The Ticking Timebomb

Days 55-61

When I'm home, I get so specifically lazy. I don't know what it is, but I just go back into watching cartoons and eating, and playing on the computer, and if my trampoline were still assembled, I'd go out there and just lie down on it. I can drag myself out of any bed in the world, except for the one in my old bedroom, no matter what bed it is, it could be made of hypodermic needles. So when it came time to wake up and visit my grandmother, it was so hard to break my own will and levee, that I intuited a foggy and groggy attitude influencing me, a thing that I believe exists for certain people in specific personal locations. Or maybe I was just beat, I have been getting into all kinds of shit.

We went over to my grandmother's house for lunch, and it is as home is, comfortable, and friendly, and relaxing. I feel really badly about some of the trips home that I take, because I run around and do all this immature stuff and work myself to a point where when I finally arrive at a place that I can relax, I get sleepy and lose my garrulous manner, and it makes me look as if I'm bored, and that is not the case by any means. If you see me sleepy, and losing the will to converse, it is either because you are trying to teach me boring facts, or I'm extremely comfortable with you. I hope that it doesn't come across as selfish, but I suppose for all the conjecture, I'm only battling with myself and know the right answers and right things to do. Thanks for listening. Anyways, I had a lovely afternoon just straight chillin' at ma grandma's, ha!

I would just like to take a moment here to recall a moment I am reminded of that perhaps, may characterize me a little more, for those of you who may read this that don't know me as well as you thought you did. Or it may not, but it is in my head, and I can do this kind of thing on my time.

When Armando Benitez played for the Mets, he had great success, but also several failures, and as many players do, they fade and it becomes hard to give up on them since they still show fleeting moments of excellence. He became kind of known for blowing saves, despite his ability to occasionally shut it down. Later in his tenure with the Mets, his entrance into the game was akin to shaking hands with the opponent, saying, "Good game, we'll get you next time." He got traded or released and the Yankees picked him up. By this point in my fandom, I had started to join Red Sox Nation, and had managed to put that extra stinger into the growing list of reasons my father is disappointed in me. I kid, but he cheers for the evil empire, so the disappointment is mutual. So when one day, I was napping on his couch in his presence, and the Red Sox and Yankees were playing in 2003, the year I was catching the fever. The Yankees were ahead and Benitez came in to seal the deal. Though barely conscious, my body surfed on gentle energy waiting for the inevatable to happen. Benitez was always a ticking time bomb, some times he'd make it to the blast chamber in time, and many times he wouldn't. I was cocky. I said to my dad, "that's the ball game." I can't remember the details, but it was a classic meltdown, and he finally blew it, and the Red Sox won. I raised my hands in victory, eyes closed. The Yankees losing was going to make for a great nap. My dad blacked out the TV in disgust. As he once told me, "It takes ten 'attaboy's' to make up for one 'Awww shit.'"

Time came that I had to leave and make it to the city. Every time I'm in New York City, so many things have to happen. I fall into my old time management pitfalls, and I usually come up short on some meeting or another. Not enough time here, wish I could stay, but... It's too high energy, I get stressed out there and that causes me difficulty in regulating myself. I went to see my pops and his lady, and left after too short a visit, but at least got it in, and then made movement for Duncan's place. We are writing a screenplay together and had been planning this writing meeting for a few weeks, so it was a priority. We did a little catching up, and when we finally put ourselves to it, we started operating on all fours, man. It surprised us both how productive we were for not having worked in so long. We've had entire writing meetings that have amounted to next to nothing, and here, in his new performance space former garage apartment, we jammed out the last quarter of the screenplay in one night whereas the rest has been stretched over two years! I guess we already knew how it would end, but it took surpassing a few mental blocks and rejecting a few good ideas before we seized on the ones that made us both erupt with excitement and laughter at how right it felt to write that thing. It went a little late, and it was worth celebrating, so we took his sweet dog Theo for a walk/beer run in the delightfully sketchy DUMBO night, and returned to his pad for some self-congratulating. This completed task brings us about 65% of the way there, with 80% of the creative work done. *Dances like broken robot*

The next day we tested it out on Duncan's girlfriend and sister as an audience. We were looking for holes in the sum, and seeing if we had as strong a narrative as we were assuming we did, and the results were positive. We aren't done, but we've got a winner. It came time to get up to Boston, I had a few affairs to settle.

