Text-iles

Days 86-99

If it's gone from my memory, it should be gone from my memory. This is a new Irish expression that I just invented because I am partly Irish and qualified to do so as somebody who has blacked out drunk before. Perhaps some drunk had invented it before, but forgot all about it. I reveal this revelation to rationalize my way out of certain details that have escaped, perhaps a moment in time will unearth them from the recesses of my grey matter curtains, but until the second or third draft of these entries, we shall all have to deal with the idea that perhaps some of the full picture has been omitted, and that this is the most resolute picture we will receive. So welcome to my incomplete life, I hope it mostly satisfies.

I don't know how delirious I became after the marathon of census hours I logged in woods and parking lots, and this very well might be out of order in sequence, in fact, it's abundantly clear that it happened the day before. It seemed to me that a few short hours later we were back to work trying to enumerate far less volatile locations. I only slept for four solid hours before opening my eyes in red urgency. Three something. I made phone arrangements for the next assignment and it boiled down to meeting at my house for an enumeration operation that took us down the block to a crack-cocaine heavy area, swimming in alcohol and grifting. We, the four youngest members of our training group, sat mocking ourselves, all with a beer in my run down neighborhood, the front yard recently mowed by a crackhead with a probably stolen weedwhacker. He did a good job for the twenty bucks we sent down the street to his dealer.

My group which was made up of Violet, myself and a young UT student named "Lyons", was designated to an area very close to my house, a place I commonly refer to in jest as "hooker East", since on my way home, the whores on the corner of 12th and Chicon cat call to me as if I'll hit the brakes on my bike when I suddenly realize that skanky STD sex with an absolute mess of a cracked out human is exactly what I need on my way home from ANYWHERE. Yes, there are several, and they all hang out by a convenience store that has "That's What She Said Mart!" spray painted on the outer wall of the second floor above the actual mart. I shuddered while rolling past a lady putting some lipstick on while sitting on a dilapidated section of masonry that led to no significant or worthy structure, only to be greeted in hopes that I would pay money to fuck her. I'm just two blocks East of this, enough space to feel safe, but just close enough that occasionally I'll notice in the periphery of my headlights as I turn onto my small block, a delusional or hallucinating person who is perhaps lost, or sleepwalking, or extremely high, having a conversation alone in the dark, unadulterated by the sudden presence of light. It is in this area we are to conduct census work, and we sit waiting for a mobile food van to arrive so that we can interview the hungry, the high, those that have accidentally found themselves there. While we waited, a young man with an angular face and intense eyes asks us for change so he can catch the bus, but Violet and I regretfully informed him that we have none. He tramped around the territory for the duration of our stay, a grifter in poverty, and I think it is unwise to ask his peers to help advance his cause when they too are in need, and where, for all the brisk walking he does with that determined go-getter expression, he might walk somewhere that would yield improved results, or reach the place his "bus" might take him. I think better and figure the bus he's trying to get on is probably crack, and he's always only a few dollars away from getting high, and shamefully young for it. We interview him, and he's kind enough to respond in a way that appeared truthful.

We talked to a man so hopeless to himself in his self loathing of his homosexuality that he could do nothing but get drunk. He was a perfectly sweet man, and we spoke with him for ten or fifteen minutes about all kinds of things. He whittled his day away at a bus stop, drinking, talking through the time, telling us of his family, too prideful to let them help him, too diseased with alcohol to help himself. We inform the government that he exists with a piece of paper.

We tired of sitting on the ridge of a vacant lot waiting for the food van to arrive, and so decided to wander around the area to collect more information than we may otherwise gain, actions not directly authorized by the government, but a tribute to the zeal we felt for being a part of an operation whose success we were at the root level responsible for. Let's take a walk around the crack block!

We approached some people with our badges and bags and pale-ass skin and were just outside of a building that seemed to have a lot of action going on inside. I thought it might have been a bar, but it seemed too busy at this hour for that kind of establishment and so my thoughts immediately turned to drug related circumstances. An older gentleman gave us a line of bullshit that just cracked his ass up, but he counted whether his name was Alotta Fagina and his birthday was today's date, or whatever he actually told us. We moved up the block where a yard sat between two houses looking like it used to have a house on its lot, but the house disintegrated or was sold piecemeal for crack. There must have been 10 or 12 people in this yard, and across the road from it, a few more. We spoke with quite an articulate fellow there, an artist, and philosophical type, a brilliant mind mired in a cesspool of drugs, crime, and the downtrodden. While we conversed, a man sat drunkenly lobbing cynical sentences our way, mocking our new friend, and on the other side, an obese girl smoked crack. The man offered me a drink from his bottle, and I declined, only to be criticized for claiming to be a drinker. If I were a drinker, I'd wake up and be ready for a shot. We filled out forms, and the information didn't matter so much that the girl wasn't actually 16, or anything, so much as they were counted. We made an attempt at entering that yard, but got shouted down, likely looking like three white brats with no business in a ghetto like this. Our new friend drew us a picture to remind us of him and wrote down his email address on one of our census forms. I emailed him and never received a reply. It's an eye opener to see capable sober minds become the hardened gum stuck on the sidewalk. They might just want things that way.

That night, Violet came over to my place. We watched about thirty minutes of a horrible movie called "How To Stuff a Wild Bikini", some 60's beach flick with Buster Keaton as a witch doctor and a plot that made no sense at all. It surprised us both that it tried to be a musical, and Mickey Rooney played a businessman in it and inexplicably there was a scooter race where people teamed up in pairs. A lot of running into hay and antics. We laughed at how abysmal the construction of the movie was, watched some comedy and drank beers, just enjoying a night in, stuff that felt a lot like comfort in a relationship. She spent the night and in the morning she told me she didn't feel right about how things had happened. It was too quick and she didn't know if she was using me, and it didn't feel like the right way to start something. I replied with my logic, words about being interested in satisfying the discomforts she revealed to me. Yes, of course let's do more dates and courtship, and I meant it all, because now to the best of my ability, when I say something, I plan on it being the thing I do, and I did what I said I would because I already knew that she was a person worth spending time with. I think I know these things faster and stay cooler longer than I used to, but I also know myself and my tendency to let my heart rule my head, but I made those statements rationally and with control. She conceded in the discussion, I guess time being the concession, and we proceeded with business as usual, as unusual as our business became.

Later that evening, I connected with Chad and Berto. Berto's birthday party commenced that evening, so attendance was mandatory. I had an OK time, ate a bunch of his cheese plate, but mostly struggled through some awkward conversations and it pressed me as one of those get-togethers where new people meet and don't understand why any others are there and have no interest in continuing any sort of friendship whatsoever, not even in a virtual way on Facebook. Chad and I bailed after a few beers and made a sort of South Congress round of the bars within a block. For Thursday, it could have been a lot bolder, but the night as a musical piece translates into ambiance and sleepiness.

Here's where things start smashing up into a magnificent and intense week of edginess, danger, and honesty. Before going in to pedicab, I met up with Violet for a bit of a date I promised her, and it seems to me that I'll somehow die every time I drive to her place, either because I'm lost and will starve to death, or because the exit to her place is perilous since I have about 70 feet of road space to slow from 50 MPH across three lanes to make a right angle right hand turn. Every time I experience this pattern, I feel like screaming, "AAAAAHHHH WE'RE ALL GONNA DIIII-WHEW! That was close." Arriving alive, we walked to the nearby "Whip In", a place I am a fan of because of its excellent beer selection. They serve delicious American style Indian food there (eg: curry panini), and we ordered a stout little meal and each have two beers while music tracks the background to our cute musings. A gentleman, I picked up the tab, and we walked back to her apartment. She showed me a recent piece of art she created, a naked girl on top of a dead, naked man. The girl is startled, in fact you've caught her in the act of eating the man's heart while she fucks him. Her eyes are hollow like an ancient Greek statue's eyes, but also filled with light as if her pupils hadn't adjusted. The curves are sexual and appealing and the juxtaposition of the nudity and sexuality of the style versus the cannibalism of a body hits me in the gut. I loved it. We talked about it and she made a gift of it to me on the spot.

