Stay

so it looks like i am staying in austin. yesterday, i got email from my contact at the canadian company i've been talking to about jobs, and they've decided to fill their positions internally.

i was a lot more disappointed than i expected. i've been thinking (and saying) that i expected the karma cards to stack in austin's favor, but when i read that email it felt really final, like a large steel vault door just got slammed in my face. do i want to leave austin more than i think i do?

nah. i just like having choices. and this was the last vein of current choices. of course, i could go apply for positions at all sorts of non-Austin companies. But the possibility of working in Montreal would have allowed me to do a bunch of important life things (speak another language, live outside the US, live in a cold place, etc) and arbitrarily applying for jobs elsewhere seems kinda forced. I decided a while ago that the Austin cards were stacking up pretty well and if the "too good to be true" card didn't arise right now, it wasn't time to go. And I still feel like that's the right thing.

Plus, I can always change my mind later when I am really meant to be somewhere other than Austin. I know I am not staying here forever.

Right after I read my email, I went shopping. I love the local surf shops since they're full of casual clothes of the surf brand variety. Four t-shirts, a pair of flipflops, and a pair of short pants later, i was glad to know i was staying in austin, since its one of a few cities that can support this wardrobe much of the year. And that is an entirely good thing.

Lead Ass

"Lead ass" is the phrase my father coined to describe beach energy level. We come down to this beach house and we sit. And sleep. And eat. And all of it is beyond our control. Even the best intentioned plans to move around succumb to the lead ass.

I like bike rides and long walks and for some reason, once settled into the sand or a deck chair, these activities seem to require too much energy to move.

So we, my family and I, sit on the beach, sit at the house. eat an enormous amount of food (we blame it on the salt air), and sleep. i fell asleep at 10:15 last night. Really, it was too exhausting to keep my eyes open to read my book.

Today promises to break the cycle for at least a little while. We're going para-sailing.

flashed

mother nature won yesterday in the battle of my bathing suit top vs atlantic ocean. and the prize? all of the 83rd street harvey cedars beach-goers got to see my boobs. thank goodness they're cute and perky (at least that is what my mom said).

after talking up my love of the rough ocean with its pulling currents and smashing waves, my friend kristen and i get into some of the roughest ocean water i've ever been in. barely in deep, we were struggling to stay afloat when my suit came untied. laughing and slightly out of breath from all the staying afloat, i tried to get to where i could stand to fix my bathing suit.
a wave came crashing down, yanking me under. a mouthful of salt water and body crevices of sand later, i came choking to the surface, not giving a damn about my bathing suit top. i struggled to shallow water, white headlights of boob flashing. i could see my mom laughing 50 feet away.

at least my defeat made good dinner conversation. and probably at more than just my house.

Diamonds and Gold

Visiting New Jersey is always a combination of delight and scorn. I am a Jersey girl after all, and it's delightful to be around people like me. People are brash and direct. They drive fast, they talk fast. There is dark hair and dark skin as far as the eye can see. They come in 64-crayola colors of ethnicity, color, and country of origin.

It's green and lush here. The pool water is a reasonable temperature. I sat outside on the porch yesterday reading my book. In pants. At 2 p.m. My family is here and it feels good to walk into this house that has been "my house" since I was 10.

Yet, I'm constantly dismayed by the rudeness, among other things. Yesterday's grocery store trip would be a fine example. The check out girl didn't say hello to my mother and I. She and the girl bagging groceries bitched about the previous customer, annoyed that our 12-item check out process was interfering with their conversation. To top it off, neither one of them got
simple instructions like "use paper bags" correct. Ggrr.

I never thought I would be one to care abut manners. In many cases, I can't be bothered with the polite thing. But I guess I care about manners of respect. Like saying hello to someone in the check out line. In this part of the east coast, I need a sign that says "I am a person too." Maybe wearing it in diamonds and 18k gold around my neck will get such a concept respect.

teen angst

melissa has a poem i wrote a million years ago framed in her bathroom. ok, it's not a million years old, but hell, i wrote it when i was 16 or 17. that is old enough. since i am not a shower-offer of my writing i was surprised, flattered and embarrassed to find it next to my toiletry bag. But i liked it being there and read it a couple of times while brushing my teeth.

it's still a pretty good poem of the teen angst variety. its one of the few aimed at the establishment and not at some pimply boy or disgruntled friend. i think its pretty good 11 years later. it's dripping in an overused metaphor, but it's good nonetheless.

melissa and i got a chance to catch up on the phone today and apparently her mom and stepfather would like a copy of it. they were visiting mel and jay in montana this weekend and took a liking to it. melissa is going to print it out on nice paper and frame it for them. i was really tickled pink by this. it made my day. i get to be art in my friend's parents house. whee! i
feel so accomplished.

now, here's hoping i have a hard copy of this poem around the house somewhere so i can get said copy to melissa.

a farewell and a cockroach

My good friend Randy left Austin today. With the constant stream of people who've been leaving over the last couple of months, I thought I was well prepared for it. But I didn't like saying goodbye. Prepared or not, seeing close friends leave sucks.

I may have started my morning watching a friend leave town, but I ended it relaxing with old friends at my house. Susanne and Seth came over for dinner. The nice thing about cooking for close friends is that it's a low-key production (compared to my group dinner efforts). We had tasty sausage, salad and beer and just chilled out on my deck watching my dog chase an enormous cockroach, and trading shitty airline travel stories.

For the first time all week, my ass is going to bed early. I'm exhausted from all of last week's going-away shenanigans.

information control

Since I've started this blog, I've been trying to decide how much information about my life I'm comfortable revealing. I don't want this to be a daily to-do list, but I'm not particularly interested in using it as a therapy session either. Don't get me wrong, I like being honest and open about my life. But that's always been attached to some kind of specific interaction with a friend. Spewing details about my life into the void feels a little weird, even though its kinda the point.

So for now, I think this is going to lean more toward a chronicle of life's happenings. Since I'm pretty happy with life, I don't think it will bore everyone to tears. Feel free to let me know if I am wrong. Since this is a year of challenging myself, especially regarding what I am comfortable with, I'm fairly sure this web address content will be challenged too. I suppose I am expecting it, since I didn't tell my parents about it, which is another area that needs some challenging. But, that's another day.

Meanwhile, I've had a great week. I swam every day 4th of July weekend, which included an excellent trip to Pace Bend Park to jump, climb, swing, swim, float, camp, drink and eat. The cliff jumping scared me more than it should. 20 feet is high. I don't care what anyone else says. But every jump was satisfying in this rare way. I conquered my own stupid brain that was telling me not to jump. Every once in a while, I get way worked up over some random set of exaggerated circumstances. Jumping off the cliff, which I had done perfectly safely just before, was one of them. But this time, the rest of me won!

The rest of the week, I spent connecting with friends I haven't seen in a while. Coincidently, that also involved a fair amount of alcohol, most impressive being the 2 bottles of good wine my friend Dallas and I drank last night.

Two friends left town this week, which saddens me, but also made me excited to possibly visit people in new places. I also like seeing people get ready for a new adventure. Since moving is an adventure I've been thinking a lot about lately, I am envious of my friends' starting theirs. It tempers the sadness.