Oh, my stars and garters!

Stupid commute experiment, day four: Busing

Today I took the bus. I filled out a short questionnaire a few weeks ago for a promotion Cap Metro was running and got a seven-day pass for my trouble, so I got to ride for free.

Time to get there, door to door: 54 minutes, 47 seconds on the local route, which means lots of stops and a detour past the Children's Medical Center.

Distance: 7.12 miles

Time to get home, door to door: A much better 35 minutes, 14 seconds on a flyer route that bypassed all the stops between downtown and Cameron Road.

Distance: 5.91 miles.

Best parts: Getting to zone out and people-watch. The morning driver honked the horn outside a day care center and all the little kids ran up to the fence to wave, which was hilarious and sweet. Getting home was surprisingly quick even with a 10-minute wait at the stop.

Worst parts: The ride there took forever and was uncomfortably crowded for most of the way.

Fun facts:

I sat next to an older lady with a full, and I mean full, little mustache. And yes, she was a natural-born lady. I feel bad saying this because she was really nice, but it made her look a lot like Little Richard.

I was exactly four minutes into the trip this morning before some guy started telling me how he was a Christian. What a way to start a conversation: "I'm a Christian!" Well, hallelujah, my new friend.

I had an appointment this afternoon that I had to leave work for, so I took the bus there too and caught a ride back. I didn't time it because it's not part of my commute. It went pretty smoothly. Notable features of that trip: A reporter from Univision was interviewing some guy at the bus stop downtown who just kept talking and would not shut up, even after she left. I was sad when we got on the same bus.

Also, I got asked out. The guy sitting next to me said his check comes tomorrow, so he could buy me dinner if I'd like. I declined and we engaged in small talk about our favorite barbecue joints until I got to my stop.

I didn't mind riding the bus today. It was interesting and fairly easy. But an hour to get to work is just way too long, and that's on a route that has no transfers and stops that are less than a five-minute walk away on either end. The flyer home was great, but it runs on a limited schedule, so it's not an option in the morning and I'd have to either leave work 15 minutes early or wait 30 minutes after to catch it.

I'm all for public transit in theory, but so far, aside from walking (which I knew would be ridiculous), the bus has been the least viable way to get to work. Unless my car is broken down and it's pouring rain, I'll leave a seat open for someone who doesn't have a car or a bike.

Tomorrow: The other bike.

Stupid commute experiment, day three: Blue biking

Today I rode the Schwinn to work. It has five speeds, thin tires, and shiny fenders. It's tough to get it going, but it can really haul on straightaways with minimal effort.

Time to get there, door to door: 42 minutes and 42 seconds.

Distance: 6.25 miles.

Time to get home, door to door: 42 minutes, nine seconds. I had to detour once, made some boneheaded decisions, and got stuck at a very long light.

Distance: 5.6 miles. I took a slightly more direct route than I did this morning, but I rode half of it for nearly 10 years so I'm a little bored with it.

Best parts: Almost all of it. Riding a bike is fun, dude!

Worst parts: The hill to get off my street is really steep. Fortunately, the rest of the route is pretty easy, but that means that one hill becomes disproportionately daunting. It only takes a minute or two to conquer, but in my mind, it's like this:

(Leave me alone, I'm tired.)

Other gripes: Mueller Boulevard is two lanes with a center turning lane, but has no bike lanes. Someday they will build some very nice bike routes, but for now, the only through street has no room for bikes.

And the worst thing ever: They fenced off the super secret awesome hill behind the nursing school! That was my favorite part of the ride. Now I either have to grit my teeth up MLK or ride on a scary pedestrian bridge that has gaps that look like my tires could get stuck in. Neither appeals. Hopefully this is just temporary.

Tomorrow: The bus. My legs need a rest.

(And no, nothing else is going on in my life this week. Not really.)

Stupid commute experiment report, day two: Walking

Today I walked. Consequently, I am so tired I'm having trouble typing and am about to do a faceplant into my keyboard.