I expected to crash at my old house in Brighton, but I was assuming that the task would be a great deal easier than it proved itself to be. I didn't remember that I'd have to experience the charm of the MBTA in Boston considering I had the old Timebomb sitting in the pedicab shop. The Timebomb is the name we gave to my beat up, rusted single speed bike that developed this ticking noise in its drivetrain, and we all expected it to go off at anytime. I instantly imagined arriving, catching quick T connections, and getting to the shop with my two bags in relative haste. Instead, I waited and debated with myself in that old MBTA way about which method of transit would be the most expedient. Forty minutes later, I'm at the shop. I unearthed the Timebomb, lubed the chain, and cursed Shane for not having purchased a new tire to cover the exposed tube up when he had borrowed it for over a month. He actually rode around with tube exposed for well over a month, and replaced the tubes, not the tires. Mechanically speaking, this is fucking idiotic. Whatever, if he rode it around like that for so long, I bet that it would get me to Brighton.

Shane is skinny man. Not to say that I'm fat, but I got a few of the ol' el bee's on him, and I was carrying baggage. I left the shop and took off down familiar West Newton. Not halfway down the first block, I hit a small crack in the pavement, and what had to happen finally did. The tire blew out. You can only put Armando Benitez in the game so many times...I screamed the name of the reason for this. "ShaaaaaaAAAAANNNNE-UH!!" I decided that I could still ride it to Kenmore and catch the 57. Even riding slowly on a flat tire would get me back to Brighton faster than walking. I made it about 3/4 of a mile before I realized I left my goddamned motherfucking laptop in the shop, secured, alarmed, and shut in. So I rode back. I got it. Then I rode back towards Kenmore. It's one of those moments where you have to laugh at yourself for looking so stupid. My ass is burning up in the coat and weighty traveling items, pushing this sad cycle about 5 mph, aware that I'm about as effective as a pack mule riding a seeing-eye pony, but at this point, it's too late-I'm committed to the bit. I finished my precarious ride to Kenmore Square and deliberated for about a minute on where to lock up the Timebomb. I choose a post on the South side of the square to abandon my bastard bike-child, and walk to the bus stop to catch my last leg about twelve minutes later. South Station to 21 Bennett St, 1 hr, 35 min. Kill me, I'm in Boston. At least I have oral surgery and the Registry of Motor Vehicles to look forward to tomorrow.

Oral surgery was kind of a breeze. Sit back and don't freak out that they are poking around on the bones that used to be your teeth, forget that they are connected to your nasal bone structure (which is also fractured and will be fucked with), and don't think about the things they are doing to regenerate gum tissue and graft bone so they can sink screws into your head and anchor teeth on them. Just listen to them teach you about it and pretend it is someone else. Pretend like someone you know is poking at your face to kid around for about an hour, and it's kind of funny because you can't feel it. Also don't fret that it's going to be over a thousand dollars out of your pocket. Money falls out of the sky. It really tells me something about myself and, perhaps if I extrapolate, the world, that I had a better time at Dr. DerKazarian's office than I did at the RMV, trying to return my Mass tags, and I got in and out of the RMV in about 20 minutes.

