Of Beans and Drunk Drivers

Days 62-68

The more I do this, sit down and write, the more I feel like this is becoming an important introspective process. It's way more than documentation, but it's clearly turning into a purge of the things I never vented, the sentences I always wanted to write. It's also becoming a venue for my growing indecision about how I want to proceed with my trip and my life. I like the travel, I'm thirsty for new stuff and I'm also growing very comfortable with the idea of being unattached to anything, and yet I also like the thought of growing some roots for a little while here and there and the next place and being able to say two years from now, "When I lived there..." I'm seriously considering changing my itinerary.

Jo and I did the Facebook thing on our smartphones the night we met, and so on Sunday after having returned Chad's car keys and described to him where I parked his car with the Brit in the backseat, I stared my hangover away on the computer, facebook chat enabled. The textual flirtation began and in the streamers of our conversations the night before, it came out that I'd never been to the Alamo Draft House, and there was a film showing Monday about TJ and Dave, some world class improvisers out of Chicago, and the way their partnership developed. Jo was in, so we made it happen.

There isn't much to mention about the event. I find that the Alamo Draft House is a cool idea, but as someone who is frequently critical of service and the merits of who is serving me, I find adding table service to the affair of watching a movie is something that only adds annoyance to my experience. Either way, it is nice to have beers and a burger while watching a flick. It was a good movie, the director was there afterwards, and people got to ask some questions, so that was neat, but I really wanted to asked TJ and Dave questions, and they were mysteriously absent. Must be busy. Jo and I flirted a little, but it was not the same kind of liquid splashing from Saturday. It was stiff, but fun, and I was selling her on playing video games at Shangri-La, but she forgot to pick her roommate up at the airport or something. It seemed like a really good excuse except if you are going to make that excuse, you don't invite me out to poker the following night, so I took it to the check-out counter, because I was gonna buy it.

The next day it was gorgeous. I started sending off texts to the phone numbers I had. I got only a few responses, and none of them wanted to or were available to toss the disc. GRAAAA! I really wanted to get out and run around a little. I got weak, and I texted Layne. She was all about a toss and that elated me, and she actually wanted to hang out, so I convinced myself that she isn't all that bad. I went over to her house with my disc and she suddenly thought it was a good idea to go swimming down at Barton Springs. She gathered her stuff, and her dog whose real name I forget, but she constantly referred to as Pooter because the dog loved to lick its own vagina, and we got into her mom-bomb Ford Escort wagon to drop by my place to nab my swimming trunks.

It took way too long to actually get to Barton Springs, but when we did get there, we went down to the side where you don't have to pay to hang out. I learned that the water is 67 degrees all year round. It's a stunning place and not too deep and as warm as Boston Atlantic water ever really gets, so Texan complaints of the water being too cold are laughable to me, but I guess my tune might be a little more country if I grew up on fire throughout the months of May, June, July, and August. There were over 70 days of 100 degree heat last summer. I'm hoping for something a little bit more mild while I'm around.

I took my shirt off to reveal my "sweater" and "bat wings" of body hair, and thought that people have got to expect me to be hairy with this beard, and if Layne doesn't like it, then she's not worth the time. These are the same types of insecurities I assume everyone is stricken with, and for me it is about body hair, but I'm learning to accept that I'm a furry animal. Layne didn't care, she was more concerned about falling out of her swimsuit, since she was experience the birth control cup-bump, a signal, dare I say a road-side flare to me that I didn't immediately pick up, but should have seen for the obvious message that she had only recently started birth control and so recently was regularly having sex. Eeeeeh. Blinded by beauty I guess, but fortunately, not completely blind, but only legally blind, because I could still see the general shape of things, and I was staying skeptical. I get lucky in many things, but it's not usually with women. On our way back she tells me she likes me "in that way". I didn't say much about it, I have learned a lot about shutting up recently, and how it makes people think, so I just smiled. We went out for dinner and I'm craving kimchee something fierce, so I directed us to this place I remember reading about named Koriente, and end up footing the check and not getting any kimchee. Later she kisses me and thanks me for a lovely date. We go back to her place to hang out and she posts up on the couch. Her dog tries to wedge itself between us and eventually gives up to bark bark bark about it until Layne puts the bark collar on her. Pooter knew what this meant and shuts right the fuck up. I loved that collar. I wanted one of those for humans. Maybe for Layne. She put on some terrible shows about fucking beans or something, honest. She started telling me about how she loves beans and I could honestly give less than a shit to learn about beans, there's nothing funny about watching beans get processed through a factory, I swear I hope to drink the things I learned from that show right the fuck away. This is when I received a text from Jo about playing poker. Time to make a break for it. I began to lay the groundwork. "Layne, I made plans, I have to get going soon," and, "Hey I gotta meet my friends." She starts asking me to stay. She sends me text messages from right next to me asking me to stay. It's getting pathetic now. I told her I would if it wasn't the first time we were hanging out. She makes me wait to send me asinine picture messages of snapshot captures she's taken of her iPhone home screen, or other random photos. There was even a Magritte painting somewhere in the parade of sad, time sucking diversions. I wrenched myself from the quagmire. God, waiting in line to purchase the beer I brought to the poker game was more entertaining than that show about beans, and the conversation that accompanied it.

