The One Less Traveled By

The new South Walnut Creek Trail does not start at Govalle Park.

I mean, the city website says it does. But you won't find a trailhead at the park. What you will find, if you ride around aimlessly in circles, are a couple of footbridges, a basketball court, a playground with small children (you must make a sincere effort not to run over these), and a worn track in the dirt that leads out to a neighboring street.

Go north on this street to the next main cross-street, Jain. Jog just a scoche to the right and you'll see the trailhead on your left. I think they'll eventually continue it southward into the park proper, and even connect it to the Town Lake Hike-and-Bike. But for now, it ain't there.

Seriously, I spent much too long Googling "South Walnut Creek Trail" and squinting at project maps on the screen of my phone with a Cannondale awkwardly propped between my thighs not to understand the value of what I am doing here. This has been a public service announcement.

Once you find the trail, it's a dream. Some of it is so new that the forms haven't been removed yet. But it's completely road-bike suitable. It's supposedly about seven miles (or will be, once it's complete - it ends just after Loyola) and will eventually hook up to the Manor trail and the North Walnut Creek Trail, and open up some serious possibilities for a bike commuter interested in helping to gentrify the East side.

Gentrification is a ravenous monster, but we're all on the food chain. I'm not sure who overran California, forcing its inhabitants to sell out, move to Austin, and render housing here completely beyond the reach of a normal middle-class worker, unless you want to live in Georgetown or Elgin or Buda (and if you are here because you love Austin, you do not want to live in those places). They are probably aliens from a planet where a broom closet goes for $75,000 a month and you have to haul your own recycling to the processing facility with a pair of magnetized chopsticks.

I'm thinking of moving to Seattle. Seattle seems cool, and there are not nearly as many Starbuckses there as you might expect. But I digress.

The new trail is paved in cement for its entirety and has a yellow stripe down the center, which I love because it sends a clear message to joggers that, while welcome, they might want to consider keeping to the right. So much pedestrian-cyclist animosity on the Town Lake hike-and-bike trail could be avoided if people would just bear in mind that someone faster will eventually come up behind them, and that you can't hear "On your left!" if you have your earbuds cranked to full volume.

But as new as the trail is, it apparently isn't immune from the greatest threat of all. On our briskly cool ride today, we saw four other cyclists, three joggers, and A FUCKING SUV PARKED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TRAIL.

I am not even kidding. I wanted to get a picture, but since my boyfriend had just confronted the owner, I didn't want to stop for fear of getting shot (this is Texas, so shooting a person who wilfully and maliciously criticizes your parking technique is considered self-defense); but a white SUV had apparently driven down the trail from a construction entrance nearby, and its driver was taking pictures of his small child and medium-sized dog in front of an adjacent field.

The body of the SUV being slightly less wide than the trail, the driver had thoughtfully left all four doors open.

My boyfriend didn't raise his voice very much, just said something along the lines of "Hey man, you need to move this - you really shouldn't be here. This is supposed to be for bikes!" And, because this is Austin, the guy actually seemed embarrassed and said, "Yes, okay, I'll move it, I'll move it."

He wasn't entirely unjustified in not expecting to encounter anyone at all. I only know about the trail because Bicycle Sport Shop posted some photos on Facebook of a ride there last week. It's possible the other cyclists we encountered found out the same way.

I'm not sure if the full 7.2 miles are open yet. It certainly didn't seem that far in either direction. But on fairly level ground, with pavement, and no traffic, it's possible. It did seem more like four or five, tops. But what the hell, we'll say 7.2. My boyfriend needs the encouragement.

I Can't Get No Respect

My elaborate road-trip plans having fallen through today, due to softball tournaments that did not (despite all the frogs in the known universe) get rained out, late-night drinking binges, parental visits, emergency haircuts, and other reasons not particularly worth going into, transpire (read it again, it actually does make grammatical sense), Tony and his friend Josh took me out to lunch today at Magnolia. I'd already eaten.

You can always find something worth having at Magnolia Cafe, though. This is one of the very first echt-Austin establishments I was taken to, at the tender age of 17, by my then-30-year-old boyfriend, when I was a little freshman newbie to Austin and he was the creature of the world, showing me the ropes of the place. At that time, I remember, Magnolia Cafe had a mural depicting (among other things) Superman with a Hitler mustache. I expect that was meant to be a Nietzsche reference. Whatever it was, it's gone now.

