austin, tx: still cool

i know i said i'd post during this trip, and i haven't done a very good job of sticking to that. in my defense, it's been pretty hectic. left champaign around 7:00 wednesday night, made it to boston sometime around noon Thursday. met up with elizabeth in boston's beautiful downtown, took a stroll through the commons and found our way to her place, where nick was crashing for the night. from there, i painstakingly found my way to clay and guillermo's loft just outside of the city. boston is too fucking confusing for an innocent midwestern driver. and i thought manhattan on a saturday night was bad. boston has enough tolls and one-ways for everyone. i must have paid the same toll at least three times, as turned-around as i was. and at three bucks a pop, i think i should get some kind of consolation prize. but i finally stopped at a hotel and asked for directions, and found the boys' place on my next try.

and talk about beautiful. these guys' loft -- they just bought it a couple weeks ago, had some work done on it and are still putting on its final touches, but man -- it's incredible. 14-foot ceilings, hardwood floors, all industrial-like-yet-simple. and not to make a stereotype, but they're gay, so the place is naturally, immaculately well-kept. they ordered in chinese and introduced me to their mini-bar, and we watched a couple episodes of showtime's weeds, which all three of us just happened to have recently fallen for. i started nodding off during family guy afterwards, so they set up the air mattress for me in the living room and we all crashed. they left me a copy of their keys for when i get back in boston on thursday, since they'll be in new orleans that weekend. arranged for a driver to pick me up at the airport and everything. too cool.

woke up early yesterday morning, made some coffee, threw my shit together and met the driver downstairs. i had a nasty head cold or bug or something (still do, but it's a little better), so i picked up some sudafed at the airport and downed it with an iced americano -- for as corporately awful as it may be, starbucks does guarantee the same price for a drink in champaign as it does at an airport in boston. perfect.

the flight was okay, i really just wanted to sleep but couldn't. my plane had tv screens in the backs of headrests, with 36 channels of direct tv to watch. pretty cool, if you ask me, but there wasn't much on so early on a friday morning. i chilled out with some of the indie channels on their xm radio, though, and flipped through a shitty issue of esquire to pass the time. i don't usually read magazines, they usually piss me off with their barrage of advertisements, and i usually end up tossing the thing to the floor and quoting tyler durden: "is that what a man's supposed to look like?" daniel craig was on the cover of this one, though, so i let myself be a sucker just one more time and bought it for the trip. suckered, indeed.

coolest part of it was that jenna fischer had a page all to herself. jenna fischer, who plays pam on nbc's the office. jenna fischer, who has changed my personal taste in women, single-handedly. an excerpt from "10 things you don't know about women," by jenna fischer:

4. when we say, "i don't feel connected," the only appropriate response is, "i feel it, too. let's go out for a nice dinner and reconnect." try it. you will get laid.

i love you!

[EDIT 10/17/06: youtube has a video of the entire cast of 'the office' reading jenna's article! iloveyoutube.]



there's also a pretty hot one-pager with mary louise-parker (that "-parker" implies she's taken, yeah?) and her "rock me, baby" playlist. if it gets me the chance to "rock" someone like mary louise-parker, i'll try anything. there's gotta be a photo shoot online for this feature. somewhere. somebody google "mary louise-parker" and "esquire" and let me know what you come up with.

right now, i'm sitting in an austin, tx hotel room, watching nickelodeon and trying to download the newest mountain goats album. one of my blogs pointed me toward an article written by the band's lead singer about how the album came to be. i love the single we've been playing on wpgu, so this should be good.

what else? still have the head cold, am very low on cash, partied in downtown austin last night, slept in today, would like to go swimming but didn't bring trunks, would like to bring a pretty girl with me next time i adventure like this, hope everything is going well back home, kind of already can't wait to get back...

found this when i went to post today. it's an unpublished draft from after my first austin trip.

back in town, safe and sound, as of late last night. i stopped in taylorville first, to take advantage of home-cooked leftovers and soak up some much-needed family time, before beating out a snowstorm heading east across the state. i don't think it was, but could have been, the incredible storm i dealt with all the way from south of dallas through arkansas. it wasn't only one of the worst storms i've driven in, but it was heading northeast just like i. so instead of passing through it or it passing over me, we stuck together for almost eleven hours. lightning, hail, brimstone -- the works. at the time, i thought to call it "apocalyptic," although that seems too dramatic in hindsight. but it was a plague of sorts, keeping my speed way below the posted limit and my hands gripped tightly on the wheel, as if god was testing my commitment to finding "peace within madness." i could almost picture him saying, "let's see you and your little automotive sanctuary find peace in this, you fool!!" i ran into the bottom of the storm around 8:00 p.m. sunday night. when it finally let up, just shy of 7:00 a.m. the next morning, i was pretty frayed. i pulled into an off-ramp mcdonalds lot and fell into quick, deep sleep.

the snow today, however, didn't leave much damage on champaign. i hear springfield may have gotten the worst of it, and i know my brothers are enjoying the day off from school in taylorville. so if it was the same storm, i guess it dumped its worst on me down in texas. it makes a little more sense if it wasn't, though.

aside from the storm, the drive was, again, wonderful. i left houston reflecting on my day and, in my exhaustion, began to really, finally take the whole week in. i caught myself tying parts of it to memories made over the past year, or ones from years ago... the "revelation" i had after leaving rothko's chapel was not my own, nor did i find it myself, in that southern state. it's been presenting itself to me for years, and with more intent each time it echoes by. the magnet on the fridge, of course. my talks with mark these past couple months, and talks with my father for years. in fact, when dad took me in a little over a year ago, to shape up from a bad bout with depression and drugs, the bukowski book i brought along

that's where it ends. i don't even remember writing it. interesting, though.

and this is where this post is going to end, too. i'm going to make some of this crappy hotel coffee and maybe take a book out to the pool, catch some sun. hundred fucking degrees down here, it's wonderful...