Biggest travel day yet coming up now, and the one that for me is like stepping off the edge. Now, with no particular apologies to Cole Porter, I ride to the ridge where the west commences.
It's tugging at me a little to have left Austin (on bus now to San Antonio) but it's dulled by (now past) annoyance at 45-minute-late megabus and curiosity about upcoming train compartment experience and sure ok fine excitement about LA.
What else happened in Austin...obligatory sighting of someone I didn't expect to run into. I left M&K's and went to kill an hour at Half Price Books and they said over the PA "Anne-Marie, your book buy is ready" and I thought "huh, I went to school with an Anne-Marie" or rather it registered rather faintly and then a few minutes later, there she was. We weren't good friends but that kind of thing alway makes me feel welcome.
Had dinner with college friends at a new place on the East Side, Contigo, very Austin-since-I-left. M has bought a house over there off Manor Road and seems settled. T is in a relationship with a nice fellow who joined us and also seems in a good place, in great contrast to 1997ish. R is, as ever, perpetually disappointed and a bit brittle and yet very funny.
Back to J's, where I spent today in a leisurely fashion, re-staked a claim to my Austin soul by developing an opinion on breakfast taco places (Shack>Torchy's) and discovered that there is a soft drink called Doppleganger that appears to be Dublin Dr Pepper ie cane sugar Dr Pepper. This is important, though I am sure I will not encounter it elsewhere.
Went to Toy Joy and Oat Willie's, which somehow survive. Lectured a young man on what Austin is really about (well I wasn't that bad) and then JS wanted to take us to Chuy's and who am I to say no to that?
Around those two, well and C but he barely talks, I notice my speech getting a little Texan around the edges which is faintly confounding because it never really was that, but isn't intentional so I don't really know, am I supposed to make an effort not to do it? Anyway it was a nice dinner and JS kindly took us all out. Then I sat around at J's and we talked about this and that like old friends might do.
Austin is still peopled by my people. Everyone says "oh the place is full of Californians" and acts as if it's diluted somehow, but I still know the people I know, and they haven't been replaced with Californians. The skyline is different and you see fewer eccentric looking people and South Congress is fucking weird, but it is still my town.
Oh we're practically in San Antonio now so this is not the most exciting entry but I should wrap it up. The next few hours are weird. Arrive, see if there are cabs, anyway somehow make my way the mile to the train station--San Antonio at 11 on a Monday night? I have no idea!--and then perhaps wait around quite a while for the train which is for some unknowable reason meant to get in at 12 and leave at 2:45. Do they let us on when it gets in? Will it be even nearly on time? Tune in and find out! Because I am on the train all day tomorrow and will probably go on and on about something.
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