So today I had cottage cheese and a flamingo sandwich (tomatoes, avocadoes, swiss cheese, and alfalfa sprouts on grilled whole wheat bread - I removed the sprouts), and the boys had more substantial fare, and polished off my discarded alfalfa sprouts, to boot. They're big muscle men. Of course.

Then we went to Redbud Island. I've lived in Austin - and adored it with my whole heart, which probably goes without saying - for about 23 years now, minus the year I spent back with my parents in northern Virginia, and the two years I had the insane notion of living in Corpus because it has a beach. I'll tell you what: rotting seaweed, dirty sand, the occasional stinging jellyfish, and zero nightlife make for a lousy beach. Go for the weekend, if you will. Several of us will be down there, getting drunk and possibly less-legally impaired, and painting the town some chic and unexpected color, for my 40th birthday in May. But live there? I can't recommend it.

Redbud Island is really nice. I would have liked to be led to know beforehand that we were going, because it's a beautiful leash-free park with decomposed granite trails, plentiful poison ivy, gorgeous rock-studded river vistas, and joyful, exuberant, incredibly wet dogs, and I was in a skirt and high heels. No matter: the views are incredible and the atmosphere is so relaxed. Tony, Josh and I climbed around for a bit, then settled ourselves on a bench in the tree-dappled sunshine, some twenty feet from the water's edge. A guy was resting at the shore about fifteen feet in front tossing sticks to his slightly oblivious dog, which I don't think ever actually retrieved anything. We chatted in desultory fashion about dogs, animals, turtles (Tony's pet of choice), cats, and things that sneak in through the pet door, such as raccoons and possums.

"Oh, you have to watch out for them," chimed in the guy sitting by the water with his dog, "they can be really vicious!"

We got to talking about parallel parking (finding parking at Redbud involved, I might mention, rather a significant amount of obscenity from Tony, despite his Lenten vows); and Josh - about 10-12 years younger than Tony and me - said that he never had trouble, because his Jetta's side mirrors automatically adjusted to point at the curb when he parallel-parked. Tony and I were slightly outraged. When we were his age, we didn't have amenities like that.

"Did they even have cars when you were my age?" Josh teased me; but before I could wind up for a proper smacking, the guy on the shore turned around. "Oh, they did," he said, "but they were the kind where you had to stick your feet out the bottom and run."

Oh! No! You! Di!N'T!!!!!!

We left the park - me, flowing skirt, high heels and all - and got a latte at Mozart's on Lake Austin. Where this thing happened, about which I am about (are you ready?) to blog.

Tony and Josh and I had coffeehouse drinks, and as I was polishing off my iced latte, enjoying the cool early spring weather, a guy at a neighboring table got up to walk inside, but turned and gave me a brief, but fairly dark, significant and serious Look.

"Oh my God," I said to Tony, as the guy walked away and went inside, "that guy is really cute."

Tony turned and looked. "That guy," he said calmly, "looks an awful lot like (you-know-who, dammit)."

"Oh. Shit," I said, putting my head in my hands, because the guy (who didn't really look all that much like him, but had that certain quality of Somethingness by which we tend to group the people we meet in our heads, thereby figuring out in quick order how to deal with them) was unarguably of that type. He looked a bit like a loner, like the type of guy that people tend to misunderstand: intelligent, capable of great insight and humor, defensive, and (as far as my experience goes), perhaps not entirely sane.

Whatever that means. Like I'm claiming I am.

I thought of Agatha Christie, and Miss Marple, and was talking about this still when our neighbor returned to his seat. "Miss Marple's theory," I was explaining, "was that there are really only a fairly limited number of Types of people in the world; and that therefore, as you become older, and get to meet more and more people - however limited the society you live in - you get to recognize and understand them, and to predict the way that the new people you meet will behave, based on the way the people they remind you of have acted in the past.

"And therefore," I went on - probably within earshot of this incredibly fascinating guy, who on second examination did not look that much at all like the person he reminded me of, "we should go ahead and leave, maybe now."

Which we did. As we walked out I turned back briefly and caught his gaze again, and there was that brief electric shock again. Hello, I thought. I had someone to psychologically torture me, and I seem to be fresh out. How about you?

I need a road trip. NOW.

Life Goes On, Yeah

If there's one thing I've learned over the past three years, it's that you should never go anywhere without a camera.

Thank goodness for friends. I have some great ones, and there are times in your life when you realize how badly you need them, how heavily you rely on them, and how terribly lost you'd be without them. Last night I went to Tony's for movies and champagne. We watched Fool's Gold, not exactly the greatest movie ever made, but quite nice for drifting off to sleep on your friend's shoulder.