I went home to retrieve my mountain bike and experienced a downhill ride with the wind all the way to the pedicab shop. I attached the trailer to the bike in that cumbersome process that I began to loathe. Each time I clasped the deadweight onto the seat post, the screws damaged the metal tube, another cost to make money. This weekend, an event called the Texas Relay took place, and for some reason that meant that 6th Street and most of downtown was gonna get real hood up in he-yah. I stayed over by where people are gayer and did OK for the evening, but riding that bike trailer scared the shit out of me. I missed the tricycle, especially bikes 13 and 16, and started formulating a plot to switch companies from Red Devil Rides to Capital Pedicab. I was proud of myself for navigating a double ride through the 2:30 am traffic that piled up after the bars closed all the way down E 7th Street. The trip time deserved more than $20, but I guess that's the new lay of the land in acceptable tips. On my way back to the shop, some fancy moves had to be pulled through some flashy traffic. Some cars had doors that opened vertically, and while in traffic, they stayed open so people could observe the entirety of the bodies contained in the car, or that's what I figured was the cause for that mechanical function. I witnessed on that ride, as I pointed out to my bemused customers, several cars with people in the front that contained baby seats in the back seat, sans baby. Model parents, I'm sure. People sat nearly outside the cars in traffic, with their butts on the bottom of the fully rolled down window frame, looking for a last stab at a chance to connect with a human. "Hey girl, hey ma, baby, baby, what's goin on, what's good, where you goin?" I witnessed my first pair of truck nuts, but far too large, and on a car that, if I were to be the driver, I'd deserve castration. This comes from a man who drives a 1984 Toyota Corolla with a mismatched door. I stopped to take a picture, only to get yelled at by some other pedicabber anxious to move through traffic the wrong way to return to his shop. I pocketed my camera-phone because he wanted to be a real dick about it, but watched in moral rectitude as he got stuck elsewhere in that mess, and began to yell at some vindictive driver for pinching him in a spot where the driver easily could have had patience and let him go. I knew the feeling and also felt that he got what he deserved for being a fucker about me taking a picture of the car nuts.

Back at the shop, I counted out and had a High Life to cool the pedicabbing fire, that energy of endorphins and feeling of gambling and winning colliding with a satisfying workout. I texted Miranda that I finished up with work and she still wanted me to come over, despite the time being 3:30 am. I loved it because after the shift, you just don't cool off that quickly and there's all this unwinding to do. Many nights I've pedicabbed in Boston and gotten home at 3:30 or 4 and didn't go to sleep until 6 in the morning, only to claw my eyelids away from each other to watch myself get ready and pedal back to work. This evening is better because the freedom of the next day being open is on my mind, so spending my last few waking hours relaxing with Miranda, beer in hand, air conditioning blasting, and her and her sweet, but hungry to chew things up dog Jag nearby, soothed me into serenity.

The next day before work, I tried to orchestrate a rendezvous with Violet at the ever elusive taco truck on South Congress. I want to blow this thing up and steal their recipes. Never has a food truck inspired so much ire in me, or perhaps in the history of ire-inspiring food trucks, but then again, I haven't yet seen Portland, OR. I had the mind to collect my trailer and meet her down at this truck, but instead she came towards me and we went to Tacos Selene, a very, very fine taco truck that inspires no such ire, but awe, and sits just blocks from the Red Devil Rides shop. I showed Violet the pedicab shop after we ate and gave her the first pedicab ride of her life. I didn't have all the tricks of a tricycle, but I imagine that the ride satisfied as a first.

The following night of work handed me great disappointment. Whenever the goal of a night of pedicabbing is only to make $100, I feel like I'm failing myself and that there is just no point. I took one ride and got a flat tire. Violet had already gone off to do something excellent downtown and I didn't have a repair kit. Meanwhile, a wedding party exited a building and I declined the ride because of my flat. Another pedicabber grabbed them and scored $50 to go around the corner. Fuck my life. Then when repairs finally showed up, since I didn't have a kit of my own, I sent him off to grab a ride from the same wedding, and changed out the tube, to pump it up with a hand pump about 8 inches long, taking perhaps 5 or 8 minutes to fully pump up the tire, only approximating what is proper, and pinching the flap of skin between my thumb and forefinger over and over through the process. Anger and pain. A little turn for me, a girl named Ryan came by and got something out of her car and I pre-sold her a ride to Congress Ave after she changed into her little dress back at her catering company. I took this one ride, and maybe another two, one having gone up this little ugly hill on 5th street from West to Guadalupe, a hill I know to avoid when I have a heavy load, or challenge when I have potentially big tippers on the back, and discovered I may have been riding on a flat tire the whole time. I ended up on West 6th Street waiting for repairs again, this time for the opposite tire, and feeling damned that there was not enough money in my pocket. I used the same pump to do the job. Pain and anger.

The only thing that made me happy the whole night was the moment I ended up in a short race with a girl from another company, super skinny, sporting a mohawk, wearing skin tight gold. Our rides started cheering us on and I'm hurtin' to keep up because I may have had a flat and riding the trailer is bullshit difficult, and I just barely pull it out to win, embarrassing if I let this stick girl beat me, but impressed that she, even though having the tricycle advantage, can make a match of it. I turned left to drop my ride and she proceeded East on 5th, then turning back to my riders and declare in earnest under a heavy breath about to burst out, "That was so hot for me." The next ride I got puked on my cab. The poor logic of her being in the center of three people riding infuriated me, but I ought to have made it clear that she should be on the end and that if she puked it would be $100, yet I failed to direct or disclaim. I earned $20 for the inconvenience of removing something from my cab that formerly rested inside of her, digesting, swimming in booze, that amateur. Gross, take me home. It was only a little consolation that she did also puke on her friend's pants a bit. Another High Life at the shop to take the edge off.

Here's where it gets kind of intense. The next morning is Easter Sunday and I previously spoke to Violet about going to something called body choir, and had been anticipating going swimming in some watery hole or another. Instead of making it there, I woke up to texts about body choir costing money and that Violet would pay if I came. I didn't at this moment have the get-go to quite move anything yet, so I only double over upwards at around noon to utter a word that has for good and bad reasons been the first waking word I breathe out, "Fuck." Fuck, I missed that thing, fuck I'm tired, fuck I'm hungry, fuck I'm horny, fuck I have to go to 80's night tonight, fuck the Red Sox play the Yankees tonight, fuckin' A MAN, I am waking up before I'm ready to go get coffee with an amazing girl and we are going swimming today! I manage to establish contact and meet Violet down on South 1st where this super cheap coffee shop also does reasonably priced foodstuffs and for less than nearly everywhere will refill my tasty iced coffee. I met her friends Katie and Rachael and they are sweet and hippie types, but to summarize is to overlook complexity, which I qualify by learning much more eventually, but impressions are impressions and they did come from something called "body choir" where people just dance around and do contact improv and act like free spirits, and some particular types like to dance sketchily with young nubile hippie women. Sounds like my kind of place! In seriousness, I felt modestly remorseful that I missed it just for the kick of trying it, and Violet likes a lot of fun things and I could always keep my mind open to try certain things that she deemed worthy of her time, so it personally disappointed, but here and now, folks.