Time to get to work, door to door: One hour, 46 minutes, and 28 seconds. I stopped to use the bathroom, drink water, and take a few pictures in that time.

Distance: 5.04 miles, according to Map My Ride. (Thanks, milk and cake!)

Time to get to End of an Ear, door to door: One hour, three minutes, and 33 seconds. Again, I stopped to use the bathroom. (I guess I hydrated a little too much.)

Distance: Uh, 2.8 miles? I kept having to cross the street to catch the best shade, which added quite a few steps.

Best parts: I saw a lot of things in detail that I usually just whiz past.

My route took me by the picnic table I painted last year. I was happy to see that, while it was a little dirty and chipping in places, it wasn't destroyed or defaced.

I don't know, it was just fun.

Halfway to work

Worst parts: The heat. Oh, sweet baby Jesus, the heat. The walk this morning wasn't bad, just a little sticky, but it was at least 101 this evening. That shit burns.

Also, cutting through the Mueller development was no picnic, as the ratio of leering construction workers to completed sidewalks was a little skewed for my taste.

Fun fact: Do you people realize how absolutely miserable you look when you're driving? I'm sure I'm no exception. But when you get a chance to watch people driving by frowning in car after car after car, it starts to seem really pathetic. Most everyone's air conditioned and listening to the music of their choice, so what's with all the stink faces?

Other fun fact: I'm all proud of myself for walking around in the heat, but it turns out that's nothing. Today I saw a small but significant number of people out running at six p.m. Not jogging, not power walking, but full-bore, honest-to-god running. There is something wrong with people that disciplined. I imagine them to be cold and unfeeling, if not deliberately cruel. They lay off their employees just to see the looks on their faces and hit their dogs for not sitting up straight enough.

Tomorrow: Bike riding, unless my leg muscles protest too much in the morning, in which case I'll take the bus. Oh, but which bike? I'll see what I feel like riding when I get up.

Stupid commute experiment report, day one: Driving

Today I drove. I drive every day, so it wasn't that interesting.

Time to get there, door to door: 16 minutes, 54 seconds.
Distance: 7.5 miles

Time to get home, parking spot to door (I forgot to set the stopwatch until I got in the car): 14 minutes, 20 seconds
Distance: 6.7 miles

Best part: As always, the view from the ramp from 290 E onto southbound I-35. I can see pretty much all of central Austin and beyond from there, with downtown clustered neatly in the middle and the corresponding ramp to 71 and the airport tower way off on the horizon. I think our little city is very beautiful from up there, and you don't realize how many trees we have until you can see all of them at once.

Worst part: Getting stuck behind a school bus that took forever to get down 15th street because it kept trying to turn the wrong way down one-way streets. Seriously? They let you drive little kids around? 

Tomorrow: Walking, I think. I had wanted to do that later in the week, but I have to be at End of an Ear to take my pictures down at seven--you only have 24 hours and 10 minutes left to see them if you haven't already!--and that way I can walk down there after work, get there just in time, and then catch a ride home with Eric after we're done. I don't think that's cheating, exactly, do you?

Donuts

If you buy donuts at Mrs. Johnson's in the middle of the night when the "Hot Donuts" sign is on, they will give you a free glazed hot off the rack. That donut, which you must eat in the dingy parking lot as soon as you walk out the door, is the best thing you have ever had, at least while you're eating it. It's so sweet it hurts your mouth, and the sugar rush is incredible. I don't even like donuts that much.

No more donuts this week, anyway. I have decided to explore each of my transportation options to work this week. Tomorrow I'll drive, so I can haul the needed toiletries and groceries up ahead of time. The rest of the week I'll be riding each of the two bikes, taking the bus, and walking. I'm telling myself I will, anyway. It's going to be awfully hot outside. Maybe the heat is already affecting me, and that's why I think I want to do this?