Robbie came down today in some hopes of buying a new coffeemaker at IKEA. We had thought of going last weekend as well, but never quite made it: it's too crowded there on the weekend, and if Robbie's driven all the way down to Austin to hang out with me, why would he drive me all the way back up to Round Rock, then drop me off down here again, then return to Georgetown? It's a lot of driving, even for a normal person.

I had a dream about another friend of mine, one I love dearly - I guess I should say a former friend. We've had a falling out, probably irreparable I'm afraid, and are not speaking now. I dreamt I asked him, anxiously, if he were seeing some other girl (since I've been accustomed to considering him as my own personal property). He hemmed, he hawed, he was evasive. Finally it came out that he had indeed met a girl and the relationship was quite promising - except she lived on the other side of town, and he didn't like to drive that far out of his way, so it wasn't going anywhere. In my dream I was jealous and upset. Once I was awake I laughed until tears were streaming down my face. That's exactly how it would be! Dreams are not supposed to be quite that realistic.

Robbie sent me an email week before last. "We need to go to IKEA," he wrote. "I need a fresh prince. I leaned down too hard and the glass broke, and ever since that I've been supporting Starbucks."

I was confused, and for several minutes pondered typing, "IKEA sounds good. What the fuck are you talking about?!" Then I remembered that a fresh prince is what we call a French press.

Bed Bath & Beyond has them, but they cost three times as much as they do at IKEA (although they might be more durable). So we gave up on that, had lunch, got Robbie a new iPod nano (ooh they are pretty!), picked up some coffee from Dominican Joe, and spent a couple of hours at Little Stacy. Someone's placed a cement Buddha there by the creek, which just goes to show that an afternoon spent with Robbie is always a religious experience. But a picture taken with his phone didn't come out well enough to post here.

We're starting to talk about another Corpus trip, over Memorial Day weekend. That Friday, the 22nd, will be my fortieth birthday. Forty! My God! That's, like - well, I don't know. It's forty. It's hard to pretend you aren't a grown-up when you hit that age.

But as God is my witness, and with the help of all the friends I can muster, I damn well intend to try. And there will be pictures.

At Your Fingertips

I just don't understand why anyone watches reality TV, when you've got a perfectly good convenience store on every other street corner.

Not that I spend a lot of time hanging around in convenience stores. But if I wanted to, say, quit my job and devote myself full-time to writing - and who doesn't? - I can't think of a better place to find material.

This isn't actually true. Work is the best place on earth to find material. But whenever I blog about work, or at least the traveling aspect of it, several hits from the city I have just written about immediately show up on my web stats, spending several minutes and out-clicking to my profile. Some of the visitors' referring URLs are mailboxes. I just can't do it. Traveling is the second-best thing to blog about, and traveling for work? Oh, my gosh! But I just can't.

There's also something absolutely hilarious and ridiculous that happened at work yesterday that I can't possibly write about, because there's no way to explain it without making it much too abundantly clear where I work. You'll just have to take my word for it that my agency did something particularly absurd and boneheaded. I know it's a stretch.

But that's neither here nor there. This morning, as the coffeemaker gurgled comfortably and sent its gentle aroma wafting through the house, I realized that we don't have any cream; and, not being a 1970s-TV-type cop with a gravelly voice and a superfluity of body hair, naturally I had to run out to the 7-11 to get some.

There was in fact a cop car in the parking lot. But that's nothing special. 7-11 has doughnuts: not good ones, mind you, but after spending all night on patrol, I bet you're not picky. So I walked on in and found the cream.

People are funny, or had you noticed? Something extraordinary can be going on right under our noses, but unless we really ought to be doing something about it (and of course often then too), we all have to pretend nothing's happening. In this case, two men were arguing heatedly towards the rear of the store. Heatedly, but not violently, presumably due to the presence of the police officer who was standing between them, watching each one in turn as if he were at a tennis match and frowning upon them with stern authority.

The clerk, a middle-aged woman, was visibly tense and anxious; but customers were coming and going, all pretty much like me - pausing only for a fraction of a second in the doorway to take in the scene, then making their purchases - and fortunately the cream is right up front - and checking out, passing a few nervous pleasantries, and leaving. Probably all of us wanted to say something sympathetic to the poor clerk, but her expression was tight and closed, and besides, anything anybody could have said would pretty much have boiled down to "Wow - sucks to be you!"

