on this day last year...

I was making my triumphant return from France, and stepping through the transatlantic portal of possibility that I thought surely had nothing but good things on the other side of it. This date is a hallmark to me because it's been approximately one year since I've had any idea what the fuck I was doing. I realized my goal of moving to Austin (after approximately four months of fucking off followed by two months of living at my parents' and working my ass to the bone), but I swandove into the olympic swimming pool of my capacity for inertia. Three months later, I finally started pulling it together, at least in terms of being able to have a job, pay rent, buy groceries, etc.

It just feels weird. That it's taken me this long to have some kind of functional existence. I've spent almost a solid year flailing, mired in mediocrity and laziness, unfocused to the point of unreason.

I suppose it feels good to not be trapped in that psychological rat's nest any longer, but I feel like it can only inculcate a new kind of struggle. Where I try and find meaning and expression and wonder in my life every day. Now that I'm finally, actually BUSY I have to learn how to make my time important. Because having so many months of nothing but time showed me that nothing was precisely the thing to be doing. All the time.

I don't know what I'm getting at here. But now that the double espresso I just sucked down is suffusing with my life's blood and Dee-lite is playing on the outside porch of the coffee house I am currently blogging from and the heat is a delicious thing and so is this cigarette between my lips (god, so many quitters are filling the streets, it makes my inner-smoker nervous beyond belief).

Today also marks the almost six-month anniversary of my Austinlife. To mark these dual occaisons and welcome the flush of heat with open arms, I'm going to rid myself of this multi-dyed black hair and clip it down all the way to a half inch of real hair roots. Starting fresh.

nemeses

With Easter rapidly approaching, many are plotting the dastardly demise of those furthest from and most poison to their hearts. Or is that just me?

I went into the Peacock, one of Austin's hippest little sunspots of hotness, on Thursday night to check out an event there. Let me explain something briefly about this establishment: I recently referenced it as a bar I liked and would go to again. I don't really know why I did this; perhaps the last time I went there I was bump'in' in the bafroom (note: if you can snag the seat facing the bathroom line, you can entertain yourself for hours trying to figure out who just did a line and who didn't). The vibe is not really 'friendly' or 'cool,' but rather 'dismal,' 'transparent,' and 'vapid.' Aside from this dazzling array of lovable characteristic, there were two things that especially crawled under my skin:

1.) The presence of this noxious, bitchass bartenderess, who must have remembered that she tweakingly told me I was an asshole when she misunderstood something I said eons ago, because she continued to look at me as if I were the devil and serve any and all people who came up to the bar after I was standing there. Seriously, I know your methadone is wearing off, but please fuck the fuck off.

2.) EVEN WORSE, this hip-drip who works at Waterloo (the official music store of connoiseurs and assholes alike) who I am slightly obsessed with hating (whenever I get him at the register, I strive to out-disdain him) starts spinning his set for this event shortly after I arrived. I slammed my beer and walked out.

So, this just in: I fucking hate the Peacock. Luckily, it's nowhere near my neighborhood, so I have absofuckinglutely no reason to ever pass that way again.

I did end up wandering downtown and checking out The Elephant Room, which felt like the first 'real bar' I've been to in months. Not some new piece of shit trying to masquerade as a bar of character and personality, but a REAL bar that was really dank and underground. I fucking loved it - it felt like I walked into New Orleans when I got there. And my friend JD was working the night away, so I grabbed a table next to the bar and did my best to distract her while ordering an entirely unnecessary array of drinks. Well, maybe not so unnecessary.

In other news...I saw a film called The Dying Gaul, and I must inform you...it's shit. I love Patty Clarkson, lord knows everyone loves Peter Saarsgard, but...that doesn't really help conquer the implausability and general badness of the film's writing. There are all these faux-edgy internet chatting scenes between two of the characters and it's just...laaaaame. Well directed, I guess? I mean, it looked cool, and the sets were awesome. There was just so many details of motivation and conflict and outcome that were just absolutely tossed out the window. Endorsement: denied!

oh, it's on

My date: "Blogging is self-indulgent."

Me: "Well, if you don't indulge yourself, who will?"