In order to obtain my pedicab chauffer's license in Texas, I was advised that I needed to procure my certified Massachusetts driving record. I was told I could get it from the Watertown RMV, but was advised that I can only obtain a certified copy, which was what I needed, at the office in Quincy. I took a second to process my oxygen, and said OK, no problem, I'll just nail a Zipcar down. There's an app for that. As it turns out, this app is useless except to make funny beeping noises because it doesn't eliminate the need for a plastic card at all, which I thought it did. Without the plastic card, you cannot open the vehicle, and you cannot proceed with your reservation. What I could have done was tell him my card wasn't working, and they could have opened the car remotely, but they have information protocols, and I can't be trusted. More scrambling for the T. It's about 3:40 and I need to make a big walk out from the N. Quincy T stop by 4:45, so I was scrambling for the T again. I love the stress of being on a corner were you could grab one of three T buses as soon as they showed and make progress, and I got to wear that energy at N. Harvard and Western until the 86, quite possibly the worst of all possible bus lines, rolls by and whisks me to Harvard to swiftly hop the correct red line train to Braintree. He's feelin' the flow, kids.

Only being back in Boston for a short time brought a lot of memories back, and the North Quincy stop was no gentle stroll down memory lane, but more of a necessary barefoot run across painful gravel to get back to smoother surfaces. It was here that I once pathetically and urgently came to try and salvage the relationship I was in with my ex-girlfriend. After ditching out on a scheduled week-long trip to New York with my good friend J, the breakup was overwhelming my ability to enjoy or even do anything. It was one of the hardest emotional experiences I ever went through. It feels strange to mean it when I say I didn't realize how much I had loved her, but I guess how trite that is can be measured against how she was my first love, and you only get good at anything, especially relationships, by learning from failures, and as an aside, I feel like I'm getting good at a lot of things, relationships included. It was here that, for the first time in our relationship, I had come to meet her at work two days after our official breakup, and we walked her long, run-down Dorchester walk to the North Quincy T-stop and waited in a shelter for the train. I waited near the same shelter to return on this day. We had talked all the way to her exit stop, and I felt better just to see her. I felt like a delicate house again where I previously resembled a chaotic pile of dirty chopsticks. Memories spur other memories and I involuntarily summoned the turbulent broken up period where friendship was a lofty goal that only fooled us back into heart rending passionate sex, only to get rejected all over again, and the fastest six mile bike ride I ever cycled on the heaviest bike I ever owned when she called, crying, at my doorstep. And the killing of it all. And why I was in Boston at all. All this coursing through me while waiting for the T after having successfully attained my driving record to help myself pedicab in Austin. I like to play the sequence of events game. D happened because of C and C because of B and B because of A. You can really pick out the major moments of your life with this game.

When one visits a former hometown, one is burdened with the unfortunate task of plucking out only a few out of potentially many people you'd like to see. My solution to this is usually to introduce everyone to each other in one location, and though not always a winning scheme, it played on this evening where I managed to get Sokly, Nate, Shea + Damien, and Kate to Deep Ellum for some sleepy beers and catching up. It's a fluttering, serene, doping high to settle down with a few important people you haven't seen in a while, and no amount of exhaustion in me could ever stop me from finding energy for this to be, like when they find dehydrated people in the desert that somehow still have tears to cry for the joy of their rescue.

Man, I have stories from this trip and anywhere I go I can entertain with one or two, and so with this realization, I'm more clearly identifying things in myself that are carved out into my personality. I tell stories. I choose words carefully, but start the sentence without knowing how it will end. I speak some sentences slowly because of this. I reflect people and cultures, absorb and emanate. I have patience in a grand scheme and frustrate quickly for small stuff, and am training my mind not to. I'll always be a New York driver, so I'll always speak to other cars. As George Carlin ingeniously discovered, "The amount of an asshole a person is is directly proportionate to the distance away from you they are at the time you discover that flaw." In searching for the proper clip, I found the wrong relevant clip of George Carlin on cars. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8beHUQbIC8A&NR=1 One of the true masters.

I sprang forth from my old Bennett bound leather couch, and made Logan airport with smooth connections. I had a swollen mouthed attempt at breakfast via the awkwardly positioned Dunkin' Donuts that was wedged into the space between a few columns. It's almost too airportish to actually be in an airport, more like in a movie of an airport, but not "The Terminal" because that movie sucked. I mashed a few hash browns into my gullet and got on the plane, relieved to be leaving the cold, the hollow stalactite buildings of Boston, the Timebomb in Kenmore, my dating history on the red line, my stifled desires on Bennett Street. I took a half look at my neighbor as we left the ground, looked out the window and the gray-blue runway, shut the window and teleported to Austin, mellow and refreshed on arrival.