We had our brunch or lunch, all part of the plan, and made off for McKinney Falls, a state park with several swimming holes. On the way Rachel and Katie sat in the backseat since Violet held permanent shotgun and everybody seemed to have an understanding for that, without me needing to even lift an eyebrow. It's the vibe that people can read in Austin, more nonverbal communication occurs here that one is more finely attuned to the subtle. I consider it a mixed blessing since I occasionally suffer episodes of unconscionable thickness. I opened the passenger door for Violet, and continue to seem like a gentleman, though my ulterior motive was to have her unlock my door for me since I have no key that will accomplish the job, the door being foreign to the original vehicle. She gets it and my embarrassment about it combined with my decorum of opening her door for her and stiffening up with my heels clicked together, be-sandaled as they are, respectfully nodding and bleating, "Ma'am," and it made a blushable moment for both of us.

On this day, despite a smidge of fatigue, I experienced awareness, and acted expressively. I've had coffee, and I'm just alert and looking to crack jokes about anything. I wanted to impress Violet's friends, but also know that overtly trying to do so is a recipe for failure.

Recipe for Failure to Impress
1 pt fawning
1 pt offensive joke
2pts self absorbency
pinch of desperation

More of a chemistry model, or 18th century, pre-Fannie Farmer recipe, but an oldie and a goodie.

So I kept cool. I drove us all there and apologized for the Longshot since the topcloth, that thing that sags off of its no longer adhesive life partner, the roof, is now reeeally peeling off of the rear part of the car's ceiling, and brushing the girls in the face, and flapping almost uncontrollably in the 4th gear wind from the roll down windows. They dealt with it, and graciously accepted the circumstances under which my car is mine, and we laughed.

We arrived at the park and skip over small streams of water that have carved their way into the life of the boulders we momentarily took for granted. We found a nice log to hang out by and put our stuff down, some guy they know has joined us to hang out and he can play a little guitar and they make some music since Violet has brought a small drum, and it's nice, I'm just glad to be in the sun and I respirate and damn the Boston winters with a smile, it's April and I'm going swimming, damnit. And we swam. It was certainly cold, and I hesitated to take the plunge, as I tend to do about 75% of the time, the shock of it all being unwelcome, but moving as quickly as you can for a minute always makes things OK, indicative of my lifestyle, I suppose. We swam and played like children, and climbed up through this smooth hole in the mountainous rock. People were jumping off of it into the water, and I wanted a chance as well. We ended up at the point of ascension, surrounded by rock, masked from nearly every other point of view, and shared a deep, wet kiss. In retrospect, I let myself be totally taken by that moment, overwhelming to me, just my kind of romantic movie moment, and I think she might have been there with me for a second, but I have been wrong so many times on things not fact or formula based. It's a kiss I'll never forget, one of the better in my life time, central to the progression of our existence as lovers and friends, and my trip, even with Violet's ensuing bashfulness of its almost public display. Happy Easter, Jesus. I watched her climb up to jump off the rock, assuring her that she had me as a safety net should she lose her grip on the wet rock.

Violet found garbage in the woods to her disappointment, and in tune with her idealistic side, tried to pick it up and collect it for proper removal. She is also a sort of activist, and she had created a fun and brilliant mermaid costume out of plastic six pack rings, "Thank You" plastic bags, and various other discarded plastic items to raise awareness for wasteful plastic and the great plastic wasteland that is three times the size of Texas and floating in the Pacific. I frowned for her because I know how helpless it can feel to be one isolated person fighting a bigger battle. Evil can win in this world. Just beyond in time I saw a mother giving her toddler Coca Cola through a straw and boiled underneath my skin. For me, it always comes back to education. Lady, you're doing a good job to create an obese person with diabetes, but calories be damned, you don't even know that he'll throw a tantrum for Coca Cola because he's too young to understand his addiction to caffeine, do you?

It was early afternoon and Boston was on my mind. I knew that I needed to keep apprised of the Red Sox, and thought of pedicabs flying up and down an open and paved Ipswitch Street, uncontested by cabs or construction, pulling $20 a ride to Little Steve's and Bukowski's. I let the feelings bleed out of me into conversation, and made it clear that I had this game high on my priority list. Violet talked about cooking something and I made mention of some food items I had purchased several days ago, I considered calling them trash at this point. She rejected my attitude and we swung by my house to pick the stuff up, have a beer, and head back to her place so she could construct something out of the ingredients we collected. Back at her place, I found and listened to the game on the radio, kitchen sounds in the background, and enjoyed a beer while a smart, funny, beautiful girl cooked for me. I had it all right there. In the evolution of one's personal navigations of interpersonal relationships, things become clearer as experience grows, and I don't spew this truism to try and sound qualified or official, but to illuminate exactly where I mentally stationed myself sitting on that couch, surrounded by art and the smell of dinner and the sounds of baseball and cleverly constructed hilarious conversations, absorbing alcohol into my bloodstream. I thought to myself, "This is pretty fuckin' sweet. This girl is an unbelievable catch, her willingness and desire to maintain honesty with me is rare, her acceptance of me as weird and as quirky as I am is soothing to those everyday insecurities, as little as I expose them, yet exposing them to her feels natural. I'd be very open to exploring a more serious, monogamous version of this. And she's cooking dinner right now, so let's wait until it tastes good to pass judgements." I didn't actually think the last sentence of that, but looking back from here it makes a pretty good joke. Dinner was fantastic.

The Red Sox fought a good fight, especially since the Yankees represent the Evil Empire, but even though I committed to support my red-stockinged troops, Violet said that her friends were throwing a party, somewhere not far off, so life must go on, we all must make sacrifices, the Sox were down, and plus I get updates on my phone, how adamant must I be as a fan? The party explodes with food, but the environment certainly maintained a chill vibe. I didn't know anyone and chatted with random people, friends of Violet's, let myself be a free body so she could politic with her group. Tame, though I got excited when my phone would vibrate and text me the Red Sox had come from behind to win. We made a slow, courteous exit, and took off for 80's night at Elysium. I knew Miranda would be there, and she is anticipating my presence.

Before I explain this, I've informed both parties of the existence of the other person I'm seeing. Both parties have explicitly stated that this is acceptable to them. In fact, Miranda is also seeing someone else. Violet says it doesn't bother her because it keeps our relationship at ease for her, and is even open to meeting Miranda. I don't know why, but I feel like with all the facts I had collected and what I know of each person that introducing them to each other is going to go swimmingly. I foresaw this meeting happening since I'm interested in seeing Miranda and dancing with her to 80's music, and we had both amped ourselves up for it for a few days. For some reason I didn't tell her Violet would accompany me, I just said to myself, "The more, the merrier." Violet and I entered and danced a little and I looked around for Miranda, but I couldn't find her. I thought maybe she didn't yet show, but as it got later, I got confused by the lack of her presence. Violet and I danced a little, and the music didn't really satisfy my cheesiness craving, the real synthetic, passionate stuff I wanted, but we let ourselves not care. I got my second drink and finally, I spotted her. Miranda had dressed herself up a bit, teased her hair out, and really gone to town for 80's night. She looked goood. I walked up and said hey, we hugged, and I greeted her friends, and we all headed for the floor. I guess I was wrong to blindside her, I have never been in this bountiful situation of doubly dating, but I introduced them on the floor. Violet took the introduction amiably, and Miranda quickly, but not lacking tact. I thought it went fine at first. Miranda went off to dance with her friends and I raised an eyebrow that we couldn't unite parties. Violet looked exhausted, her eyes could barely stay open, and so we made ready to leave. I said goodbye to Miranda, and took off. Not too much later, I got a text saying, "Dude what the fuck was that? You could have warned me. You embarrassed me in front of my friends." Back at Violet's we slept, but I ran concerned thoughts through my head with my eyes closed until I exhausted my brain to sleep.

