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.

For External Use Only

One of the items I brought home from last week's fam trip was a 5-ounce bar of handcrafted orange vanilla goat's-milk soap. I haven't put it in the bathroom because I don't want anybody else using it. I might take it to San Angelo with me. But actually I'm troubled by the faint stirrings of a temptation to eat the stuff, because doesn't it sound scrumptious? It sure smells good.

What's with this trend of increasingly edible-sounding personal hygiene products? One of the stops we made on our trip was at a spa - not for treatment, more's the pity, but simply to tour the facilities. They gave us a menu of the services they offer. Many of them involve food in some capacity - massaged into your skin, lathered on your hair, cupped over your eyelids; exfoliating, defoliating, moisturizing, replenishing, rejuvenating, and God-only-knows what else. Just don't eat it.

Men aren't big spa frequenters, are they?

I'm off to San Angelo tomorrow after lunchtime, and won't be back till late Thursday. I'm bringing a bottle of champagne with me - either to celebrate the results of the election, or else to drown my sorrows; we'll find out soon, won't we?

If things get really bad I'm eating the soap.

Going Away

Next week's trip doesn't take me far from home, but it's in a very different place: different responsibilities, duties, and social surroundings; different things to see and think about; different priorities and different needs; and perhaps - just like any trip for someone who loves traveling - the deeper hope is that I won't be the same person coming back as I was when I left.

It's too bad I couldn't bring my camera on my Maryland trip, for Irene's wedding. I marveled at a tiny spit of sand beach in Betterton, on an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. The sand was so golden as to be almost orange. I didn't try the water, since I found it uncomfortably cool; but it was dark blue, and clean and fresh-looking. Nights were kind of cold. My cousin Ivan, who lives in Ithaca, had a different perspective: he found it to be like reliving the end of a summer that had already passed away at home.

Still, most of the leaves hadn't turned. A giant black walnut tree in the side yard of the farmhouse had lost its foliage, and was in the process of losing its fruit, at no small hazard to anyone who happened to be standing underneath. The walnuts look almost exactly like tennis balls - about the same size, perfectly round, and bright yellow. But they're solid, and hit the ground loudly enough to be heard anywhere in the house.

It's no longer summer here. The afternoons are comfortable, and the mornings are even a little chilly, especially if it's overcast. There's rain sometimes. And when the sky is clear, it's that particular shade of crisp, empty, sharp-edged blue that manages somehow to look more melancholy than clouds and darkness ever do.

Next week's trip takes us all around central Texas - quite the nicest part of the state, naturally enough, in my opinion. There will be caverns, trees, lakes, cities, museums, wineries, breweries, shops, historic buildings, modern edifices, and more. I'm glad to go. There are so many things right in arm's reach of me here, in Austin, that I've never seen.

And maybe the someone who comes back will be a little better.

Hope Springs Eternal

Rumor has it - ah, the joys of gossip! - that the panicmonger got chewed out by her boss last week for micromanaging her people into the ground, not letting them just do their jobs, and being generally difficult to deal with. Rumor has it that she's stated she's going to make serious efforts to find another position.

I understand a little bit about how the panicmonger thinks. I think that people who are naturally stress-prone tend to assume that relaxed, calm, laid-back people just don't care. If you're not freaking out, you must be a slacker. So she redoubles her efforts, again and again and again, to put more pressure on everyone, to make sure she knows exactly what everyone is doing all the time, to drive everyone else into the kind of panicked frenzy that she herself feels is the appropriate reaction to whatever situation is at hand.

Trying to soothe her, and telling her everything is under control, only reinforces her belief that she's the only one making any effort, and the poor woman - who is not necessarily unfriendly by nature - really can't understand why everyone is turning against her. And I really do feel bad for her.

All that said, boo-frickin'-hoo. I hope the door doesn't hit her in the ass on the way out.

Anyway, this was encouraging news for a Friday, even if it didn't end so well; but a good night's sleep makes pretty much everything look better, and damn I have some really sweet friends, and it's a beautiful morning. Chirping birds and everything! And my honeysuckle is still not quite dead!

This morning I sent an email to the music director of TEMP. Let me in... let me iiinnnnnnnnnnn!!!

It's a Miracle

I was sick, but now I'm cured. Hallelujah!

Or it may just be that I didn't feel well enough to go to work today, but now it's past five.

It's beautiful out - lovely and cool, or at least not hot. There's a nice breeze, and late afternoon sunlight slanting through the trees. There are contented cats dotted here and there on the grass around me. There are also swarms of mosquitoes, but you can't expect miracles.

Birthdays and PMS are a terrible combination. Possibly even worse than popcorn and clam juice. But these things, too, shall pass. It's not the getting older that I mind, or at least not yet. It's the lying awake all night tossing and turning and thinking of all the things that I had assumed, when I was a mere slip of a girl, that I would have accomplished by now: financial comfort or at least security; an advanced degree or two; a meaningful and stimulating career; love and contentment; and I expect I meant to have saved the world at least once. Something, anything to make the concept of death less imminent, less horrifying to face. But what have I done? Passed on my genes a few times, then made an emergency backup copy of my personality on the internet? Was this what the world needed?

I am forced to admit that it probably is not.

So I've been sorrowful and sorry, too much so to keep from showing it, which means I'm embarrassed and ashamed to boot. And feeling lost.

But maybe, if I'm miraculously lucky, if you love me, you'll forgive me, and I can be found.