It would suck to be a convenience store clerk. Traveling a couple of months ago, I stopped in at the convenience store next door to my hotel to pick up a bottle of wine. But all they had was Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill, so I got a six-pack of Shiner Bock instead. I normally drink wine out of a box, but for God's sake, I do have some standards.

At the checkout counter, a handsome young black man was good-humoredly arguing with the clerk, who was very young, Indian or Pakistani, and didn't speak much English. The customer, who had a British accent slightly tinged with Jamaican (Yum!!! but never mind) was explaining that where he comes from, people don't get carded to buy alcohol, so he doesn't carry any ID, so the clerk is just going to have to go ahead and sell him the booze, okay mon? He smiled and winked at me.

He was pleasant and charming, but clearly wasn't going to take no for an answer, so the clerk miserably sold him his beer and let him go on his way; but as I was checking out he asked in broken English, "What was I supposed to do? I don't want to get in trouble!"

Poor little guy. My heart went out to him, partly because I relate so well to the feeling of being easily overruled, and partly because he had carded me; so I just smiled and said, "Don't worry about it, it's all right. You did fine!"

What? I'm not his boss.

I guess the point of this post is that if you ever think your job sucks, you should probably go hang out in a convenience store for awhile, unless you work in a convenience store, in which case you might want to think about finding another job.

Or just start a blog. The tales you'd have to tell!

That's Nae Ordinary Rabbit

I forgot to mention that, in addition to its own little playa lake, the facility we were inspecting in Amarillo had lots and lots of bunnies: happy little brown ones, roaming the grounds, enjoying the shade of the shrubs, and generally just being wiggly-nosed and cute. They're wild bunnies, but the supervisor there feeds them carrots in the mornings. They aren't particularly afraid of people.

A striking feature of that facility is a normally dry arroyo, attractively lined with decomposed granite and multicolored river rock. During a rainstorm it carries runoff. Footbridges cross it from the parking lot to the building entrances. The bunnies hop up and down the rock banks of the dry arroyo and sometimes spread themselves out in the sun - "they look like they're dead," remarked the supervisor, pointing out an unusually flat specimen of lagomorphy baking on the gravel. She told us that once an outraged visitor approached her, demanding to know if she had imprisoned the bunnies down in the arroyo.

"You do feed them," I pointed out, and she was forced to agree that her behavior is essentially enabling. It's elementary psychology that the best way to ensnare someone is to give them everything they want, right? Elementary human psychology, anyway. I assume it also works on rabbits. In so many cases, there's very little distinction.

Meanwhile, back at the office, a coworker found that news travels fast. Several of the other facilities we supervise called in yesterday to request backup files and paperwork - oh, no reason! - and, in one case, to mention oh-so-casually that they had some minor damage they'd been unable to repair due to budget cuts. None of them seemed surprised to be told that my boss and I weren't in. The internal communications issues the agency is so plagued with aren't really a problem in my division.

I have to revise, slightly, my positive review of the Ambassador. The hotel was certainly comfortable enough, and the wireless signal was nice and strong - and free! But unless you're on the concierge level, breakfast is typically hotel-overpriced and limited; and I think they have some serious issues with their plumbing. Yesterday morning I stepped out of the shower into a full inch of water on the bathroom floor. I saw the ceiling next to the top of the shower stall wet and sagging, and large droplets of water inside the adjacent light fixture - a pipe leading to the showerhead appears to have a major leak. I described it to the clerk as I was checking out, and she smiled and nodded and thanked me for letting her know, but didn't write it down, and went on with the next client as I was leaving.

And I'm sorry to report that, due to extreme exhaustion, my boss and I ate dinner Wednesday at the featureless chain restaurant off the hotel lobby. I got a steak, but it was very salty. The next morning we had breakfast at Roasters, a coffeehouse which would like to be like Dominican Joe, but needs to make its coffee a lot stronger. Also the staff there doesn't know how to pronounce the word "scone" (it rhymes with "gone," people).

Lunch yesterday, though, was at Outlaws Supper Club, a somewhat ironically-named little dive with vinyl tablecloths and a dirt parking lot next to the railroad tracks. They are elegant enough to have wine - three kinds, in fact! They have white, red, and pink. The burgers are big and greasy and served on Texas Toast instead of a bun, and the onion rings are actually very good.