I texted Miranda back in the morning, telling Violet that Miranda didn't approve of the encounter and that she was pretty upset. I chose to let very little of my distress about it on. How good was it all while I just had the balance? I texted
Miranda regarding the night before and got no response. After Violet and I parted ways, I had a freak out and went directly to Miranda's. I let myself in as is the custom there and she was sleeping. Her dog, Jag, growled at me and woke her up. She seemed nonplussed by my presence, not surprised I'd show my face. "Oh, it's you," she said. We talked about what happened and I didn't understand how I embarrassed her, though I knew what it was that did it. I explained to her that I had no intention of hurting her feelings and that I am honestly that naive that I would think it would be peachy keen for the worlds to collide and we could all live in harmony. Meanwhile in the back of my head is the thought that Miranda frequently pines about wanting to be with a girl and in several circumstances confesses to me that she wants another girl with us. I'm not an idiot, I do not squander these opportunities, but as is the case in my life, good things do have a great way of blowing up in my face. My grandmother says in her steady and wise German tone, "The wheel goes round and sometimes you are up and sometimes you are down." I feel only slightly ashamed to use the expression in reference to a potential threesome, but it applies to so much more as this all unfolds.

Miranda took me back as a friend, but the boundaries were not clear. We still flirted, we still made each other laugh, and the comfort level is the same. I tried to kiss her and she went cadaver on me. Not that I didn't deserve it, but I grew accustomed to this freedom, and its revocation hadn't become a clear reality for me. Parting as friends after issuing my apology for the overstepping of bounds, I took off to write.

Violet is an extremely dedicated artist. I've never watched a person complete tasks so efficiently like she does. She always has an iron in the fire, and is constantly juggling a multitude of commitments. She drives three hours to audition, and always comes back upbeat. Going to Dallas, going to Houston, hanging out in Denton. This girl is made of Texas. She told me about a scene she got tapped for that would be filmed for a directing class, and said the director needed an actor. She forwarded to him the small amount of stuff I have online, and he wanted me to work on the scene for him. Neat, a project!

Meanwhile, my census work reached its last full week of billable hours, and Fletcher handed me a project to oversee by myself. I didn't feel very much on top of my processes, so when people were suggested to me regarding who could assist on the enumeration tasks, I picked only a few of them since the amount of work was scant to begin with, and I picked a person based on their ability to oversee my work, and ensure that we completed it in the proper fashion, t's dotted, eyes crossed and all. Ike, one of the people I didn't choose, called me on the phone shortly after he discovered that I had not offered him work despite the recommendation that he needed work. Ike participated in the Vietnam war. I respect any man who can serve our country, and the fact that I didn't call him had to do with the fact that a few people already talked to me first, and nothing else. It's not like I was trying to pull some crazy ass threesome shit. As an actor, when I see a strange number, I pick up. It could be opportunity!

"Hello?"
"Hey yeah, Danny? This is Ike."
"Hey, Ike. What's up?"
His bluster kicked in. "Yeah, how come you didn't pick me for your project?"
I knew I might get a little heat from somewhere, so I stayed cool, "Ike, I didn't really have that much work for people."
He had been waiting for my first fluent sentence to react, "That's bull shit! Fletcher told you that I needed hours!"
"Well I got emails from Jed and Lily first, and Amy has experience," I reasoned.
And with gusto, savoring every vowel sound and stomping out the consonants, Ike had his royal flush to beat my quadruple nines, "Well you can suck my dick!"

He hung up. Well I never!

I immediately called Fletcher and told him that Ike told me to suck his dick. Fletcher was on my side and in the middle of our conversation, Ike called Fletcher to complain about me. Upon returning to our line, Fletcher elaborated that Ike had served in Vietnam and sounded like he'd been drinking. Doesn't make me want to give him much more work, I'll tell you that! Not the way to obtain more hours, no sirree, Bob! The work itself is not really worth mentioning, not much got accomplished, some people were helpful, others were not, some people got counted, some did not. Drop this off here, let them know you will be back soon. Go get things, be disappointed in how they can't follow instructions. There's got to be a better way.

I got to visit Milena, my favorite sweetheart UPS Store clerk to print out the script I needed for the Kramer vs. Kramer scene I'm planning to do with Violet. Our first encounter was one of subdued flirtation. I needed to print out a document for licensing that I could rewrite into something that my notary public at Chase bank would sign once I could sign it in his presence, and so after asking if they had somewhere to print out documents, she led me to her office computer. It felt almost forbidden because I got to sneak behind the counter into the back to operate. She gave gentle and patient instructions, and I still struggled to make the papers I wanted pop out, but finally figured it out. I fiddled around on my email waiting for my important hard copy documents to get hard while she went up to the front of the store to handle some of her affairs, and after grabbing the sheets I started looking at the comics she had taped to the wall in the back room. I read a few and emitted a low laugh. She caught me reading them. Being caught was better than anything I could have ever said to her, an action that created chemistry, a total bonding moment. She said, "You like my comics?" I smiled. "Yeah." She let this smile loose looking like a first, and clean paint stroke on a blank canvas. We sort of talked about what I was printing and I explained my notary public debacle and this shy girl behind the counter who only bleats the small scripts of the transactions her job forces her to make replied, "I'm a notary public." Whoa. "Really," I blurt in surprise. I'm thinking, "You're too cute to be a notary public!" Said my facebook status that day, "Well it's a good thing that random notary public was around!" I paid for my papers, and the clunkiness of performing a transaction through flirting made both actions better. I didn't have enough stuff to exceed their $5 minimum so I paid with a dollar, and got my coins back. In a moment of supreme cuteness, I wrote my number down and slapped it on the counter before hastily exiting in bashful retreat. It screamed high school antics, and I said bye, and before reaching the door I hear, "Bye Dan." I gave a quick throwback smile, embarrassed I didn't just ask, but afraid that I was so un-smooth that there was no alternative. So I'm back, even though she didn't call, but I have more documents I need to print, and my presence is a moment of function. She led me to the back for the computer, and out of curiosity I looked at her comics again. She caught me again, but informed me, "I haven't gotten any new ones." Smiles. I bring the papers up and she asks if I'm an actor and there is more small talk, and the confession is volunteered when she blurts, "I lost your number."
I wanted her to shoot it out of the air, that flying pink elephant in the room, and with beaming eyes say, "I'll write it down again, but are you gonna use it this time?"
"Yeah."
"Talk to you soon," I said, collecting my documents and myself a little less nervously this time.
And she sounds like she's actually going to call me in the way she says, "Bye, Dan."
I smile more confidently over my shoulder out the door this day. I've got more than I need already. Either way, she hasn't called. Small tragedies are everywhere.

Violet had a show coming up on Thursday and asked me if I'd like to open for her improv troupe. How can I say no? I'm not prepared though, and in my head, the bullet of that thought ricochets all over as if it would not lose velocity, doubt taking over in my ability to adequately perform to open up for her troupe. My last performance of stand-up happened on January 3rd, a half-chubber of a show, if I say so, not terrible, got it out there, but didn't really slay it. A half-chubber beats a limp-dicker, I can say that much, some sets in my memory being so bad I'd rather be taped to the floor and drooled on by a pervy Earth science teacher with halitosis. The limp dicker, the feeling of being not just in your underwear, but your manhood out, flaccid, and making eye contact with everyone like you're supposed to be erect, but it's not gonna happen, the supreme performance anxiety, or certain motivator. Also, sub-in girl parts for universal understanding. I'm sorry family, I'm writing crudely, let us talk about buttfucking instead, shall we? Wait, no. I fear awkwardness from Thursday. My stomach dropped thinking about performing comedy in front of Violet since I respect and regard her talents, so I desired to show her my best, spurred to succeed by the ramifications of a limp-dicker, and anyways it was high time I got back on that horse.