I won $8 in poker. It was a fun group for the game. I really got to mock Jo pretty good on her poker skills, and it was over pennies, really, but it was kinda funny when she got cleaned out. I bluffed a lot of hands, but next time I would just play tight on these kids. They play way too many hands, and I let their pattern affect me. Reflections. I took my winnings and ate like a king afterwards at Taco Cabana. A man there was speaking to himself, which made me feel like it might be OK to actually yell at the salsa bar this time. Once again, I begrudgingly declined to initiate that one sided argument.

On Wednesday I spent a lot of time blogging, and killing errands. I didn't feel too hot, but remembered that there was an improv jam at the New Movement Theatre. I went to play, and it was fun to improvise again, but the participating crowd here was full of amateurs who were really good at destroying scenes. A lot of what I've learned in improv training was trampled here, and anything I did to progress a scene's sequence was just as easily destroyed by someone coming into a scene that started to make sense and flailing their arms like a cartoon. I silently wished for them to fuck themselves and played along.

I talked to some of the resident improvisers at the theatre and found them to be very nice, and despite being tired and a little grumpy, I stuck around to watch the next show, which surprised me in how skilled they were. They put on a very good show. Some local blogger was there to plug the show as "a thing to do" in Austin for her 365 thing to do in Austin blog. To inspire the improvisers, she went up on stage and talked about her dating life and some embarrassing things that had happened to her, and how much of an idiot she was for the way she dated some manipulative liar-prick for way too long. As if I needed a reason to disrespect her terrible decision making, I looked at her blog and saw that one of her "things to do" was to take a pedicab ride. In the description of this "thing to do" she said that pedicabbers would take you across the city for $5. No. No they won't. Not in this country. She's one of those hot girl rides who thinks its a privilege for the pedal monkey to take a lovely lady such as herself. I say that she sucks at life and blogging. Thankfully, I don't think that many people read her blog. Yes, the irony of this statement is clear to me.

The sun shone down and put a solid 75 degrees of Farenheit in my neighborhood, so once I became prepared to exit my lovely little ghetto a little after noon on a Thursday, I hesitated. Ahh, it sure did relax me to be in that sun, so I pulled out one of the plastic chairs we have on our concrete walkway that doubles as the foundation for the house and placed it in the sun on the walkway to the front door. There I sat for a few minutes, soaking in some rays, barely capable of the effort required to observe the things around me, incapacitated by the pleasure that swallowed me atop this factory made plastic seat. My car is parked on the street since the driveway got loaded up with everyone else's wheels last night, and I considered pulling the car in off the street, but decline my own offer deeming it futile since I'll leave as soon as I muster the gumption. I watch my young female neighbor enter a large green Dodge Caravan. She begins to back out of her driveway, doing so very slowly, methodically, a deceivingly careful pace. Her exit is straight back and headed towards my car. I thought in very clear words to myself, a sense of trust imbued in them, "She's not gonna hit my car," but she keeps going and pushes her oafish tank into my passenger side door, making my car tilt. Jumping up, I growled in admirable diction, "You fucking asshole," and ran to the point of impact. She doesn't speak English, she's unlicensed, and the piece of shit isn't even insured. She and her sister or cousin try to bargain with me and say let's wait until her father gets home, but I shake it off and call the cops. I've seen "settlements" like this placation screw people before so the law has got to get down here. I called the cops three or four times to be reminded that officers were dispatched based on priority, and I remembered I lived on the East Side. We waited for what ended up being an hour and twenty minutes. I could have watched a movie. Instead, I argued with the girl's sister or cousin about how she shouldn't leave the scene of the accident because then they would have bigger problems that just me. The English speaking one kept reiterating to me that they were gonna have to leave in 30 minutes anyway, and I kept telling them that it was a very bad idea. Thick people are obstinate and don't care to abide by the social constructs humans have created to maintain order, so this fact saw the offender get back into her van to attempt to run her errand. I was prepared to escalate this conflict to the point where I was going to stand in the way of her vehicle on the public road in my own little version of Tiannamen Square, except I wasn't fighting Communism, but stupidity. It was for her own good that I risked my life, but before things could go CNN on us, the cops serendipitously arrived. A full report was filed, and three tickets were issued to my neighbor: Unlicensed Driver, Uninsured Driver, and my favorite, Unsafe Backing. I felt for a few moments like I would somehow be in trouble like when I got picked on to the point of violence in middle school. Why would you suspend the poor kid who got goaded into a fight? How much can you take? On this day, I liked how fairly the real law treated me when I sized it up to my old principal, Ron "Dickface" DePace. I'm sure he was a very nice man.