That was a good synopsis of our date, actually. He is trying to straighten out his life and behave like a normal citizen. I am a scattered potheaded hedonist who believes in perpetual whim-indulgence. He was hot and I would like to sleep with him, but we will in fact probably never cross paths again. It was weird - he didn't seem remotely into me but seemed to think about going in for the goodnight kiss anyway - maybe I'm crazy though, because I certainly didn't move in for it, due to the lack of connection. I probably am crazy. But you know who's fucking really crazy?

The bitch I am perma-scheduled with at the coffee shop. DAMN! This crazyass, bad-haircut-having, abrupt, hypocritical maybe-tweaker has taken to fucking with my shit. Oh hell no. She has been in charge of my training there, as well as any and all stress I have around that job. My friend Renae, who is a regular at this place and basically got my my job there, came in to hang out for a while. And this be-bad-hair-cut-ed bitch tells Renae that she doesn't like me and that I'm not working hard enough. She tells her this while leaving me inside with a bunch of customers. Repeatedly. And I guess she previously bitched about me to Renae. And this behind-the-back action follows her initial self-congratulatory rant of 'I'm just who I am and I say what I feel and tell people when I'm pissed off at them and expect the same.'

So, I have to work with her crazy ass tonight. And it's going to be all business. Deep-frozen business.

After working with her on Saturday night, I got olden-days-style wasted, complete with tequila shots, to celebrate a friend of mine's birthday as well as having sucessfully escaped crazybitch another night. Yesterday found me riding around the exterior of Austin with my friend Tre, who is a real estate photographer. The highlights of the afternoon include schooling his ass at pool (so necessary, since he's taken the poker winnings the last two games) and making fun of hideous work/lives of nasty suburban interior designers. The afternoon also gave birth to my dream of having a secret office behind a panel or moving shelf, which will only be complete if it has a tiny spiral staircase that leads up to a secret second floor nook on top. That would be fucking sweet. I could hide my friends in exile, which has always been an important priority of any potential future I might dream of.

And now, I crawl toward a supposedly errand-ladden afternoon.

gulp

I actually have a date tonight. Just drinks and chat or whatever, but let's just say my anxiety is making an appearance.

I still feel like I'm working constantly, yet really not. At least I'm feeling more relaxed about rolling into work st-o-ned.

Outrageously beautiful springtime continues uninterrupted.

enfin

So, I survived to see the glistening dawn of payday. It felt like it would never fucking come. But at least now I will be getting paid twice a month at both jobs, which will hoepfully lead to being less singularly swept away by one financial event that leaves me utterly penniless for the remaining, oh, let's say, half month.

Things are going fairly well. My iTunes randomly deleted about 300 of my most recently burned songs for absolutely no reason, leading me to believe that my computer is suffering from the final, insanity-driven death throes of cyber-syphilis (yes, I had to look up the spelling, but my first inkling was naturally correct). This is kind of a bitch, but my computer is coming up on it's second year of life and fairly heavy and reliant use. So it might be time to start saving up for a new one? Gawd, what a horrendous thought. Saving, saving, saving. I feel like I'm working a lot but don't really have a huge wad of cash to show for it, which I guess is the bold new world that pretty much everyone is living in and how this entire pesky capitalist system we live in survives and thrives.

The jobs to which I am chained are both going fairly well. I finally feel like I'm starting to land on my feet and know what's up in baristo-land ('baristo' being my eurotrashy faux-Italian word for a male barista (barista being presupposed as a feminine noun)), due in no small part to the pep-talk delivered by one of my bosses who shall heretofore be known as 'Hot Boss.' He is the lovah of the boss who shall perhaps not insignificantly be known as 'Funny Boss' (the traps of being cute not hot!). Anyway, HB basically just told me to chill on myself and that they both understood that I wasn't going to be good at everything right away.

It's getting warmer, some days inching towards deliciously hot and heavy. On Sunday, I walked ten miles, all the way to Mount Bonnell and back, in the company of the irreplacable and omnipresent Josh and Jared. It was perhaps unnecessarily intense, but GREAT and also sweaty as fuck. I imagine it will only be a few short weeks before I cut my hair down to its honest brown roots so I can stay cooler. And then only a few short weeks after that before I start to dream up ways to escape the heat. But for now everything is glowing springily and feeling rather idealish.