We rehearsed on Tuesday night and my lines were not there yet and I struggled for character and delivery, and it served as a stern reminder of the professionalism I'll need to develop when I start doing this kind of thing in LA. You're at work, so treat it like work, because people like to work with people who are pleasant to work with that don't suck at working. Still, I treated it too loosely. The rehearsal ran short and following the cursory meeting, I asked Violet if she wanted to join me for a drink at Little Woodrow's, where I could watch the Red Sox and Yankees play. I started attempts to indoctrinate her as a Red Sox fan, though our crew leader Fletcher disagreed with me and swore her a soon-to-be Dodgers fan. Probably not a seductive idea in either direction for an artist. I do let these things go, but I see myself in reading back on my own entries and wonder what some of my smaller actions mean in a larger sense, if they carry meaning at all, or if I'm simply an idiot.

Wednesday arrives. Early on, I go get a late lunch or early dinner with Miranda. We're hanging out and communicating again, her flip out on me boomeranged back to her as an overreaction. We went and had a cute little meal at Starseeds, one of her favorite little places to eat, when she eats, which is not quite often enough or with regularity. I've been around when she can't sleep unless she burrows herself into her closet surrounded by her clothes that pile up in the floor. This is a comfortable place for her sometimes and it's sad, but I also know it is what she needs to do to get comfortable. It is sometimes at these moments at 7 am that she'll spring up hungry and eat a cheese plate that Starbucks has allowed her to take away before it is no longer suitable for corporate sale. We meet and dine, and sat outside while she smoked. We talked about her class that she has failed four times and how her mother, a found Christian, will dye her hair blue if Miranda succeeds in finally passing a basic English class, not a thing of shame, but a problem of continued focus. The outlook is good and I encourage her through texts to get to her classes on time and turn her papers in when I wake up early at Violet's. We parted, still chemically reacting for each other, and it felt like a comebacker, or it never left, just hit a bump.

These are two drastically different girls, and yet I act the same natural self, a naked personality with each. This phenomenon has it's own level of appreciation in both exchanges, or so I judge the case. Miranda thinks I'm weird, absorbs a lot of what I say when I ramble, and likes the spectacle of my asininity, Violet appreciates the dorkiness I embrace, a familiar function to her, and plays with it. I show openness and understanding in the presence of both situations and they experience it differently, sometimes it comes across as too soft, or sometimes too sympathetic, but I cannot imagine being a different man. It was all so seamless for a while. When not with one, with the other, when one is busy, the other is free, coffee with one, drinks with the other, interchangeable, smoothly the guy to both women, nothing but fun and beer and jokes and sex everywhere. I wanted it back.

I parked my car on the long commercial strip of Guadalupe Street known as "The Drag" to meet Violet for an in class presentation of the scene we're doing. We were allowed to hold our scripts during the scene, and performed it for about 25 to 30 directing students. Our director manages to get us in first so we can proceed with other plans we've made for that evening. Right before the scene I find my deliveries, I hit all my lines the way I want to, and the scene ends, after which we were subjected to the feedback of a bunch of uninformed students. I didn't appreciate the criticism from them, as open as I tried to be to constructive critcism, which I found a little of. I found it unprofessional of the teacher not to release us from their presence immediately and let OUR director gives us the notes, not everyone in the room who hadn't read or analyzed the scene. It made me grateful for my own education. Holy shit, Dad, it's been valuable! Just kidding, just kidding.

We left and I griped a little to Violet, but we were heading for the "improv shootaround" at the New Movement theater, the second time I've been there. We both adequately improvised our way through a few scenes, nothing monumentally impressive, but just fun, keeping the dust off our generators. I discovered that the following night, they have an open mic and I talked to the right guy about getting on, and going first, so I can brush something up just before needing to show up for Violet's show. After the show, we separated as I made plans to meet up with my former roommate Eruch down in the warehouse district. The show for Violet's improv troupe happens the next day.

I stood around outside of bars on a Wednesday, waiting like a chump, thinking they were in a particular place and caring less than an $8 cover to go meet him until I found out were he is for sure, but it turns out that he very much lived in his typical character and arrived egregiously late. I sort of enjoyed seeing the bad from the street level precepice, a group of rejects in dorky gear, some name like "The Geeks". They had headgear, or helmets, mouthgrear or something that made them look ultra lame. A cute gimmick, something that Eruch might have appreciated, having been in a gimmicky "cock rock" band himself. I saw him walk by and nearly shit myself that he wasn't where I thought he was. My old impatient East Coast self. We went over to the Six Tap Room and as we sat, Miranda headed down to join us. It felt like my skin was echoing catching up with Eruch. He told me about how he and his bandmate Mike kicked our other old roommate Robbie out of their band. Robbie may have been the worst individual I've ever met. When we lived together, he got so drunk on his birthday that when I, the person in charge of collecting rent and bills for distribution to the appropriate collectors, asked him for his late rent, he broke a bottle and attempted to rush upstairs to kill me. He later confessed to me that he drank into a blackout and he learned from his bandmates that he had said, "I'm gonna murder him, that'll be fun." I tried to play a good friend for politics and roommate relations. A few weeks later, a clip full of out of print money went missing from my room, and it couldn't have been anyone else that took it. His band had come back from playing a pretty positive show, and I had come back from 80's night, all a little tipsy, all a little uninhibited, and we spoke frankly, me in front of the three of them, willing to take all arguments in defense of why he should still live there. I won all arguments. It played similar to breaking up with a girl you kinda like, but she's fucking crazy and might kill you, it just has to be done. This is the person that Eruch had cut out of his life, the cancer cured, after disrespecting Eruch's family in his own home in Mexico. I remember being proud of him.

Miranda showed up and the booze did loosen us. We changed venues and ended up alone at another bar, "The Ginger Man," the original bar that started the franchise that I've entered in New York City,and bullied the jukebox to play us our songs in a large establishment with only six or seven folks, like pennies in a sad piggy bank. The Gingerman hosted the rekindling of our fling, as temporary as it would be. "My place or yours?"

The next day Miranda forced me out of hanging out because she ended up almost crashing two meetings into each other, me and her ex-boyfriend Steven. The last time he saw her with someone else, he got really upset, and she apparently really cared about that, and didn't think much about what I'd think about her not telling me and rushing me out the door. And I wouldn't have cared if she had kind of warned me, but she started acting all weird and nervous and pushing me away. I pried the truth out of her, and she started to understand that she upset me, and I guess it transformed into a tradeoff for that 80's night business, and so, knowing we'd work it out later, I got in my car and started the engine and watched her go inside as Longshot warmed. Then Steven showed up. And I just watched. Checked him out, that's the guy. How about that skinny dude. That's the guy whose magnum condom wrappers I've found behind the bed looking for my hat. That's the guy that's in love with Miranda, and she just doesn't want it that way anymore. Time to go.