Out the window

I just watched a man drive a filing-cabinet-laden forklift backwards downhill while talking on his cell phone. Pretty impressive. And, I suspect, the most entertainment I'll have at work this afternoon.

Bowl of sad

I made a yucky dinner tonight: ginger soy chicken. I took some shortcuts, underestimated some amounts, and added some crap that didn't need to be in there. The result is a meal that reminds me a lot of a dish I used to make for myself in high school, which was cubed chicken breasts cooked in far too much margarine, salt, and soy sauce and served over Minute Rice.

Bleah. What I made tonight was a little more edible that that, but it's nothing to look forward to. The difference between then and now is that I know exactly what I'd have to do to fix all my mistakes and make it semi-delicious. I may try to make it again sometime, with a lot more ginger and considerably less shittiness.

Mr. BM

Good lord. I wonder what I'll run across on some lonely shelf tomorrow? A home spinal tap? A do-it-yourself sex change? (Ages 8 and up; accessories not included.)

I wish I'd gotten a better picture, and also a picture of the instructions on the back of the box, but I was trying to be discreet. Basically the test boils down to:

1. Poop.

2. Throw in test sheet.

3a. No blue cross=Nice stool!

3b. Blue cross=Uh, you might want to get that checked out.

This is available for just $9.99 at Big!Lots, where I suspect they don't let little things like expiration dates and lead-paint recalls deter them from bringing you the very best in savings.

Mr. DNA

Wow! Genetic testing at the corner drugstore! I had no idea these were available over the counter; more specifically, that they were available wedged on the the shelf next to the Astroglide. 

I'm a little surprised CVS doesn't lock this stuff up like a lot of places do with more expensive, potentially embarrassing* items. I can't imagine a lot of guys are eager to admit they aren't sure they're the father by marching up to the sales clerk and throwing thirty dollars on the counter. 

*When I worked at the 7-Eleven across the street from the university probably the number one thing that got shoplifted was laxatives. I'm guessing it was girls with eating disorders because it was always Correctol, the pink ones, never the Ex-Lax. I was constantly having to reorder that stuff, yet I don't remember selling a single box. A lot of Listerine got stolen too, but usually only on Sunday mornings, when alcohol sales aren't allowed until noon. 

Hellish

We've been riding our bikes to the pool two miles away most Sunday afternoons lately. It's so hot by 4 p.m. that there is no one out, not even in their cars, and who can blame them? We can feel the heat gusting off the pavement in waves as we ride, even the shade. Everything silent except for the birds and the air conditioning units, and the only sign that anyone even lives in the neighborhoods we ride through is the occasional sprinkler in the yard.

It's a physically a little uncomfortable, but the silence and nothingness remind me of Christmas Day if Christmas Day was 101 degrees and I went around stinking of sunscreen and wore my bathing suit under my clothes. Or maybe it's like the Rapture after everyone has been spirited up to their holy reward. Let's get that going and leave me behind if that's the case, because I kind of love it.

Accomplishment party

You might think you were having fun on your Friday night, but no amount of pleasure you had can compare with the deep satisfaction my sister and I felt while surveying her bathroom after spending two hours dumping all her goopy extraneous beauty products and 20 minutes scrubbing the counter and fixtures.

Jill finally decided that just because someone is nice enough to give you a probably regifted bottle of tropical-scented lotion and a tub of foot scrub for Christmas doesn't mean you have to keep it in your cabinet for five years. And no, those gel-encrusted hairdryers and curling irons from high school will not ever come in handy someday if they haven't already.

It was spare and sane and gleaming when we finished, and our cheeks were flushed from laughing. You try peeling an ancient, oozing, unopened box of depilatory from the bottom of a cabinet with a straight face.

Ow!

Stop destroying my blog!

Me U

Jennifer K. and I signed up for another round of swimming lessons today. They start next month. I am determined to learn freestyle once and for all. I just can't get the kicking right for some reason. I am pretty happy with my breaststroke, which I've been assiduously practicing for five summers running, but I know I could get even better at it.