The whole time I was away, I though about Wednesday coming, being back in Austin, and the idea that on that evening, I would be hanging out with the blonde beaut at drag queen bingo, as we had discussed when I broke it down that I made plans to watch people speak words quickly to rhythm. I talk a lot about whatever is on my mind, and I was thrilled and cynically amused that I dropped into Austin and already this hot blonde, as if this place was magic and my palatability to the other sex magically changed in this sphere of weirdness. I went ahead and told my mom and my grandmother and my father and his girlfriend about her and what I knew and that she is an escort. Yup. She seemed to be really down with it, and really have a handle on her business, and wasn't about getting paid to fuck, cause, you know, neither was I, I really can't afford to fuck like that, but if someone needed beautiful company capable of charming, she could oblige. I'm no moron, I wasn't ready to believe that it's so easy, I've learned that lesson the hard way in remedial lesson learning, having failed out of the course "Lesson Learning 101" at Community College, also having since TA'd the course at Yale, while having illicit trysts with a few of my hotter, struggling students. Perhaps, my metaphor has said too much? My point here is that I'm not ready to get taken for a ride, but it's nice to see high standards yield results, and I was excited about it. So when she flaked out on Wednesday night, I took my roommate to Drag Queen Bingo instead and swore off the blonde stuff for good. Winning a set of fake mustaches and sideburns can go a long way in forgetting flaky hot girls.

The weekly social ride was set to happen on this Thursday night, so I got ready to go, and couldn't really get anyone else to task, so I rode down by myself. On my way, I caught someone else and ventured the guess that they too were going to the Scoot Inn to meet up for the ride. Friendly enough, we introduced ourselves and she led me there. Damn, that was a lot of bikes. I let some intimidation guide my actions, but soon I realized there was a lot of camaraderie and that anyone could really talk to anyone. I picked out some guy who said something or other about Boston, and I perceived an opening. It turns out, as I am at times an overzealous Red Sox fan, we had met previously when I commented and complimented this guy on his Sox hat while we temporarily biked together along Barton Springs Road. His girlfriend, also on that ride, grumbled about all the transplants that invade Austin. We laughed when we realized we had met, and he bragged that for all the complaints of transplants these Texas girls might have, they love an East Coast boy. She wrinkled her nose and smile-frowned at this. He then made out with his girlfriend. I took heart in this.

This interaction opened me up to the spirit of the ride. Before the ride began, while unlocking my bike, a guy offered me a shot of his "Feckin' Whiskey". I chatted with them for a while and got the digits of one of the guys because I wanted to catch up to the end of the ride since I intended to peel off and meet up with Chad for a bit. Conversation along this cruise is fun and fleeting, and a little bit like what I imagine speed dating to be, except with more speed, and it's OK to talk to the other speed-dating guys in between dates. This ride went all over a dark and sort of creepy East side, into parks, and up and down vacant major thoroughfares, protected by the ride leaders keeping a lookout for cars and upholding order towards traffic signals, and the sheer number of bikers. Some dude had a giant speaker hooked up to his bike on a pull cart and blared some jams for everyone, another guy had a similar rig with a large trash can on it so everyone could throw away all the PBR and Lonestar cans they had tucked into their messenger bags. So awesome! It was responsible mayhem that stood in stark contrast to Critical Mass rides, where it seems to be full of youngsters on ca-ray-zee bikes with anger issues that are only assuaged by this excuse to rage and wave U-locks in a threatening fashion at people who own cars for legitimate reasons. Even though I was the victim of a hit and run by a yellow SUV later that very evening, an infuriating and painful experience in its own right, I still firmly believe there is no reason to foster such outrage. Polite organization can achieve the same ends or better without incensing the non-biking population and reflecting poorly on those of us who do not need to kick your car door in for your internally combusting, oblivious ignorance. One day, it's gonna be too much and somebody could die. Armando Benitez.