Enumerative tasks were at hand that Thursday and kept me occupied between other circulating thoughts of two standup comedy shows. I got excited by the idea that after a four month hiatus of performance that I'd do two shows in one night for the first time in my life. I organized my thoughts into stories and worked out a joke that Miranda actually invented, her sense of humor being both cynical and accidental, both of them the right kind of shocking. A happy accident about confusing whaling with whale watching, a standby joke I have now that is dorky enough to work for my face. The rest of my set contained stories of the census variety and regaling the experience of wearing our bright orange vest. I remember going on first at New Movement. Most of what I said tanked, or merely entertained as story, it lacked hits, punchlines, or perhaps the punchlines did not crack, but patted the audience on the arm with eyebrows raised, asking, "get it?" I was running out of time and so unleashed the whaling joke. It caused the first and only real eruption of laughter in my set there. A comfort to leave on, but a little confusing. I guess they just wanted dorky jokes. I have a bunch of em, but oh well. I left after watching the first snippets of a very clever comic who exploited his accent for huge comic rewards.

I biked over to the next show, a whole 2 minutes away, and dismounted with my usual one footed, hand brake hop off, locking up my horse as Violet's friends half viewed me through their warm-ups. I awkwardly stood on the periphery awaiting instruction or introductions, and after the latter, tilted into the slight maze inside. Several familiar faces popped up in the crowd, and I pumped up my anticipation for their enjoyment, despite my insecurity for the impending quality of my performance. "I'm about to try for you all", I think, and almost think "y'all," but focus on the words I think I'll say, ones that will mostly come to me in the moment. Before I really have enough time to think too much about it, Violet goes up on stage and starts to introduce me. Oh, damn, I guess its time to get up and be funny. I'm pulled up by the introduction, thrown into the fire of silence that I need to fill. There's a little dialogue between Violet and I as we play with the air and it comes around that I should talk about my car. I had just recently watched George Carlin do a bit on cars, and how his old style was not curses, anger and cleverness, it was jolly physicality, and somewhere in me the 40 oz of beer and the blood released it all from my brain. I acted out being a participant in traveling by my car, and while singularly unimpressive, the action I lent to it pushed everything I revealed over the edge. I revealed the process of how I need to unlock my car from the passenger side first and climb over to the driver's side to pop the lock, and how often I hit my head, and it started my set with such intimate detail of the environment I described that everything after that flowed in a flood. The only thing that came out of my mouth that didn't go over was my whaling watching joke. I followed it with a humbled, "That worked five minutes ago," and got my follow up laugh that acknowledged the awkward silence. I bowed off stage to give Violet's improv troupe the stage. After their fun performance, Violet offered me the stage again, and so put on the spot, I went up and did another solid five minutes of the old jokes, the stuff that you have in the drawer, the stapler you reach for when you need to bring shit together, except like six staplers. I can confidently say that the whole of this performance, parts one and two, was the best I'd ever done. It truly gave me an epiphany about how I performed on stage, and I later learned that it had been videotaped. I freaked out over that! The thing was not just a fleeting moment, but substance gained!

After the show, a crew of people were going to the nearby Long Branch Inn, a place I'd gone once with Miranda just to check out since we did like to go see various establishments we had never entered. This time with Violet and some friends, it was cozy and I was still kind of in the comic zone, and hanging out was just a great wind down. I'm on an emotional high from the success, but I'm nearly certain that when I'm with Violet, I couldn't be any smarter, and it transcends just this night. I'm not in love with this girl, but I could see myself letting it happen, but at this point, I love her in the way that I love my favorite beer, which is to say, I am amazed that something this good exists and would like to have more of it, please. I feel completely aware, total prescience, almost as if everything inside my sponge is available to me all at once to draw upon. My sentences are better articulated, my jokes own multiple levels more often, and my expressions communicate more with doing less. I remember this only being moments for me, but it was in her voice or eyes, or laugh that sparked me to compress the gunpowder in my head and start firing, yes it feels continually explosive. It's even affecting other aspects of my general demeanor, or maybe it's just being in the South, but to play with someone on your wavelength can be an addictive thrill.

It's Friday, finally, and in dread, I thought about how I'm due to go pedicabbing on the death trap trailers. All day I feared the impending job I will have to do, and come closer and closer to cracking and just quitting the company. I'm on the verge of massive amounts of Boston Pedicab Red Sox dollars, and so I don't feel so bad about it, and the money I'm pulling in from Austinites over two weekend nights is not enough to even cover my rent for a month, and that started to get to me. The closer work time came, the more anxious I got. It reminded me of the time last October when I got hired by the Cambridge Brewing Company as support staff. I trained on a Friday lunch shift and made myself unavailable for the following weekend to pedicab, and as it approached my next shift, a beautiful Wednesday, 70 degrees, nothing really happening, just flat out gorgeous, I sat in my room dressed for work, black shirt, jeans, black shoes, ready to bike over, eyes darting towards the light outside, fretting to friends over that time vampire Facebook that sometimes I think I might just quit. The seconds ticked one at a time like Chinese water torture about to crush my soul at the determined start time of 4:30. It's 4. 4:05. 4:10. 4:11. I called Chris, my boss, a very nice guy and laid it out.

"Hey Chris, it's Dan."
"Hey Dan, what's up," he fed me back with the seasoning of the feeling that something was, in fact, up.
"I gotta be honest with ya, I don't think this is gonna work out," I confessed, falling on the financial sword of this job security, for better or worse.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, I'm sorry to put you in this position," actually feeling sorry for doing it, but knowing that I needed to not work there that day so badly that it didn't matter. "I can still come in and help out tonight if you're gonna need the help."
"Nah, it's OK," he said hollowly. I imagined him rolling his eyes at me, but I stayed sorry since it bought me my freedom.
"Thanks for everything, and sorry again."
"Yeah, take care."

I hung up and tore off my black shirt as if it had diseases and insects sown into it, perhaps it was made of the textile version of shame, and recovered myself with the neon green, a color I've worn so much that I'm surprised it hasn't soaked into my skin. I've even considered how well it would tattoo into me. I breathed and laughed and bragged about quitting to any and all, and proceeded to go pedicab and make twice as much as I would have made at the Cambridge Brewing Company, all the while feeling at total peace with myself. This is nearly the same relief I gave myself after pushing out the words to tell my awesome boss Phil that I didn't want to work that night. To my surprise, he let it all roll off his back since I hadn't really signed up for a shift that week anyway. He wished me luck in Boston and said he'd see me when I got back. Little did he know I didn't plan on riding for him when I returned, seeking tricycle piloting to sustain myself, knowing that I never wanted to ride a trailer ever again.

That night I went out with Chad, his job was sending him to Fort Lauderdale for a while, and so his ex-girlfriend, who came to town since Chad wanted to bring the togetherness back, joined us and we went all over the place. I wore my neon green headband made of a pedicab shirt sleeve and got hit on relentlessly by Dustin, a sweet guy, friend of Berto's and Chad's who joined us in the bar hopping, to give it up. (The headband.) I finally gave in and bequeathed to him my sacred pedicab shirtsleeve, and thereby consummated out friendship. Shortly after, Miranda showed up and it ended up a regular old night of chillin' out and chattin. Miranda and I dropped into Qua, a place that has live sharks in the dance floor, and decided to just go back to my place, it got lame to be out. In retrospect and retrotextive, I start to see that Miranda really was the rock for me being in Austin. Not that Violet was unanavailable, but communications with her were not the same. Miranda I traded nothings almost constinuously. She cared about my randomness, and me for hers, the easy outlet of stabbing at our routines with words to someone, and in so doing, relieving ourselves of the drudgery by communicating our discontents, errant thoughts, desires to see each other, and obtaining sympathy at the push of a few buttons. The following is our conversation on this day, April 9th. My remarks are offset to the right, iPhone style.