The aquatics office is next to Deep Eddy pool, so we swam laps for the rest of my lunch hour. The new bathhouse there is pretty fancy. It's nice to be at a pool with amenities for a change because it's pretty apparent that most of the city pools are a budgetary afterthought. The one around the corner from my house is cracked, understaffed, and usually filthy, and its lifeguard office looks like something squatters would live in for a few weeks before they torched it and moved on to a nice underpass somewhere.

I've been wanting to take a lot of classes lately. The thought of going back to school for real makes me want to peel my skin off--I'd have to figure out what for, for starters--but I really like sitting in a room learning stuff. So I also have my eye on a weekend-long painting course through AMOA and an Adobe InDesign class through UT Informal Classes, and maybe another Flash class even though I haven't done much with the first one. And Dan and I have talked about taking a photography class, and I never did re-enroll in that screen printing class that got canceled last summer, and and and...

Probably if I'm going to be doing this I should doing it with an eye toward acquiring marketable skills and bettering myself and that good, dreary stuff, but I'd really rather spend my time and money enrolling in all kinds of unrelated things that will help me maximize my leisure time and make me the very best surface-knowledge-having screwoff I can possibly be.

KZZZ

It's sort of embarrassing to watch the Austin news with people from a bigger city. Or at least a bigger media market. Like my parents, who live in a suburb of Dallas* where things rarely happen, but Dallas itself has at least a murder or two a day, plus it's always got some intricately horrific public corruption case worming its way through the justice system, and even if everyone else is behaving themselves, you can always count on a Dallas Cowboy or two to do something really stupid.

Here, not so much. A train-hopping fatality, a water-quality issue in a minor suburb somewhere south of here, the governor's mansion is still burned down, and let's wrap this all up real fast-like and all settle in to watch Leno, okay?  It's not so great for the entertainment value, and I know there is a lot more to cover if someone would just go out and find it, but as far as the body count goes I wish everyone's news could be so boring.

*If Plano had its own newscast it would air once a week and go like this: Two teens got into a fight at Collin Creek Mall and the city council met and voted to place a weed-control bond issue on the ballot. Here's Pete with the weather...but, you know what, fuck Pete, because we all know it's going to be hot with a 2 percent chance of devastating hail and/or straight-line winds all month. Ok, bye!

He's a little slow, but he's a real good boy.

The new cat really is pretty dumb. People act like I'm being mean when I say that, like I'm somehow hurting poor Sweetloaf's feelings, but don't worry, he's too dumb to know better.

My initial suspicions are confirmed more each day as the evidence of his dumbness mounts:

The first time we let him outside a few weeks ago, he poked around the yard for a while before slipping under the fence into the neighbor's yard. After a brief search, we found him standing in the middle of the street, frozen with terror. Fortunately no cars came by before we could lure him up the driveway and through the door with the laser pointer.

His progress across the yard is occasionally impeded because he has to stop and hiss at clumps of dirt.

Last night he ran full speed into the fence; I think he was chasing a moth.

I worry he might be too dumb to go outside, but as he's already adept at slipping out the door--he's dumb but by no means stupid--it's a little late for that. So we continue to supervise his backyard forays, hoping he's gaining a little savvy as he bumps around being startled by individual blades of grass.

He's enormous, so it's easy to forget he's only 11 months old, still pretty much a doofy adolescent kitten. Maybe I should cut him some slack. I don't know, it's just apparent he lacks that certain spark. He's awfully nice, though, and he's soft and keeps the house free of bugs, so I suppose we'll keep feeding him.

Brilliant plan

The best thing to do, ever, when you have a slight hangover is to gorge yourself at an Indian food buffet,  spend several hours driving and walking around plant nurseries in 101 degree heat, and then go swim laps under the cruel and merciless sun for an hour. Really, try it sometime! You'll be amazed at how charming you will look and feel many hours after these well-considered activities.

