Walking Backwards

I just got home from the first day of the Austin City Limits Festival. Which is tragic because this is my 500th blog entry and all I have to mark this milestone with some exhausted, nonsensical ramblings equivalent to "that band was awesome". So, fair warning.


I parked at the end of the Barton Hill greenbelt and walked to Zilker, which wasn't too bad. It took about half an hour from door to door. So, yay there. No problems parking, no lines to fight. I also rather enjoyed walking in the quite confines of the park as opposed to sitting in my car waiting 30 minutes for a parking space. The only drawback was that I slipped on a rock and fell, bruising my hip and my ankle, a fact that only matters when you've been on your feet 8 hours.

The first band I saw was Vampire Weekend and they were much better than I hoped, but everyone I had talked to told me that they were not good live, so I had low expectations. It was a fun show and I got a seat in the shade and was by myself just listening and having fun. Good times. There were also very few people there at this time of day. It was shocking. I know I'm not going to be so lucky tomorrow because it isn't a work day, so I count my blessings for this time.

After VW, I headed over to "Artists Alley" where I bought a parasol to block out the sun when it decided to show its face. Lots of cool, local shops that I wanted to buy from, but I am suffering under my current lack of funds enough, thank you, so lots of window shopping. Then I head to Gogol Bordello, which was just amazing and silly and fun. Go see them live if you can. Really, do it!

Gah, my memory is bad. I think I went to see Mates of State after this, but then left early to get the greatest festival food ever - the fried avocado taco from Hudson on the Bend. I considered licking my dusty, festival attendee fingers for a brief instant it was that good, but could not bring my germ phobic self to do it. The line was a zillion people long, but oh so worth it. Plus, you could pretty much be guaranteed the food would be decent, otherwise the longest line would be at Vespaio or P. Terrys, et al. You get the idea.

Following this I start to get a little festival delirious, so there are few specific details. I saw David Byrne. He had weird backup dancers that fit perfectly and he played "Once in a Lifetime". I saw The Swell Season and made a mental note to see "Once" again. The crowd was crazy quite for the show, it was cool. I then watched part of the presidential debates inside one of the vendor tents with a group of about 150 people reading the closed captioning. No one talked and everyone cheered when Obama said something especially astute. Nice.

The final show (I missing something in here) was Manu Chao which never disappoints. It knocked Gogol Bordello for best act of the day for me. I had to leave it early, though, because I got a ride with friends who were parked in VIP and could just drive out. This saved me a walk home through the greenbelt in the dark with a busted leg, so yes, I took it.

I'm there the whole weekend, so I am coming up with a new plan tomorrow. And I will bring my camera this time for pictures because it is quite cool :)

I've been trying to post this for days, but I keep forgetting whenever I get home. The call of the couch is strong. As is the call of blog surfing and the love my remote control gives me.

Next month is October and I am so excited. Joe can barely be contained. He has quite lofty plans of decorating the house this year in a spooky and black-lit fashion. I have some reservations, but I'm not worried because our budget will constrain him enough as it is. Halloween costumes are in the early stages of drafting (how am I going to sew a Sonic costume, seriously?), mini pumpkins are bought and being rolled all over the house, and the scary movie screening process has begun.

It is a family tradition that we have to watch a scary movie on Halloween (and eat dark chocolate cupcakes, but that is not so much a tradition as a never ending need). This year I really, REALLY want Nicholas to get in on the action. I am a scary movie fiend and want Nico to feel the joy of wanting to pee in your pants, but what is appropriate? I do not have a great perspective on this because I saw my first horror movie (Nightmare on Elm Street) when I was five and I had nightmares for a month. I do not want to traumatize my child, but I do want him to see some of the stuff that is out there and learn from an early age that there is some fun in being scared.

That is what I am looking for now. Some ideas that have been tossed around:

Alfred Hitchcock Presents
13 ghosts (the original - scared the pants off me when I was N's age. Hmmmm, maybe not)
The Goosebumps series (never seen it, but it is marketed to kids)
The old school monster movies
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (may not hold his interest because it's not a "talkie")

Okay, that's all I have so far, but I've got over a month to figure this out. I am wishing myself luck.

Oh, and I should disclose that Nicholas has already seen a very intense horror movie. When he was around one, he walked in when we were watching Hellraiser. We were informed of his presence by the shrieks of joy he emitted. He thought Pinhead was the funniest thing ever :)

So, I have recently become obsessed with Twitter. Blame it on the fact that it gives me a way of breaking down my day in addition to elevating my mundane tasks into something worthy of documenting. I like it. But it does have it's short comings. I hate updating from my phone - it's a pain in the ass. I have to link to pictures instead of including them. Sometimes when I do upload from my phone, it take forever to update. Twitter still has a giant place in my heart, but I would like to use this entry to document what it missed of my day today. This is the record of my mundane life if Twitter made it easier for me to record it. I suppose it is good that it doesn't.

3:30 am - Woken by cat sitting on my chest, staring at me. Get up and let her out of the room.