I returned from meeting up with Chad to have a beer at the snack Bar and one at that Ego's place. I sang a song, and got some Wisconsin girl's number based on how she is a Packers fan, and then went to meet the end of the social ride at Creekside Lounge. Nothing special, really. I had been collecting phone numbers in an attempt to broaden my scant social network in Austin, and like a farmer at harvest time, had more than I knew what to do with, except I wasn't going to sell the phone numbers at a farmer's market. OK, so my similes aren't always perfect, they are like your boss, I hope-qualified and makes a point. BOOM!

Before I reveal this next episode, let me first apologize to my mother for not telling her, I knew she'd freak, and I was just fine anyways. So here goes...

So I closed this place out and started riding home. I didn't have far to go at all, I think the globally positioned estimate is 1.4 miles. I got up to E 12th street and mind you, I'm in my neon green pedicab hoodie, so seeing me is not terribly difficult. Additionally, my reflector under my seat is not obscured at all. I make it past Chicon Street, so I'm feeling pretty good about not getting shot and robbed at this point. I'm faster than any crackhead running after the crack truck, so we're pretty much home free. Down a hill and up a hill and down a hill and left is all that's left, and that should take about a minute and ten seconds in real time. I'm on my way up this hill, in the bike lane that starts as soon as one turns onto E 12th Street, and a car is coming up behind me. I don't think much of it, I'm visible and in the bike lane, but it rolls up next to me and here is where time slowed. I watch this yellow behemoth getting closer so I start braking as quickly as you pull your hand away from fire, but there's not enough time, not even in slow time, and it's turning directly into me. I'm hit. The back wheel of the car stomps on my front wheel and now I'm flying. I'm not completely clear on what happened next, but I like to test my powers of deduction, and here's what I've come up with: With my trajectory going forward, and my arms bracing myself for impact, the stop vaulted me forward a good deal slower than a clean hit. My feet came out of my pedal straps rather easily, though I could tell by the muscle ache in my one shin that there was some resistance-a good thing considering it was another factor in the decrease of my speed towards the SUV in my path. The sum of this force versus resistance put my other shin at handlebar level, cracking it and scathing some skin off, missing the SUV entirely as it continued on. I landed, I think after considering my injuries, by breaking my fall with my right knee and left hand, a stiff neck keeping me a free thinking individual, but not full out preventing facial impact a little bit back of my left eye, towards the ear, but so, so close to blindness and extreme pain. I think I went unconscious. The next thing I saw, through astonished pain, was a man looking down at me. He was black with a chinstrap beard, a hat, I think. He had a slight drawl, and he said this: "I can tell you what happened for five dollars." Can you believe it? I was furious even though I ought to have paid for the details, but I sent him off in a very New York way saying, "Are you serious? Get the fuck outta here!" I called 911, a cop came, she asked if I wanted an ambulance, I declined. With the front wheel now a taco stabbed by a broken fork, I walked my bike home on the back wheel, my shoulders starting to scream with pain, the whiplash setting in already. I timidly crawled onto the couch like a domesticated pet trying to die alone, ashamed to be seen, thinking before sleep, "I can't believe this happened." But I guess I have to believe it, these are facts. I now own and religiously wear my bike helmet.

I was immersed in stalking pain, the sharp bolts of it gripping me, dictating my actions, feeling like I was snapping bamboo bones to lift my head. I told Nick what had happened and he was assertive in convincing me to get checked out at the hospital. I didn't know if my insurance in Massachusetts would cover my incident, but I decided that it was less important to be covered and more important to be okay. I think it did get covered, and lucky for me, I had been holding out on my recently prescribed, dental pain related vicodin, and now had a justifiable reason to start popping them again, and a great excuse to catch up on some of my Hulu queue. Fucking asshole made me miss the fun on Friday. Thinking about it, I'm upset that they drove away, but considering I'm still alive and fine, and I can think as clearly as I was before, my anger loses its edge, and I think they were probably drunk and scared and didn't want to go to jail. I find myself sympathizing with them, but I also don't know anything about that person just like they don't know that they didn't manslaughter me with a side of DUI.

