A hippie with bright pink hair let me hold her pit puppy at Maria's Sunday morning. His name is Rowan, and he made my heart fluttery when he licked my face and nipped my fingers. The others are from Bull Creek where I've been hiking nearly everyday. Sorry for the poor quality, they're with my cell camera. I've yet to convince someone to buy me a new digital. Donations are welcome.
What else? My horoscope, that's what: Cary Grant said he didn't necessarily advocate making love constantly. "Who can do it all the time?" he asked. "Though I do try." Your assignment in the coming weeks, Scorpio, as revealed by the astrological omens, is to attempt what Grant aspired to do: Do the wild thing as much as possible. Get busy before breakfast on the kitchen table and on your midmorning break in the closet. Duck out of work early so you can get your freak on. Get a hundred more strokes and licks and kisses in before bedtime. Et cetera. And if you don't have a lover to help you out in the noble cause, then boink the wind, screw the sky, hump your dreams, make love to the universe.
That's an astrological assignment I can get behind.
The current state of things: - both my bedroom and closet light bulbs burnt out today. - I have a heat rash on my belly. - I really need to stop drinking so much.
Turn your sound on so you can listen to Nas. Trust me, it syncs up nicely with the videos of Bush dancing below.
Sex, politics, and religion tend to bring out the most interesting discussion. Since I've already dedicated time to sex and religion, I'll give you my thoughts on the debate the other night, which took place at UT where I go to school.
I consider myself an Obamacan, despite my cynical questioning of the possibilities of Real Change. But Hillary's opening statement was off the fuckin chain, and he never seemed to regain his rhythm. She sat there and smirked her evil dragon smirk and thought about eating babies while he stumbled disjointedly through somewhat non-specific answers. Maybe I'm being too harsh about Hillary, but here's the thing--I can't let go of the notion that maybe, maybe, this is a revenge thing. Stay with me--first, do we really want a woman who can't handle her man handling the country? I'm just saying. I know that's unfair, but still. Second, what if she's just running so she can get some grudge nookie from some hapless intern? Then and only then will she and Bill truly be even.
I'm only half serious here. Unbundle your undies.
I think it's unfortunate how scrutinized the candidates are on their tone, gestures, facial expression, word choice, etc., this after weeks and months of traveling, pressure, and little sleep. Some analysts on NPR were discussing Hillary's praise of Obama this morning, how she said she was honored to be running against him. Was this sincere? Is she admitting defeat? Is she manipulating us by being nice and positive one second and letting the bitch trickle out in the next?
The famous Xerox zinger. BOOOOOO! Go think about intellectual property. All of you.
Do I think Obama might possibly get assassinated? Yes. We have a bad history with strong black leaders. Is John McCain a reanimated zombie? Yes. He has an even better chance of dying in office, but of old age. Does Ron Paul look like a muppet? Lil bit. So as you can see, I'm unsure as to who the new leader of the free world should be. In the meantime, I'm glad to see GWB is holding shit down:
Apparently the rhythm Barack had misplaced in Austin had gotten Bush again in Liberia.
Anyway, tonight I went with Mama Christie and her man to the Manchaca Fire Dept. Friday Night All You Can Eat Catfish Fry Spectacular Bonanza Jubilee. That's not the real name. They've been doing this for decades. I was nice to go to a family-oriented function for once--6th St. got old a long time ago for me. It's a similar vibe to the Friday night spaghetti dinner in my hometown, or a cajun boil, or a Mexican potluck (which my mom said they had at her school today, which I think is funny cause I don't think any Mexicans go to that school). Lots of picnic tables, a good ole boys country band made up of men whom my father is starting to resemble, kids zooming around on Heelies and old school trikes, old folks, young folks, a tin roof and a concrete floor, and all the catfish, hushpuppies, beans, slaw, and french fries you can eat or fit on a plastic plate for $10.95.