I called the insurance company and explained things to them. I learned that in my bare minimum Texas coverage, I'm covered for uninsured motorists with a $250 deductible. They sent an appraiser over the following week to look at my car and estimate the damage. He was a perfectly pleasant fellow and we chatted for a good while as he observed the dent in my sweet baby that was magnificently placed partly on the passenger door and partly on the front quarter panel. Two separate pieces to replace, twice the labor, and going for a grand total somewhere beyond the neighborhood of $900. Wow! That dent technically totaled my car, which ultimately will result in a Liberty Mutual payout of the value of my car minus $250, essentially a $900 reward for calling the law into the picture. I think it was Jesus who said, "Love thy neighbor."

My car makes this sound now like a window is always just cracked a little. I'll complete my trip with a few extra decibels, I guess.

That evening, I invited Layne out to the social cycling event, and when we met up at the Scoot Inn, she was ready to ride a race, not cruise and chat, so this meant underdressed, and riding a bike that was not conducive to a fun little cruise, and a healthy dose of whine. Her being there really spoiled the fun, let me tell you. I felt like I was watching a show about beans all over again. So, when in the middle of the ride, she wants to go get food and go back to her place, I feel like its a good idea because I'm annoyed at being around all these cool people and feeling bad about socializing since it is becoming very clear that she is socially awkward and very self-involved, shoving aside normal conversational patterns to stage her windy, monotonous stories. Yes, get me out of this place.

We took a painstakingly slow ride away from the popular route because Layne's knee was hurting very badly, and she made sure I knew about it. We both wanted food so we attempted patronizing that damned taco truck on South Congress where I had those magnificent drunk tacos that one raging night. Thanks be to the knees of Jesus, it was actually open this time-I'm 2 for 7 on trying to go to this taco stand and actually get tacos, and one of those times ended up with me getting slammed by an SUV on my dejected, 6th Street sausage substituted ride home. We found success, the bright spot on my night! Delicious al pastor from a truck, you make boring blondes irrelevant!

After the meal, we took a bus back to her place with our bikes on the bus bike rack. Every bus in Austin has a bike rack on the front, a cue I think Boston should take. We got back to her place and it was more of the same as last time. I had mentioned that my heat was off so she invited me to stay over, but it ended up being in this neutered sort of fashion where I was there, but only to keep her company because she needs her voice to land on something that's not electronic or an animal. My frustration grew to the point where I needed to lay it all out for her. We had a talk and I basically called her out on leading me on, and she apologized and skirted and said she invited me to stay over since my heat wasn't on, a detail she learned after she extended this offer. How convenient. I decided to tell her that I'd take my chances in my Texas-cold apartment, when actually plotting an escape to the tavern meetup for the end of the social bike ride. On my way out I remembered that I had left my sunglasses in her car when we had gone to Barton Springs. I mentioned to her that I could grab them tomorrow. She insisted she could get them for me immediately, something of a surprise considering how sedate she had just been for about an hour. She handed them to me and as I mounted my bike while she repatriated her apartment, she shouted after me, "Well at least it wasn't a total waste!" She was right, I love my XGames sunglasses, it's $6 I'd really prefer not to spend again. I hope those tacos gave her terrible indigestion.

Kyle Duncan Graham and his girlfriend Priya were set to arrive in Austin, TX for South by Southwest, which will be referred to as SXSW from now on. I picked him up at the airport and we proceeded to conquer an errand to repair my car-struck bicycle. I had obtained a fork from a pedicabber here in Austin that I had met and lent some Underarmor to during the inauguration of Barack Obama. When I recognized him and mentioned it, he asked me if he had given it back and was I here to reclaim it. It was an adorable guilty conscience moment, and he very kindly offered me the component in reference.

Post errand, I took Kyle directly to Rudy's Barbeque and General Store. We ordered a great deal of mouth watering meats from the friendly folks working there who greeted and welcomed us loudly once they found out it was our first time there and that Kyle hailed from Seattle, as did I by simple association. This place is kinda famous around here, notably for its barbeque sauce, which, after I mentioned my visit there, heard from various sources that, "their sauce is so good you can drink it." At least four individuals independent from social connection to each other did mention it.