Isn't traveling fun? That's about all I have to tell you about Amarillo, since I didn't get to see much. I have two more trips coming up this month, but where I'm going is a secret.

I'd tell you, but then I'd have to sic the bunnies on you.

Straight but Proud Anyway

Robbie and Nicole were with a couple of other friends at Pride Fest today when I headed out to meet them, only stopping briefly by the office first, to pick up the Evasive Buddha of Questsionable Wisdom (he normally lives on my desk). But by the time I got to Auditorium Shores, they were bored and very hot, and had walked across Riverside to the park with the observation hill and the water jets. I had parked my car at work and walked down the trail. The heat was pounding, incredible.

There were an awful lot of motorcycles, I couldn't help noticing, parked around the festival grounds. The ROT Rally is also in town this weekend. People have questioned the timing in years past, but I think there's actually a fair degree of crossover.

All of us were fully clothed - Robbie in a T-shirt, overshirt, and shorts; Nicole in a halter top and jeans, and me in a tank top and silk skirt. But when it's 100 degrees out, what does that matter? We stood in the ascending jets of water and splashed one another and laughed. There's nothing else like playing outside in the merciless sun, giggling like a bunch of six-year-olds and getting goosebumps just to spite the blistering heat. My true love, the man of my dreams, is someone who won't think twice before splashing around in the water with all his clothes on. You heard it here first, folks: jump into a fountain fully dressed, and try to be straight, if you possibly can. You might win my heart!*

We walked to Bennigan's, which gave our clothes a chance to dry out, except for two conspicuous triangles on my skirt, front and back, where my underwear were keeping it damp. Nice! Next time I'll skip the skivvies, I think. And from Bennigan's we drove to Chuy's to meet up with Robbie and Nicole's other friends. I can't eat anything at Chuy's because every goddamn thing on the menu is chock full of cilantro. I think even the margaritas are made with it. Look, I don't know why I'm cilantro-intolerant, but I am, okay? It isn't that I don't like it. I don't like eggplant. I can eat eggplant nonetheless; I just won't particularly enjoy it. But the flavor of cilantro - or even the smell of a nearby fresh bunch of it - triggers a violent and uncontrollable gag reflex. I spit it out into my napkin and gasp for water. It tastes like horrible hellish death. I could not possibly make myself eat it to save my life, not even to be polite. It. Tastes. So. Bad.

So I just ordered a Dos Equis at Chuy's, and the waitress carded me! How flattering is that?! But she was probably just disoriented by the profusion of hubcaps on the ceiling, and maybe a bit woozy from cilantro fumes.

Of course the grand event was the Gay Pride Parade. We parked in the wonderful magical parking garage downtown where they charge you $7, but it's a state office building, so state employees don't have to pay. Flash your badge and you're in, baby! Then we sat on the curb just outside, only a couple of blocks past the start of the parade route.

Last year I went with Cheryl's Bitch, and I think our spot - still fairly early on the parade route, but a good bit further down - was probably a better one. The marchers weren't tired yet, but they were good and warmed up. If you catch them too early, you're essentially their practice audience. Still, there was plenty of cheering and hooting and shouting and laughing, lots of beads and other freebies tossed out to the happy mob. Before the parade started, a few bikers and pedicabs cycled past the happy, eager, waiting crowd. Everyone cheered and clapped for them, laughing, and they waved back.

I'm afraid I did shout "Corporate coffee sucks!!!!!!" at the people carrying a Starbucks banner, but I'm pretty sure I waited until they were out of earshot. It was for the benefit of my fellow parade-goers (except for Nicole, who works there; but anyone in my position is well aware that we all have to make a living somehow). I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

We cheered rousingly for the picture-perfect drag queens, for the firemen (ooh, firemen!!!), and for our own APD, who represented in one of their new shiny black-and-white Hummers, probably consuming enough gas along the parade route alone to keep my little-used VW Ribbit fueled for about 18 months. And the Chronicle! Was that Stephen MacMillan Moser lounging on the back of a Caddy and waving langorously to the crowd? Darling, you're fabulous!

I love this town, I do, I do, I do.

------------
*Some restrictions apply.

I Swear Vengeance Upon - ooh, look at the pretty lights!

After the movie last night, Robbie and I were on the way to Dominican Joe for coffee when he got distracted by the colored lights of the skyline and had to pull over at the park so we could look at them.

This is one of the reasons we get along so well.