6:15 am - Nicholas climbs into bed with me a signals that, yes, it is time to get up

6:30 am - Out of bed to make lunch, get myself and Nicholas dressed, scrambling to find everything that needs to go to school, load the car, out the door

7:15 am - Stop at Starbucks for coffee and to check on Niku who informs us she is sick :(. We make plans to catch up through email that I am just remembering.

7:30 am - Drop Nicholas off in cafeteria for morning assembly after taking photos of Nicholas by his classroom because half of our first day of school pics didn't turn out (I dressed him in the same clothes and I'm really hoping the family doesn't notice his hair has gotten longer)

7:45 am - Drive the back way to the allergy clinic and end up going the wrong direction on the highway. This is awesome in rush hour.

8:15 am - Get called back for my allergy shots, but only get a 340 on my peak flow test. Debate the nurse whether or not we should scale down my dosage. I win with the argument "I've been worse"

8:22 am - Arm starts hurting and itching, distracting me from my Latin translations. At the same time I scratch my arm the guy next to my drops a folder with a bunch of fifty dollar bills in it and scrambles to pick them up.

8:25 am - Trying to figure out whether or not this appositive is telling me anything about the subject of the sentence

8:45 am - Called back to do my peak flow again. This time I get a 370. WTF? Injecting allergens into my body makes me better. Decide to keep the Snoopy band-aids on because they are cool

9:05 am - Walk into my favorite thrift store for "color day". Today's color is purple. This is repeated over the PA ad nauseum

9:10 am - Find a small camera case to replace the one I made that was lost with my last camera.

9:12 am - "Tales from the Cryptkeeper" children's book? Oh yeah, that's coming home with me.

9:20 am - VHS tapes yield a few treasures - Tron, The Hobbit, and Who Framed Rodger Rabbit?

9:27 am - Could I pull off an orange sari with mirrored embroidery? Maybe, but probably not one three-times my size

9:40 am - Check out line is so short I end up buying a blue wig before I can think the better of it.

10 am - Pull into Central Market and repeat to myself - "You are here for lunch only, impulse buys are bad here!"

10:20 am - Get into weird debate with guy in the bulk section about whether or not "The Smurfs" cartoon was an attempt to indoctrinate young children into our misogynistic culture.

10:32 am - Go through line with lunch and water, seven dollars worth of caramels, a big bottle of Maudite, some tortilla chips, dish soap, coffee, and a pumpkin

10:40 am - Realize I am going to be late if I don't book it to Nicholas' school. That and I have to pee.

10:49 am - Drove by a Captain Planet stencil on a utility box. Awesome. Reminds me that I want to shoot some street art soon.

10:52 am - Drive by Uchi. Lament I'm not going there again until I get some work

10:53 am - M.I.A on the radio. Yay!

10:55 am - Run into Nicholas' school in the hopes that I can get to the bathroom before they are released for lunch

10:58 am - Am surprised by the relative quiet of the school. Nicholas' teacher informs me that they don't have lunch until 11:30.

11:02 am - Wondering what I should do

11:04 am - Return to car to try on blue wig and car dance

11:18 am - Call Tara and finalize plans for going out tomorrow evening and find out we're going to LaLa's, the best dive bar ever.

11:20 am - Call and leave a message with my academic adviser asking him to email me about a field school opportunity and inquiring into any winter break field schools

11:23 am - Walk back into school and sit on the bench by Nicholas' class and wait

11:32 am - Nicholas' class walks out and I get in line with the five year-olds. I get really nervous that the teacher will hear Nicholas and I talking.


So that is half of my day. The remaining was difficult to record with all of the small children clamoring for help cutting and pasting and opening juice box straws. But that was most of the day - all the wonderful, banal aspects of it :)

I need to be that pretentious person seen sitting in a cafe, hunched over their moleskin and recording their observations of the world. I need to be this person because, despite being struck by motivation multiple times over the course of the day, I sit at the computer in front of this exact screen in the evening and cannot remember what I was going to say for the life of me.

So today, since I didn't have a moleskin to record and develop ideas, I tried to keep a running tally of subjects that I pondered or thought were funny over the course of the day. This is by no means a complete list.

- I find the fact that I give directions to my regular coffee shop in relation to a strip club quite amusing. Especially because Everyone knows where I am talking about.

- I need to find a new coffee shop to study at because this one attracts the wrong clientèle. I think it might be the location (you know, behind the strip club) because, while it isn't good for quiet contemplation, it is great for people watching

- Quitting smoking is hard, even years and years later. It is especially hard when other people around you are enjoying that sweet, sweet carcinogenic air

- YouTube can never, ever go away

- I need to seek out some new podcasts. I am almost through all of the free episodes of "This American Life" and old episodes of "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" aren't as funny with the information is not contemporary

- I will go to extraordinary lengths to justify not doing my homework. The excuse has to be reasonable and feasible, though, at least to me

- I need to start bringing my camera with me where ever I go. I want to document more, but I always forget the damn thing.

- I am also thinking of switching back to film for awhile

- I really do not enjoy the heat here, but I am truly thankful that we still can get shaved ice this late into the year

- I really want a snow cone