Buenos dias feo.
Boner Dias. Sup?
... I cut all my hair off...
Not all of it, I bet you missed a spot
... Fuck...
Haha. I bet you still look cute.
Dude no. My ma and I did it. ... Fuck...
Lol! Oh well! Hurrah for desrtuctive impulses!
What's so bad about it?
Are you bald now?
Naw, not that bad. Lol. Its very grunge rock. I'm actually startin to dig it. Yay for living in the capital of weird too.
And by grunge rock i might actually mean 5 year old kid from the early 90's...Anyways anyways...
Yeah I'm sure you will own it. And you already looked like a 5 year old...
And you aleady look like testicles... Biyitch. Pah!
What are you doing, squeeb?
Bout to go to work. You?
Gonna try to write. Then pedicabbing tonight.
Wanna meet up at some point? It's cool if its late.
Sure. Think you'll be up? Or just play it by ear?
Ear.
Butt.
Dragon. Butt dragon.
Butt gator butt
Took the night off work. You done?
Oh. Yah. Dying my hair right now...
Wanna get a beer in a bit?
I'll be done in 30. Whaddya think?
Yep, I'm out, called out of pedicab in person.
Whur you at?
Going to Rain, actually :-)
Hahaha! Awesome.
Should I meet you there you wanna get a beer later or you wanna raincheck
Get the fuck down here! Come meet my friends!
Allmost done. Sorry.
Whenever. My phones almost dead. so if you can't find me in my grey megaphone tshirt, we've gone to Gingerman. It should last tho.
Ok, we are now at gingerman. Sorry for the miscue.
Wheresat again?
Btwn 3 and 4 on lavaca. We bullied the jukebox here the other night

This is just a slice of it all, those little thrills you get on a cardboard day from someone you like to hear from, coming every day, at any time, requesting one and receiving when you need it, being asked for one and dispensing, and building a conversation of text messages that lasts for months. It's a beautiful poetry in many ways, the navigation of interpersonal communication via texting. One must account for one's own subtext and any potential implied subtext, the degree of intimacy you have with the receiver of your texts, and how well she knows your personality to either infuse your words with the intonation you yourself desire, or know that the text is meant for her to interpret in the style of her particular personality, and know that she will. Then there's being so comfortable that none of this even matters. The rock, the shirt I feel comfortable wearing.

And yet, the very next day I let my imagination run wild about Violet. I had lunch with Miranda at Whole foods and my God, did she look beautiful. It was a sunny day, her haircut was actually fantastic, the dye job perfect for her, and I tried to take a picture, but she refused, embarrassed, and claimed she didn't look good in pictures. In my opinion, it is the embarrassed face that sours the picture, but I showed people her face in this half baked snapshot anyway, and told my friends in Boston all about her.

I planned on going back to Boston on the 15th of April since the trip started-I have a dental examination, and I knew I'd make some money riding 10 Red Sox games in a row, if I could obtain them. So without getting too elaborate right here, I had booked a return flight to Boston from LA, figuring I'd be done with my trip and I would need some cash to get started in LA. But what's happened has been what has happened, so I booked a flight from Austin to LA to catch my immutable Virgin America flight from LA to Boston, having altered my originating January 5th ticket to Austin, not LA from Boston. In the moment of mentioning the trip, Miranda told me she'd miss me, and so I asked her if she would give me a ride to the airport. She said she would, and it made her happy and I knew I could rely on her.

I left Miranda to do some census work in the middle of the day at Fletcher's and on the way home from it, there surfaced between Violet and I some kind of argument. I think I may have gotten too dramatic about something before dropping her off, I can't even remember what it was, and truly that means, especially now, that it didn't really matter. Probably something I said harshly, ascerbicly, thornily, a tendency I try to fight. I really wanted to see her and in messages, she is cool, all is controlled, but I begin to psych myself out. I talk to Chad's girlfriend sarah about my issues an her tactics for controlling my situation are nothing short of Machiavellian, and it turns into an ongoing discussion, and then later, an outright argument wearing the disguise of civility. I can't even take the stress of navigating the early loose or game-playing stages of relationships, and I freak out every time I start to invest. Being out later, I convinced myself that I saw Miranda in a club called Kiss and Fly, another gay bar in the warehouse district, and out of my mind, call her out on it. It ended up a happy accident since she thought it was funny and I confessed to her that I'm just totally mental that day, melting down, something she empathized with, genuinely cared to know why, and forgave me outright when I offered deep and crazy apologies, feeding back to me in a text, "Come to my bed motha fucka!" This is some chick.

Chad and Sarah started heading to Beauty Bar, a weakness he has for shitty hipster dance parties to music that sounds like insects fucking other insects that want to fight and/or kill them to eat them. I said I'd meet them over there, I had rode my bike, so they departed, and at that 1:15 am moment, as if my life is sometimes written by a bumbling screenwriter, Violet calls me as she said she would, and we talk. I apologized for being dramatic, and she thanks me for that. I call her out on the inconsistencies of her words versus her actions and she apologizes and I thank her for that. We talk openly and honestly and I tell her about how Sarah told me to proceed in my course, which I rejected and Violet rejects abhorrently, and we laugh about it because the air has been cleared. I'm on the level again, I have the peace I desire, and instead of traveling to a shitty hipster dance party, I pop into nearby Fado, an Irish pub that has a location I've imbibed at in Washington, DC. I speak to that old hospitable friend that is there for the sociable, the bartender, and he tells me the meaning of Fado, the Gaelic word that begins most Irish tales, meaning, "A long time ago." I burned the last of my night down in there, submerging my thoughts in Guinness and gab until ten after two, then biked to Miranda's. The word appearing to me now just seems so appropriate that at some point this entire chronicle will be fado, and here I write from memory 60 days after the fact. That distance is only due to grow as the journey picks up yet again in just 8 days from the present.

Sunday was the day we designated to film the Kramer versus Kramer scene, and Violet had been dumpster diving. She invited me to dine with her friends on salvaged goods, and I accepted, of course. We drove to her friend Sierra's place and the few ladies cooked dinner while I wrapped up a little census business while drinking a beer. Billable hours at dinner hanging out. Violet picked some wild onions she had found and made scallion pancakes out of them with sweet potato fries that came from the dumpster. One of her friends, a guy named Brad, apparently had an aversion to food that may not have come directly from a store, and the whole meal was shadowed by the fact of his not knowing. Before he arrived, we joked for 20 minutes about the best possible time and way to reveal to him that he'd been eating food from a dumpster. Hey Brad, you ever put your mouth directly on a garbage can? (Stops eating) I can NOT believe this food was all so fucking free! (stops eating) Isn't this delicious for dumpster food, Braaaad? (stops chewing) It particularly amused when he really enjoyed the meal and complimented the ladies on their creations. As Violet and I drove to the filming location for our scene, we kept laughing about it. The idea was to let him digest a good bit and enlighten him long after the meal so to spare his rage a little, but the cat had to exit the bag, and Violet texted him that he had something interesting in his stomach. As selfish as it may have been considering we were not the ones to deal with the aftermath of Brad's annoyance that we fed him such trashily procured foodstuffs, it helped pass our time between takes. The shoot itself went well, and acting with Violet thrilled us both to feel things in front of each other. I loved the exercise of it all, and I need a lot more film acting experience or far greater detail in direction, and more preparation. For my character, giving the camera little felt like the right thing to do, and I think the performance comes across as more loaded than flat, and Violet does a fine job in everything I've seen her act in. And inside this block of time, and this day together is where its sinking in that Violet fucking rules, and I'm passing the point of no return. In between takes, she texts me that I'm cute, and as nervous as I get overthinking things while we're apart, in her presence I'm not afraid to unleash my undomesticated dork, and let him run around the yard and chew up old boots. After we wrapped our shoot, Violet suggested her place as the venue change, and I accepted the invitation because I wanted it the whole time. It's a moment that cracks me wide open when you lay next to somebody, looking into their eyes for a while and just say, "Hi," and you smile, and they smile back, because you've gone so much further than greeting, and with bright eyes reflecting at you in any kind of light and say it back to you, "Hi." I don't care to greet just anyone like that, just every once in a while...you know you can. And so here it was, "Hi," and the next month it was "Oh, hello."