On Saturday, even though I had drugs, I hesitated to take them. I researched what I was prescribed by my amazingly beautiful Dr. and didn't like the sounds of the side effects. I only took the vicodin early and rode that out until my muscles loosened up later in the day and gave me a better range of motion. Chad picked me up that evening because I wanted to get out of the apartment, it depressed me to be confined. It was his friend Berto's birthday, and we were going to his party at the Shuck Shack, which I shall heretofore refer to as the Suck Shack because as a bar, I think it sucked. I got into the car Chad introduced me to his friends Jo and Matt. They were drinking 4 Loko, the ridiculously caffeinated malt liquor beverage. Jo mocked me for not drinking any of it, but it was fine, I explained to them what had happened and silently lamented that asshole behind the yellow disgrace that cost me $255 in wholesale repairs to my bike. They finished their 4 Loko's after parking and went in to sit down at the Suck Shack around a table outdoors. I decided I should try to hold back on the drink. Jo mocked me, but I held strong for a while. We were there so long, and the food was absolutely terrible...I caved. IPA, please. I mean come on, you know a place is simply terrible when fries are the most appetizing thing you can put down on the table, and I can wrap my mind around eating all kinds of garbage.

The whole time we are at the Suck Shack, I'm talking to Jo. She's super cool, very attractive, totally Texas and has a FWB thing going on with Chad and I'm down but the conversation is super playful, we are jabbing at each other with pretty healthy cuts, nice beefy insults are flying, and it's clear that we'll get along fine. I'm feeling pinched though considering I don't want to offend Chad by flirting too freely. I proceed with the brand new person bonding resolving not to let it come to anything. This mind is stronger than the one that drinks, though it was not always like this. A former roommate of mine who freely offered, nay, subjected me to therapy, told me that I had an achilles heel and a fatal flaw. Drinking the heel, women the flaw. The person be damned, but I think highly of his ability to recognize and guide others towards a better way, yet I disrespect the manner in which he would thrust his paradigm on everyone inside his vocal radius. These sessions behind me now, the trap arguments now bygones, the differences now moot, I see myself better in situations like what happened at the Suck Shack and all that followed. A younger me might have gone for it, friendship be damned, but this person in 2010 proceeded to tie one on with everyone to the point of potential judgement impairment, and won the KIT award for Keeping It Together. It's an award that I am frequently being nominated for these days, and yes I am aware of the frightening running list of drinks I'm keeping.

We had a large crew that developed, and I don't know what it is, but the young professional class here in Austin somehow slants crazy, I think it might be because they are in many ways outsiders to the real culture of Austin. I was sober so I drove Chad's car over to East 6th Street to go to The Good Knight, an excellent cocktail bar. So I'm about to park Chad's car and one of the girls that has joined our entourage for the evening, the British one, volunteers to stick with me while I park the whip. So I can't always summon the accent, and this time I didn't quite butcher the English accent, but it wasn't great and she did NOT appreciate it. She actually called it really bad (not just pretty bad) and I had to spend a few minutes of damage control on that. OOK, you don't want to just roll with it, fine. Strike one, though. FYI, we're gonna punch out the Austonite female young professional in a later post, but oooohhhh yyyyeeeeahh, they go down swinging.

Inside, the atmosphere was great, the conversation flowed naturally, the male to female ratio kept everybody on their game, and Chad and I bounce well off of each other, so throwing game became effortless. The game throwing actually stopped and turned quip fest. I traded numbers with two of the girls, "bumping" one of them first, which made the other jealous, and we all friended each other on Facebook. Coolyo, new friends, rawk. Berto's crew has caught up to us, escaping the Suck Shack alive, I am pleased to report. Sticking around got a little boring, so the impetus to move started brewing and fermented very quickly into the idea to go dance at Beauty Bar.

