throat out.

Stay tuned, true believers, stay tuned.