We sat at the top of that little conical hill next to the Palmer Events Center and watched the top of the Monarch change colors, and speculated as to what it would be like to live in a unit directly underneath the big underlit concrete wings. Especially if your penthouse apartment had skylights! Wouldn't it suck if you'd blown every last penny you had on the downpayment for the condo (this assumes you're from Austin, not California), and you couldn't afford drapes? You might even be tempted to go steal that big "Click It or Ticket" banner from downstairs, thereby causing all the residents there who paid a little less than you did, only to find themselves gazing at the reverse image of an enormous seatbelt, to kiss you for a little longer than you're entirely comfortable with and promise to name their first child after you. Do not believe them.

Then it occurred to us that, if the City of Austin were so smart, they'd use all these new condo developments as deadly bait. Californians, hungry to snap up the $250K lofts (so cheap!!) popping up here, there, and everywhere in our fair city, would swarm to our shores - as, not to put too fine a point on it, they indeed have. The lights! The pretty colors! Then, with deadly accuracy, the new edifices would fire laser beams from their futuristic peaks. Every Starbucks-swilling California transplant to Austin would evaporate in a puff of expensive skin-care product fumes.

Perhaps at this moment I should pause to state that, unlike my very dear friend Tony, I don't really mind Californians, or at least not on a personal level. An economic situation has arisen, over the past several years, which makes it particularly desirable, smart even, for people from more expensive markets to migrate to Austin. What will eventually happen is that wages here will catch up with the real estate boom and everything will equalize. But in the meantime, selling a modest $750,000 suburban three-bedroom home in, say, Santa Cruz, moving here to a better job market, paying cash for an exuberantly taste-free McMansion, and having enough money left over to keep you swimming in Starbucks until your arteries explode - not knowing or understanding, of course, the nature of the neighborhood or town you are moving to - makes too much sense really to fault the individual people who take advantage of such an opportunity. Don't you think? Sure, we're wonderful, weird, tasteful, aristofunkratic Austinites (I personally arrived here in 1986), and they're a bunch of SUV-driving, mainstream-movie-watching, nouveau-riche troglodytes who are pricing us out of our own beloved city. A certain degree of resentment is natural. Especially with the way those people never wave after they cut you off in traffic. Assholes.

But these are natural forces we're talking about, it's not really anybody in particular's fault (except possibly Bill O'Reilly's, that sorry sack of shit), and in the end, you have to admit that one of the things that makes Austin what it is, in comparison to the rest of Texas, is its unique ability to embrace and assimilate and grow along the lines of different cultures. What, you wanted to live in Vidor? I didn't think so.

But I digress.

The other two problems with new condo towers firing lasers at Californians are (1) they'd be killing off their best customers, and (2) I can't remember what number two is, because it's something I thought about before embarking on the earlier part of this rant. It might have had something to do with the inviolable sanctity of human life. But I doubt it.

Anyway, I made a highly sensitive PowerPoint presentation about the whole issue, which is available upon request.

Why You Shouldn't Take Cold Medicine

Do you suppose anybody's ever made coffee by filling up the coffeemaker with cream instead of water? Do you think that would be gross? When it was finished, you'd add water and sugar to it. You'd have to buy a new coffeemaker every day, of course. So you'd probably want to be fairly wealthy. Just a thought.

I think I'm going to see my doctor today, because yesterday my cube neighbor told me she just got diagnosed with strep. I thought it was just a cold but my throat's going all achy and this morning I sound like Kojak. So I think I'll see if I can get in with Dr. Norris, even though his first name isn't Chuck.

Why isn't Chuck Norris my doctor? Not my lady doctor - that would be awkward - but my GP. Wouldn't that be great? You'd never get sick. Viruses wouldn't dare infect you. They'd know Chuck Norris would kick their ass.

I'm going to work! Bad idea? Let's find out!

Christmas in April

The best thing about industry tradeshows is that they give you coffee mugs, and when you get home, you can drink coffee out of those mugs: real coffee, ground immediately before brewing, with plenty of real cream and sugar.

This morning's celestially blissful cup comes courtesy of the East Texas Oil Museum. Thank you! Well, it's not actually that great. It's not strong enough; I guess I'm out of practice. But that's not you guys' fault.