Kyle and I took an adventurous and scenic drive through places we were lost in and re-routed through on our way to obtain a coffee at Mozart's. We were both struck by how many of the houses were long, single leveled structures, more fitting of an elementary school than an upscale habitation, which these most certainly were, based purely on the area where they were plotted. The coffee was great, but the view out at Mozart's was better. I mention this otherwise uneventful trip because on our way back, we hit some gnarly traffic, rush hour mixed with SXSW influx. We had to be at the airport by 6 so Kyle could see his currently long distance honey at the earliest and most romantic movie moment possible. I took my knowledge of the city and its thoroughfares and put it to the test. I eschewed the MoPac expressway parking lot for a chunky, but steady Cesar Chavez cruise across town to 35, slightly jammed as well, but moving, and cut corners in lanes only used by informed drivers, and exits only taken by secret agents. We made the airport with time to spare, and Austin Bergstrom is starting to become a place of great excitement and contention for me.

Brooke, the person who held responsibility for the housing situation I ended up in also ended up temporarily being my employer. since I was encumbered with the licensing process for obtaining a pedicab chauffer's permit in Austin, I looked for other opportunities for employment with the U.S. Census and my neighbor's "Tipsy Taxi" business. The Tipsy Taxi is a service that delivers a sober driver to your car to safely drive your drunk ass home. It costs a little bit more than a cab, and you are probably going to tip generously since you are too hammered to operate your vehicle. My roommate, Nick works with them, or had at the time I started. This Friday was going to be my first night of work. After taking care of paper work, I was told I'd be partnered up with Katie, the married girl with two children in an open marriage that Nick bones with regularity and self-loathing. She's nice, but nothing exciting as far as company goes, like dry toast to breakfast. We got along just fine, though I think I was latently annoyed the entire time we worked because I was thinking about the massive cash I could be raking in pedicabbing SXSW, or the outrageously fun time I imagined I could otherwise be having if I didn't need to be sober. This might have come across in my demeanor. I plodded through it, mostly waiting around at my house until a call came in. There were only two calls this evening, one being a guy who just got a little too hammered after work and needed his van back at home to head of to work again the next day. He thanked me profusely for driving and gave me a $16 tip on my first tipsy taxi fare. It certainly was a promising start, but it ended up as one of only three calls we got that night and I didn't pocket more than $30 out of the evening. I pouted silently that I'd rather spend $100 on good times rather than work and make dick for money, which I can do by jerking off. It felt like I had gone rather low.

Saturday rolled around and there was another social ride to kick off SXSW with a free party afterwards. I pedaled stag once again, figuring the social aspect might net some new connections. Not this time. I experienced a different energy showing up for the ride. It smacked of cliqueishness today, but I was here to ride and get a modicum of exercise since I've been relegated to motor vehicles for the time being. Since Cairo suffered her injurious yellow impact, I've piloted my roommate's beast around, with it's poorly lubed, skipping chain, and the "circus seat", a seat post in two parts that allowed the saddle one sits on to spin. Novel for doing some flanking and upright sideways crunches, and handy for a visual gag (hey lookit this! Mah seat is ca-razy!), but essentially giving the human in power the opportunity to sit and spin, a demeaning expression that I now embodied. In place of my dear Cairo, this monstrosity in its state augmented the discomfort I sensed in the park before the ride.

The ride occurred at a slightly accelerated pace in comparison to typical Thursday night rides, a whopping two of which I'd experienced. There was an edge on for everyone, not sanded down by enough drinks to lubricate the gears of social interaction, and the only person I really connected with was that hungry girl I offered half my protein bar to, and that interaction ended about as quickly as she ate it. In solitude, I looked forward to the end of the ride, knowing that I could have a couple of beers there before needing to be a Tipsy Taxi, and eat what I expected would be free food that I ended up paying for. It all ended at Mellow Johnny's, Lance Armstrong's Austin bike shop for a half-assed dance party sponsored by Google with their new bike maps, Gowalla, and what I saw as a lame attempt to try to get me to buy stuff. I scored a t-shirt and a beer opener from Google, so I guess that counts for something. God, it's incredible to me how important I find social connection, and there wasn't really a conversation worth a damn. If someone told me what I'd get out of that ride was what I ended up with, I think I'd have stayed at home and drank a beer on my front porch, eyeballing my neighbors in the sun. I did however drink a Texas beer in the Texas State Cemetery, so that made me feel pretty alive.