We've picked up Melissa, another of these young professionals that Chad knows, and now SHE is the sober one and drives several of us to the bar, parking underneath I-35. Honestly, we ought to have walked, but no mater now, the car is parked. Inside of Beauty Bar, it is a hipster dance party so I helped myself to a PBR. For some reason on this night, I was loving the scene here. My second visit was not so charmed. Only about an hour or so here before it wrapped up and Chad starts leading us off into the downtown concrete. We're going to a karaoke bar. Three of the five of us are bewildered, but follow anyway. Jo bumps into me and brushes, loops arms, all this. Several too many blocks later, we are quickly ushered into a professional looking building, and march up some stairs into a karaoke lounge with private rooms. They put the five of us in a sound proof box and soon a bunch of six packs of Lonestar longnecks show up. Town is where we all went to. Sloppy drunken karaoke to each other melted into an extended five person singalong, sitting and standing. Jo and I sat next to each other for most of it, arms pressed against, touching, though there was plenty of room to have space.

The check got cashed out, and we minus Chad and Jo who cabbed to Chad's, walked back to Melissa's car, or where it should have been. Apparently, there is no parking under the I-35 overpass after 3 am. It's 4:30 am. We ask the attendant or someone just hanging around, and it's clear that her car has been towed. Oops. But here he comes to save the day, some random 60 year old dude in a Dodge Duster. He knows where cars get towed to, in fact, that's why he's here! Just trying to make some unlicensed gypsy livery money. At this late hour, I don't even give a fuck, I'm high on my good fortune for the trip, so I'm ready to hang out with this guy and have him take me home. We haggled for a $20 ride and we all get in to this thing. It's just kind of asinine as a vehicle, it should have died years ago, but we went and dropped Melissa off and then Matt and then me. Matt and I split the cost since Melissa nobly absorbed the towing expense. I talked to the guy a lot and took his number down, noting him as "The Problem Solver". Oh, I'll have more problems in the future, but I don't think I'll ever call that guy again as long as I live.

Statistics:

$24 total on a circuitous ride home in a Dodge Duster
5 iced coffees on completing this post
8 at Austin Java in the latest session
25 days behind in my journaling
20+ phone numbers acquired
$5 Amount that was requested of me immediately after being hit by a car.
3.13 Armando Benitez's career ERA
$18 estimated total spent on the T in a 33 hour period.

Drinks from...

Day 55

324 Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale @Dad's
325 Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale
326 Brooklyn Lager @Duncan's
327 Brooklyn Lager
328 Brooklyn Lager
329 Peak Organic IPA
330 Peak Organic IPA
331 Peak Organic IPA

Day 56

332 Corona @some DUMBO taco shack
333 Sierra Nevada @Joey's in Brighton

Day 57

334 High and Mighty Beer of the Gods @Deep Ellum
335 Green Flash IPA
336 Punk IPA

Day 58

337 Live Oak Pilsner @Jo's Downtown
338 Firemen's #4
339 Live Oak Pilsner
340 Lonestar can @home

Day 59

341 Live Oak IPA @Frank
342 PBR can @Scoot Inn
343 PBR can
344 shot of Feckin Whiskey outside of Scoot Inn
345 shot of Feckin Whiskey (somewhere on East side)
346 Busch can in some park
347 Stash IPA @Snack Bar
348 Lonestar @Ego's
349 Lonestar
350 Corona
351 Lonestar @Creekside
352 Lonestar

Day 60

Nothing

Day 61

353 Fleur d'orleans @Suck Shack
354 Stash IPA
355 Hanky Panky @The Good Knight
356 Firemen's #4
357 PBR @Beauty Bar
358 Lonestar @Silhouette
359 Lonestar
360 Lonestar


Next: South by Southwest approaches and I still don't have a pedicab license.