Sleepless in Austin

If it's not one thing, it's another: this time, not only did Papa Silhavy's ashes get left on the baggage carousel in Seattle, but so did poor Magda. Oh! the indignity!

Those things pinch, too.

Meanwhile, here in Austin, I had a pretty quiet couple of days off, which I dedicated largely to manicure upkeep. This gets old after a while.

Do you know what a Beverly Hills manicure is? It used to be called an American manicure - as opposed to French, you know - back when I used to do the fake nail thing, which nobody does anymore, except in Beaumont. It's clear pink polish over the nail beds and sheer off-white on the tips, which gives the overall effect that you have really nice nails that aren't all split and peely and uneven-looking; and like a lot of the dumb stuff we dames do in the name of beauty, takes quite a lot of effort to make it look like you aren't even trying.

On those stupid MySpace survey things when one of the questions is "What's the first thing you notice about the opposite sex?" no man has ever, ever, ever answered "Her fingernails." Not the gay ones either. Nobody.

The other thing you can do if you take time off during the week is go to breakfast at Magnolia. Even on a Thursday morning there's a fifteen-minute wait. Forget about the weekend. It's a pity, because I remember a time when you could go there and actually hope to eat something yummy - gingerbread pancakes, perhaps, though my personal favorite is the Popeye omelet - within a reasonable amount of time. Now the waiting area is just as packed as Rain on a Saturday night. They should have bouncers who turn you away if you don't smell like locally-produced, organic personal hygiene products.

You can also go to happy hour and show up early enough that you might get a table and/or a parking space.

When I lived in Corpus, the thing I really liked about it was that it wasn't crowded. There wasn't a lot of traffic, and even Wal-Mart shopping was not a completely traumatic experience. You could pop by the HEB after work to pick up a few items and have no trouble whatsoever acquiring a shopping cart (as long as you weren't looking for one of those kiddie-car shaped ones, because they don't have those there at all) and be in and out in fifteen minutes. If you went out dancing, there was room to get away from the person grinding on you if you wanted to (which you did; there are no cute guys in Corpus). People who live there tend to move away after a while, so there's plenty of elbow room.

Austin is wonderful and people keep moving here in droves and now it's just too crowded to go anywhere, but that's okay because you couldn't afford it anyway.

I hear Barrow is lovely this time of year.