Before returning to the exciting world of Tipsy Taxi, I caught up with Kyle and Priya and their friends for some Korean Barbeque, finally getting my kimchee fix. This is one of those run down joints that does things well, and it had this conveyor belt on one side of the restaurant with slowly passing sushi to tempt the patrons of the bar. The dishes were color coded for cost, but nothing was stopping someone somewhere else along the conveyor belt from defiling the meal I could potentially have, but I suppose this is true of restaurant kitchens across America, and this is the trust we are trained to have. I sometimes have thoughts of complicated public meltdowns, damming the streaming flow of normal social order. How easy it would be to orchestrate a disaster by obstructing the enter, order, eat, pay, exit cycle by firing off a few haymakers at the lazy sushi that paraded before my eyes. Better yet, my fists would send delicious fishy projectiles at our compatriot consumers on the other side of the belt, perhaps inflicting modest amount of annoying pain. "Ow, tuna," I imagine them exclaiming, even though I feel like the real words would be something in Korean or Japanese, a thought I toss back and forth inside to term either racist or realist. This gives way to mentioning to Kyle the creative way I'd conceived to cause havok, and we laugh because we won't, but the thought carries pretty high stakes. Would they call the cops? Could we get away with it and just leave? I'll put this one in my pocket for the Zombie Apocalypse.

Back at the Tipsy Taxi, we end up at Katie's place tonight so she can fold some laundry or something. I nap there for two or three hours while we don't get any calls for work. She puts some white noise on for me, rain, and I decipher the pattern of sounds and locate one particular recurring raindrop, and wish I had the energy to follow through on my urge to switch it to the beach. When we do get a ride, it's with these three girls who were at a Chippendale's type place, checking out strange cocks. Some girl is getting married and she is out on a sort of bachelorette party. We get into her car and we have the chatty bachelorette, a sleepy emo looking girl, and the big girl who is way over quota. We got on the road with Katie following me in her SUV to pick me up once I drop off the drunks. The over-loaded girl in the seat directly behind me is queasy. She needs to puke. I started to pull over, but the bachelorette says it's ok as long as the window is open. They find her a bag in time. I hear the rustling of flimsy plastic in 60 mph winds, with the vomit track overlaid. It's not the vomit you always hear, that comical pouring of guts that sets the vocal chords off in ugly patterns, but a subdued and embarrassed whimper, and you can tell she's sorry before she even says so. She ditches the bag of puke out the window and in the rearview, I watch Katie swerve to avoid stepping the rubber into puke, as if it were going to clog her engine or corrode her already strange life. The apologies are unleashed and in the sideview there are chunks and splashes of boot like Jackson Pollack on this nice Honda Accord. Emo girl is still asleep. Big girl feels better. They arrive safely, tip me modestly yet not poorly, and begin to wash the car at 2:30 am. This is the last ride I had with Tipsy Taxi, and in retrospect, if it were my company, I would have named it "The Drunk Drivers."

I have got to get that pedicab license.

Statistics:

80 minutes to receive police assistance in filing a legitimate accident report
3 tickets issued to my neighbor
4 total vans I have seen parked in my neighbors' driveway.
5 total rides I worked for Tipsy Taxi
$63 lifetime earnings at Tipsy Taxi
5 trips to Austin Bergstrom Airport so far
$1130 and change as the Liberty Mutual estimated Texas value of my 1984 Toyota Corolla
17 consecutive days of heat above 100 degrees in Austin last year. I'm intimidated.
$6 saved by remembering where my sunglasses were.

Drinks from...

Day 62

361 Broken Halo IPA @Chad's
362 Broken Halo IPA
363 Broken Halo IPA
364 Stash IPA @ Snack Bar
365 Stash IPA

Day 63

366 Arrogant Bastard @Alamo Drafthouse
367 512 Pale Ale

Day 64

368 St. Arnold's Elissa IPA@ Poorman's Point (Barton Springs)
369 St Elissa IPA @Layne's
370 Ranger IPA @Matt's (poker)
371 Ranger IPA
372 PBR
373 Ranger IPA
374 Ranger IPA
375 PBR
376 Ranger IPA

Day 65

377 Ax Handle Pale Ale @Uncle Billy's Brew and Cue
378 Lonestar @New Movement

Day 66

379 PBR @Scoot Inn
380 St. Arnold's Elissa IPA (during ride)
381 St. Arnold's Elissa IPA
382 Lonestar @Red 7

Day 67

383 Shiner Bock @Rudy's BBQ

Day 68

384 Lonestar @Texas State Cemetary
385 Miller Lite @Mellow Johnny's
386 Ranger IPA
387 Boulevard Single Wide IPA @home

SXSW summary and wrapup next!