I had the strong feeling that something was wrong this morning, and it caused me to hide in bed til nearly ten when I wasn't even tired, just because staying in my bed in my still half-dark room seemed so much easier than facing whatever was going on out there. Or in here--I didn't know what was wrong. I just felt it--I had The Fear. I warned Mark immediately that something strange was afoot, but he reassured me I looked pretty. Antsy, I went down to S. Austin for coffee with Momma Christie, returning a few hours later to a police standoff, which is still going on about two blocks from my house.
Nothing brings the neighborhood together like a good ole standoff. The skater kids from a few doors down, the weird lady next door, a bunch of old people I've never seen and people who drove to the neighborhood to sit in their cars with binoculars, cameras, and cigarettes gathered together to express their ignorance as to what was going on. Some guy in a duplex, he has a hostage, the whole Ross parking lot is covered with police cars, and did you hear that tear gas they shot in there? They must have done that about seven or eight times, the pops making us jump and wonder if it was the inevitable gun fire we'd hear at some point. It was an exciting Sunday afternoon on Ashdale. It had the same aura as a small town football game, or possibly a public execution. I can hear the negotiator's voice, sounding like a parade announcer through a megaphone--"We know you are there and we are not leaving. Put down your gun and pick up the phone." Borrowing some binoculars, I could see SWAT guys crouched around the fence, the house itself hidden. The conversation turned to the safety of the neighborhood with some older folks who still had on their Sunday best, chatting together in the driveway. We expressed disbelief when a young blond blew past the cop car, driving right into the fire zone, and snickered together when the stern and mustached seargant, after yelling and chasing her down, told her angrily to turn around and get out of here, and sniggered more as the dumb bitch nervously executed a 48 point turn to correct herself.
I went back inside. I no longer hear the negotiator. I don't see any movement, and I felt sad at the spectacle of the whole situation. I felt bad for the guy, or girl, or whatever, who really knows...what did they feel like when they woke up this morning? How would it end? What made it come to this? I'll let you know when I find out. I suppose I am out of reasons for not doing homework now.
I am hungover. No real mental or aesthetic gems in this post. Just an ode to Austin. I'll most likely be leaving within the year, and these experiences make me wonder why.
Mark decided spur of the moment-like to come visit. He told me (drunk) on Friday night to set my alarm for 5:30am, so I could call him and wake him up and he could get on the road and be here earlyish. I too have made plans like that, and just like mine, they got delayed. Excited, I called at the requested time. No answer. I called later, around 7, and sleepy boy mumbled, "Ijesneedalilmoresleep." The ETA changed from noonish to four thirty.
We ate at Hoover's, his favorite place, feasted on catfish, mashed potatos, jerk chicken, cream spinach, macaroni and cheese...damn. Then we met up with another Marc and a few friends at Lala's, the land of perpetual Christmas on Burnet. There I learned that in addition to never shooting tequila again (the one New Year's resolution I maintain year after year), I may have to swear off whiskey. Stories were shared, jokes were told, Al Green was played on the juke box, and we racked up an impressive tab. After that, we got the idea to rent a movie, so we stumbled into Blockbuster, where I sorta yelled, "YA'LL GOT POOTIE TANG?" Happily, they did.
(I'm leaving out the X-rated part of the evening, but I will say that everything has fallen off my bathroom shelf.)
This morning we suffered through headaches screaming for Excedrin and tried to pretend Mark didn't have to go back to Lubbock so soon. We drove for about a half hour, trying to decide where to eat lunch while I choked back upchuck. Mark didn't help, making fake puke noises, which made me laugh, hit his arm and weakly cry "stop it!" unconvincingly. My dehydrated body was fragile--it wasn't long til I was cry-laughing, a state Mark and I often put each other into. I love that.
He left a few hours ago, and I went back to sleep. My sheets still smell like him. Unfortunately, so does my bathroom.