You're at the tradeshow to network, and they're there to increase exposure; but the most obvious result of this process is that you come home with lots and lots and lots and lots of stuff. Or rather, you don't come home with the stuff. There's way too much stuff for you to carry. So there's a mail-back area in the back of the arena where you pack large boxes full of the stuff and they ship it to you at work or home. Naturally there are reams upon reams of literature, and so many business cards that, if they were one-dollar bills, you could buy a mound of cocaine the size of Greenland. But there's also the stuff: tape measures, miniature tool kits, pins, clips, wristbands, magnets, flashlights, and squishy stress toys; mugs and travel mugs, water bottles, T-shirts, koozies, caps, toiletry bags and tote bags; beach bags, beach mats, and cooler bags; bottles of honey and hot sauce, bags of popcorn and spiced pretzel mix, and jars of salsa and pickled tomatoes; picture frames, calculators, pedometers, and little portable fans; stuffed animals, pink cap guns, and a hat in the shape of a winged pig; fresh-cut roses, and wildflower and herbs starter kits; and ooh, here's a really clever one: flash drives, emblazoned with the presenter's logo, and preloaded with information about the organization.

The boxes beat me home; so yesterday afternoon, when I really wanted to lie down and take a 36-hour power nap, Anna instead made me open them up and go through everything. She immediately claimed the pig hat, which is pretty cute.

I'd still be sleeping, but Eric went to his grandma's yesterday and left his alarm clock set. So thank God (well, thank the East Texas Oil Museum) for the coffee mugs. All our dishes are dirty.

A Kiss Before Dying

This coffee I'm drinking is the last coffee I'm going to have all week. Hotels don't have coffee. Oh God! Coffee! I'm going to miss you most of all!!!

They also, in my experience, don't generally have free wi-fi in every room, I don't care what the big plastic banner hung over the lobby door says. Sometimes they have free wi-fi in your room IF you recite a special incantation, stand on your head and press your knees against the door. Sometimes you have to go to the lobby and blog under the baleful gaze of the night manager. Sometimes you can detect five or six pale, flickering signals, not one of them robust enough to sustain a connection. I hate that.

So if you don't hear from me for a week, it isn't because I don't love you.

Drink a cuppa for me.

Cleavage

TMI alert!

Like that's going to stop anybody.

I was a bit of an early bloomer. By the time I was ten years old, I was reasonably chesty. By the time I was twelve, I was perhaps unreasonably chesty. Toss in a few breastfed babies and the fact that when I gain weight, that's the first place it goes, and... well, you get the picture.

My sisters both grew up to be A-cups, and they are pissed.

The thing is, female body image being what it is, and general, non-gender-specific human insecurity about the things that make you, um, stand out, I was always pretty self-conscious about this particular portion of my anatomy. It took a long time for me to get comfortable with it. Well - I'm not entirely comfortable, actually. But you know what? Men seem to like them, I've noticed. So I go with it. Tastefully, so to speak.

Today is the first day of my second week on the new job. I'm in a foul mood to begin with. As much as the old job pissed me off at times, I'd been there for two years, and it wasn't the worst job in the world (we all know what that was). I'd made lots of friends, I have some great memories (NO PUNS) and it was a fun, relaxed environment in a lot of ways, as long as you didn't mind the fact that everything you did was completely pointless. So even though this job is (presumably) a better fit for me, a better division to be in, and the work is substantially more rewarding, I'm terribly homesick. Plus I just called an end to - something we won't go into. Plus I am extremely unhappy about Romeo. Plus Bill Gates is running a little behind, so PMS is absolutely kicking my ass right now. Plus I forgot to bring my thermos of coffee this morning. Plus it's cold and wet and gray and depressing out.

And now, for the punchline, my new supervisor calls me into her office this morning to tell me that my cleavage violates office dress policy. How mortifying is that?! I was so upset, I wasn't even tempted to snicker when she used the phrase "nip this in the bud." (She really did!)

She didn't mention it specifically, but she gave me a copy of the written dress code, and apparently toe rings and ankle bracelets and big dangly earrings are out, too. "This sucks!" I wailed to a friend, "they're going to turn me into a dowdy middle-aged woman!"

"Yes," he said.

So I'm going to have to go joylessly shopping for some boring clothes. Could I file for discrimination if I can't wear something that someone else could get away with, just because of the way I'm built?

Goddamn it. This sucks. Anyway, I'm done. At least I should be good on web traffic for a while.

The DT's

We're out of coffee. I've got the shakes, and I think I'm starting to see things.

The cats are looking awfully strange.

Caffeine

Robbie dropped me off tonight, after a full day of shopping, dining, and hanging out. Anna threw her arms around me and inhaled deeply. "You smell like coffee," she said.