Sharper Carnage

I went to the mall with the sister today to buy sunglasses and a few things to help fill out my ever-dreary wardrobe. She was late, so I wandered into the Sharper Image, which is closing down nationwide and was in the process of liquidating everything, including its security sensors and shelf brackets.

That store was always pretty much entirely stocked with useless crap--solar-powered paperweights, anyone?--so I never paid much attention to it. Still, I was surprised just how useless and crappy it all was, once all the careful merchandising and shelf lighting had been stripped away. Most of it looked like garbage, literally garbage, the stuff that gets shoved into a few Hefty bags and tossed into a random apartment dumpster when you're thoroughly sick of trying to clear out your old rental house. Even at 50 to 70 percent off, that shit is way overpriced. In fact, it seems even more overpriced at such a deep discount because it seems something that much on sale should be so much cheaper. I fled before I had to make eye contact with the two salesmen who were glumly presiding over their slow-motion layoffs.

So no tears shed for the Sharper Image. Still, it's unsettling, another tiny sign of something larger. I guess I don't go to the mall that often, and when I do it's to the one that's been dying for the past decade, so I was a little jarred by all the SALE SALE SALE signs and not-quite-fully stocked stores.

We're all saying everything is fine in Austin, if we talk about it at all, and so far it mostly is, but there are definitely some cracks in the foundation, and it's becoming apparent that each piece of our bad economy news has just been coming six to eight months later than in most other places. I wonder what other stalwart national chains are going to disappear, what absolute givens are just not going to be so anymore? (Not that the Sharper Image or any other store was ever an absolute given, but you know what I mean. SUVs, for example. It seemed those would reign supreme over the land forever and ever, amen.)

Anyway, if you can deal with the piranha-like desperation of the salespeople, the unshakable sensation that something truly ugly is about to descend, and the niggling worry that you shouldn't be buying stupid clothes at all but instead stocking up on dried goods and ammo, I found it's not a bad time to go to the mall. Stores are both desperate and trying to get rid of their summer stock right now, so without even looking that hard, I spent just under $80 for two nice skirts and a decent pair of sunglasses, all of which would have cost me about $190 at full price.

And Sharper Image does have this cool USB tape deck you can use to convert cassettes to MP3s, if they don't all sound like they're playing underwater by now. It's marked down to $60 now, but if it goes down to $20 or so I'm totally getting one.

I hate movies movie review: Gonzo

Is there some kind of rule that every documentary that even partially takes place in the 60s has to show lots of stock footage of hippies dancing around cut with shots of Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking while Jimi Hendrix plays on the soundtrack, even if these things don't really have that much to do with the actual subject at hand? 

If there is such a rule, I think it should be repealed. I'm pretty sure by now we all know when these things happened. Surely someone somewhere filmed something else that happened back then that filmmakers can use as a lazy shortcut to let us know we're dealing with the 1960s now.

Also, I am still scratching my head as to how a movie about someone as angry and funny as Hunter S. Thompson can be almost no fun to watch. I didn't hate it, exactly, but it had little insight and even less energy, and the extreme lag in the middle part inspired me to run a series of experiments to determine whether one can extract a Twizzler from the bag without making a sound. Conclusion: One can't. Or at least I can't. I thought I succeeded once, but it turned out the crinkling was just masked by a crescendo in Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart," which if memory serves was recorded in the 1960s.    

Flattening

The cat likes to sit on the glass table. I think he complements the plaster elephant base nicely; if only we could persuade him to stay just like that. Perhaps glue would do the trick.

The commuters like to stare at the Concordia demolition. I didn't think it would take this long just to tear one damn building down, but they seem to be extracting the scrap metal ahead of time. Every day just a little more is gone, and every day traffic is backed up on the freeway as people slow down to gawk. And, uh, take pictures. To be fair, I was stopped anyway, so I don't think I had an appreciable effect on the daily bottleneck.