As a sort of informal research project, I began listening intently to people on Cap Metro's southbound route 3 that takes me to school. Crazy interesting shit happens on the bus. Today's was the best in a while:
I boarded shortly after one pm after conferring times with some crazy dude with bandaids on his arms who was talking to a fairly normal looking guy about the location of a certain hospital. He didn't seem quite as normal when he pulled out a huge empty prescription bottle and said he was new in town, from Houston, going to go refill his friend's prescription of hydrocodone. Huh. Then Bandaid Man pulled out a similarly empty bottle, and they guffawed together for sharing a mission. Bandaid Man had just gotten out of the hospital for a staph infection, which he continued to describe in gruesome detail as we got on the bus. At this point I had trained myself to stop listening. Instead I focused on the bus driver.
Most female bus drivers are either so nice they'd bring you a cupcake if you told them tomorrow's your birthday or so mean they'll not only not let you take your water on the bus but berate you on your weight or hair at the same time. Today's driver was of the latter sort. She honked irratically and swerved like a Kennedy on a boat. At the Koening stop, an equally angry disabled lady got on the bus. "Are all these people disabled?" she barked at the driver, gesturing to Bandaid Man and a dorky girl suffering from a broken foot and acne. "Ma'am, just get on the bus," the driver moaned. "Don't boss me around!" she growled. Bandaid Man and seemingly normal guy continued their discussion in front of me, and seemingly normal guy gave him a few of the pills he had left. I continued reading Tom Robbins and tried not to laugh. Dorky pimply broken foot girl looked like she was going to cry, and angrily texted someone about the injustices she was suffering.
For the next five or so minutes, the driver struggled to get the wheelchaired lady buckled. Her habit of backing up sharply (as if in her walking life she constantly made sneak turns and scared people and had continued her aggressive moving into wheelchairhood) knocked the seatbelt out of the driver's hands twice. She had really worked up a sweat trying to reach around the lady to get that seatbelt, too. Any attempts at directing a collaborative effort were met with the warning "don't boss me around."
We finally got buckled and arranged and were about to lurch off when the man at the stop told us we were leaking antifreeze, which resulted in five more minutes of phone calls and head shaking, bitching and clock watching. I was glad I didn't have class til four. It was a beautiful day. Tom Robbins held me in the weirdness of the moment:
"Our individuality is all, all, that we have. There are those who barter it for security, those who repress it for what they believe is the betterment of the whole society, but blessed in the twinkle of the morning star is the one who nurtures it and rides it, in grace and love and wit, from peculiar station to peculiar station along life's bittersweet route."
There was one point while imitation boogie-boarding in Corpus last week when I was suddenly unsure whether the rhythmic tides were pushing me sand-ward or pulling me out into blue nothingness. It was horizontal vertigo, and suddenly the land lovers seemed much further away than they should be. After a few seconds of noncommon-sensical shark fear, I slid off the board and realize I could still touch.
No such thing happened today at Bull Creek. The creek rushes one way, and one way only, and strongly. Beautiful leaves kept clinging to me as they were swept away, and I sat in the cool water and read Tom Robbins. The following passage answered questions in my heart too slippery to ask properly:
"Consider a certain night in August. Princess Leigh-Cheri was gazing out of her attic window. The moon was full. The moon was so bloated it was about to tip over. Imagine awakening to find the moon flat on its face on the bathroom floor, like the late Elvis Presley, poisoned by banana splits. It was a moon that could still wild passions in a moo cow. A moon that could bring out the devil in a bunny rabbit. A moon that could turn lug nuts into moonstones, turn Little Red Riding Hood into the big bad wolf. For more than an hour, Leigh-Cheri stared into the mandala of the sky. "Does the moon have a purpose?" she inquired of Prince Charming. Prince Charming pretended that she had asked a silly question. Perhaps she had. The same query put to the Remington SL3 elicited this response: Albert Camus wrote that the only serious qustion is whether to kill yourself or not. Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end. Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm. There is only one serious question. And that is: Who knows how to make love stay? Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself."