As well I should, because we just spent about two hours at Dominican Joe. I don't go there often anymore - having taken Robbie's departure as a fair enough excuse to quit signing my paychecks directly over to them every month - but the siren smell of sweet, sweet coffee used to lure us across Riverside almost every morning as soon as I got to work.

"It's so different, being here at night," I remarked, looking around, "and not having to leave in a hurry."

"It is," agreed Robbie, "and we always had the whole, long work day ahead of us when we were here, too."

Ugh!

We did discover a dirty little secret about DJ's, which is that they serve decaf at night. Decaf! During the day, they always have two carafes at the self-serve bar, one of them Dominican, and the other from some other part of the world: Mexico, Guatemala, Columbia, Sumatra, New Guinea. But at night the two carafes are Dominican and decaf.

One morning, when I was fixing my coffee, another customer came up behind me and asked if one of the carafes were decaf. A barista overheard and stared at him, aghast. "Good lord, no!" I exclaimed.

"Oh. Thank God," he said, filling his cup.

But they are not as scrupulous at night.

Well, whatever. We'd had a hard day's shopping, and relaxed over bottomless cups of Dominican coffee and carrot cake. I finished my Christmas shopping! It's been a very good day!

I'll be here all night.

I Can Has Coffee?

I'm sick of work, I can't keep going on,
Not a lick of work, if I stay, will get done,
So I must go home, or nowhere,
'Cause I'm sick of work...

I've locked my desk, I'll keep my printouts there,
I have stocked my desk with data dictionaire,
And I'll leave it there till Monday,
'Cause I'm sick of work.

The panicked boss, why must she be crazed?
Don't have profit/loss, and no deadlines ablaze;
I'm feeling stymied, and I need a raise,
Not endless freaking and shrieking from her.

Goodbye, my cube, and all its beige decor,
I won't train the n00bs on mainframe anymore,
And I'm out the door for the day,
'Cause I'm sick of work,
Yeah, baby, I'm sick of work.

There's never a white baby grand around when you need one.

The panicmonger boss told Robbie today that from now on she wants us all to stagger our breaks, and not go as a group. She wants to cut off the flow of martinis.

What. Ev. Er!

We had a celebration for the September birthdays this morning, organized by one of the three new people, and chipped in for by most of the group. There were balloons and cards and gift certificates and food. We've never done this before. To be perfectly honest, I really don't care for office potluck-type things, but that's beside the point. It was pleasant; the woman who put it together is a sweet, sociable, organize-y type and clearly enjoys doing nice things for people. The panicmonger has been talking for months about how she wanted to do a monthly birthday celebration, but everybody was always kind of lukewarm about it. The point is that the panicmonger has always wanted this, and she finally has someone who's happy to do it.

The panicmonger walked into the organizer's office this afternoon and doled out criticism and some suggestions for how to do a better job of it next time. She forgot to say, oh gosh I don't know, how about something like "thank you, our group has not done this before and it was really nice of you to volunteer to take this on, and incidentally the spice cake is delicious."

The panicmonger did something else particularly shitty that I'm not at liberty to go into; it wasn't done to me. I had the good sense to go home sick at 10:30. I hadn't had my coffee.

Things You Didn't Know

... Or did you?

Today I learned that those concrete median barrier things they put up on highways when they're doing construction - you know, those tallish skinnyish things that are just about the right height to scrape your side mirrors clean off, if you drift out of the center of your lane even the tiniest bit? I always get white-knuckled when I'm driving next to those. Anyway, today I found out that they weigh 639 pounds per linear foot.

So much for the idea of hopping out of the car and scootching them surreptitiously a little onto the other side of the road.

A few other things of which you may or may not be aware:

- Middle school orchestra concerts are really not that enjoyable, no matter how closely related you are to some of the participants.
- Shopping at IKEA is an excellent way to make religious observances on Good Friday, April 6th, and I think I might feel a bit of a sore throat coming on.
- The Bitching Smoker quit smoking. She also knowingly refrained from running over a couple of jaywalking coworkers as she pulled into the parking lot this morning. I'm kind of worried she might start dressing in orange robes and handing out flowers.
- Dominican Joe's, at the corner of South Congress and Riverside, has such excellent coffee that I expect them at any minute to be sued by the bereaved families of employees at the neighboring state agency, who have been run over and killed while jaywalking.
- Biking to and from work every day feels really good. I'm even getting used to the hills! But my hiney is sore.
- Happy hour at Gingerman tomorrow!