Violet and I planned for dinner that night, a real date sort of thing, so I polished up a few date ideas and had followed through with executing a more ritualistic time of courting her for whatever it was we were entertaining. I was ready to take her down to Saltlick Barbeque in wherever the fuck it was 35 minutes away is where, and the idea was sound, but Violet hadn't realized how much time needed to be budgeted for this excursion, and needed to be at her improv show at 8. So in haste, we went somewhere local, my disappointment known, but the dateness of it not being lost, and so after a delicious mess of ribs, we drove up to the Coldetowne Theater, and I sunk a little deeper into the Austin comedy scene. I watched damned good free improv and drank the beer I bought at the gas station there, and met a lot of Violet's contemporaries, great people, cool kids just having fun in this great scene, learning and laughing. It hurts a little not to grow the roots I want to grow here, but this is the way of the traveler I am, that sad cowboy that has to go into the sunset. We weathered the flurry of socializing that followed the show, and I as Violet's ride home, tried to give her the space to be just herself with her improv friends, but I struggled in that parking lot to be either funny to her friends, or failing that, not awkward, maybe just tired.

We went back South towards Violet's house and got some ice cream to wrap our little date. I did want to introduce Violet to Chad, and we popped in at the last moment of the last night he'd live in Austin, to introduce, say hello, say goodbye, and tape that package shut and ship it off. I disliked the appearance of Sarah and Violet in the same space, mostly due to the residue of the argument we had a few nights prior, but I knew I proceeded in the morally just method, and that it could not be extracted as incident from the stop in we made. So they met and were friendly, and everyone got tired, and we all left each other somberly and sleepily, and back to Violet's for the second night in a row, feeling assured to sleep next to her the night before I left.

I took off when Violet did, and went to pack my shit up for a month of tricycles. I handed my census badge in, and my only regret about working for the US Census, was that when I handed my badge in, I didn't say, "You can count me out." Miranda went to get her new tattoo before she planned to pick me up, so I waited at home for the ink to dry, ready to go. It became apparent to her that it was going to take longer than they had planned, and she wouldn't be able to give me a ride. She texted it to me. I got really upset with her, and started to panic. I waited just a little bit to see if it would work out or not, and lamented that I always have issues getting to this fucking airport! I relented to myself and texted Violet to ask for a ride. She indignantly came to get me, I think she felt hurt that I didn't ask her for the ride to the airport to begin with, in fact mentioning that I could have, but who should it have been anyway? Then again, words are easy to say.

She kissed me goodbye, and drove off. Then Miranda texted me that she was all done, did I still need a ride? We bittersweetly spoke over the phone, and confessed we'd miss each other, and that we'd stay in touch, and could just chat whenever just like we had been. I feared for my relationships in Austin, and how they would be affected by my month long absence. Nowhere and nothing else has made me realize the heartbreaking nature of nomadism, the burden that a transient traveler suffers, that your relationships can't be properly maintained, that you always have that loneliness to carry. It doesn't just exist in you, but on your back, tensing your shoulders as if to keep the frigid wind out of your jacket, shrugging out and off settled feelings. I had Saltlick Barbeque by myself at the airport, ate half of it in Austin, the second half in California. I tried to write in the sky and got a single paragraph out. I landed at LAX and texted Miranda first.

Statistics:

$223 in travel adjustments
Unlimited texting by the month
95 days from my last standup set to the day when I first went on twice in one evening
1 guy told me to suck his dick
4 total shifts riding a trailer pedicab
21 years ago was the end of the decade of music I prefer to dance to.
21 year olds and younger have no real appreciation for the 80's, fuckin babies. *shakes fist*
22 is Miranda's age
24 is Violet's age
6 is the optimal number of fist shakes when performing aforementioned action. Go ahead, try it.


Drinks from...

Day 86

483 Ranger IPA @home
484 Fin Du Monde
485 Ranger IPA

Day 87

486 PBR @Chad's
487 PBR
488 Tecate @Berto's
489 PBR
490 PBR
491 Rio Blanco Pale Ale @Boticelli's
492 Rio Blanco Pale Ale
493 Live Oak Wood Beast @Snack Bar
494 Lonestar @Continental Club

Day 88

495 Racer 5 IPA @Whip In
496 Live Oak IPA
497 Miller High Life @ Red Devil Shop

Day 89

498 Ranger IPA @home
499 Dogfish Head 60 min IPA
500 Miller High Life @Red Devil Shop

Day 90

501 Dogfish Head 60 min IPA @home
502 Ranger IPA @Violet's
503 Ranger IPA
504 Ranger IPA
505 Fin Du Monde @party
506 Miller High Life
507 Shiner Bock @Elysium
508 Miller High Life

Day 91

509 Stash IPA @Mellow Mushroom
510 Stash IPA
511 Mudslinger Ale @home
512 Lonestar

Day 92

513 512 IPA @Little Woodrow's
514 512 IPA
515 Dogfish Head 60 Min IPA @home

Day 93

516 Dogfish Head 60 Min IPA @home
517 Shiner Bock @Starseeds
518 Ranger IPA @New Movement
519 Ranger IPA
520 Ranger IPA
521 Live Oak IPA @Six Tap Room
522 Live Oak IPA
523 Ranger IPA @Ginger Man
524 Fireman's 4

Day 94

525 Dogfish Head 60 Min IPA @Kari's
526 Widmer Pitch Black IPA
527 Schlitz 40 oz @New Movement
528 Brooklyn Lager @Long Branch Inn
529 Fireman's 4

Day 95

530 Lonestar @Red Devil Shop
531 Dogfish Head 60 Min IPA @home
532 Dogfish Head 60 Min IPA
533 Absithe @Peche
534 Shiner Bock @Rain
535 Shot of Patron
536 Ranger IPA @Ginger Man
537 Live Oak IPA

Day 96

538 St. Arnold's Bock @Whole Foods
539 Broken Halo IPA @ Fletcher's
540 Lonestar @home
541 Some Pilsner @The Good Knight
542 Stone IPA @Shangri-La (Thanks, Eric!)
543 Lonestar
544 Lonestar
545 Lonestar @Blind Pig
546 Jager shot (WHY?!?)
547 Shiner Bock @Kiss and Fly
548 Stash IPA @Frank
549 Guinness @Fado

Day 97

550 Ranger IPA @Little Woodrow's
551 512 IPA
552 Rio Blanco Full Moon Rye Pale Ale @Film Shoot
553 Lucky U IPA @Violet's
554 Lucky U IPA
556 Lucky U IPA

Day 98

557 Shiner Dark @Artz Ribhouse
558 Corona
559 Shiner Bock @Coldtowne Theater
560 Ranger IPA @Violet's

Day 99

561 Ranger IPA @home
562 Ranger IPA
Flight
563 Racer 5 IPA @Library Ale House
564 Lagunitas IPA @Finn McCool's
565 Lagunitas IPA
566 East India IPA @Fox and Hound
567 East India IPA
568 PBR 24 oz can at Maeve's Residuals