Mix it up

We rearranged our living room tonight to see what it would look like. It would look good, but unfortunately we'd have to run the wire for the cable box under the carpet to get it to look that way. So we rearranged it back.

Also we played several blistering games of air hockey for the first time in months while we had the table pulled away from the wall and cleaned really well since it was all spread out everywhere. None of this seemed particularly taxing at the time, but now I am wiped out.  Wiped out, and the most boring woman in America. Congratulations, me! I'm the boring superwinner! (Spins around, head back, arms to heaven, amidst an absolute lack of confetti and balloons.)

The story of the art show

Dan and Staci hang art while the rest of us take another smoke break. 

Kristy is suspicious of art. She kept walking around shaking her finger in people's faces, saying things like, "If the good Lord had meant for us to make art, why, we would have born with paintbrushes for hands!" until we had security escort her out.

At least Wilma likes art.

One thing you might not know about artists is that they like to spend most of their time standing in front of art wearing overly bright smiles with their arms around each other. It's hard to get much else done that way, but that is just the price of being arty, I suppose.

Seriously, it was a pretty good time with way too many sugary treats. Thanks to everyone who came and made it fun. Now what should I do?

Proof

A very dim and noisy picture of Owlwo hanging out on the anemometer. These owls are so fucking awesome, and when I say "awesome" I mean it in the truest sense of the word. I get chills on my scalp whenever I see one.

I really wanted to use the flash because then I probably would have gotten a picture of him or her in flight, but I didn't want to scare the thing. We want the owls to move in, after all, not suffer retinal damage.

Whew.

I did it, and with a few hours to spare. The prints are framed and the sealant is drying on the painting. I might try to cobble together one last thing tonight, but even if I stopped now I'd be pretty pleased with what I have.

We hang the show tomorrow evening. I haven't seen everything everyone else has been working on--there are six of us this time--but based on what I have seen and what I know about my friends' abilities, I'm really excited to be doing this. I can't wait to see how it all comes together.

If you're in town this weekend you should go to the opening Saturday evening to hang out, look at art, drink free beer, eat baked goods, and of course buy some records. It'll go from 6-8 at End of an Ear at 2209 South First. If you can't make it Saturday, it'll be up through the end of the month.

To art!

The frames at Jerry's Artarama kind of suck.

Therefore, they deserve to die.

Neighborhood association

I am an unabashed fan of any and all neighborhood message boards and newsletters. I rarely post on the board, but I love reading the flame wars, pile-ons, self-righteous rants, and earnest screeds. Oh, and the occasional useful bit of information that happens to filter through.

Our last neighborhood had an insanely active and frequently contentious board. One year the debate over whether a local Realtor should put American flags in everyone's front yard for the Fourth of July stretched out well into August. People fretted that the flags were too messy, too nationalistic, too Stepford, too stupid. It was awesome.

I admit I was disappointed to see our new neighborhood board is more docile because it's much less entertaining that way. Lost dogs, restaurant reviews, the occasional notice of a break-in, a little crabbing about zoning ordinances. That's about it. So I was mildly delighted to read these lines in our latest newsletter:

The driveway trash can situation will not go away by itself if it is ignored. Looking the other way may only lead to a nightmare.

This bit of hyperbole is especially funny given where we live. Our neighborhood is quiet, comfortable, and full of old, graceful trees. Most of the people are friendly and interesting--kind, even. But it has its, uh, challenges. Before I tackled the trash cans in the driveway problem, I might look first at the abandoned houses, the junked cars, the garbage-strewn creeks, the prostitutes.

Nevertheless, I salute our local Don Quixote for speaking his mind. For the record, we pull our cart up from the curb every week but leave it in the driveway next to the garage. So far no one's complained. And I don't really care if anyone puts an American flag in my yard or not. I can always pull it up.