Austin Day ½

Here I am. Back home. In Austin, for those of you who might think I'm referring to Provo or Virginia. Even without a permanent address here anymore, I still feel like I'm away from home until I come back here. I guess having grandparents here helps. But I digress. Let me go back to this morning, when I played Frisbee, of course. Got in a good two hours of pickup. Turns out that Don had no idea about last night's game, which makes it even more of a tragedy. Chris (who played with us) dropped me off at the airport. The cool coincidence there was I ran into Jamie from Frisbee. Gave her a hard time about not being there this morning. Also found out that she and Tyler are getting married at the end of July, right about the same time as Becky. The plane ride itself was boring. Southwest airline again. I can't tell you how much I dislike Southwest. My left leg was cramping up from Frisbee, so I got to be a "disabled" person and board early so I could get a left aisle seat.

Amy picked me up from the airport about 8:00 PM or so. She was running late, of course, but not too late. We immediately went over to see hers and Susie's pad. Got to play with their new kitten (who was also with us in the car). They've only had her for about a week and are still trying to decide on a name for her. All I know is she is not house-trained and has some serious problems clawing people. I hung out with Amy until Susie got home and then we went to get a bite to eat at the Kerbey Lane Café. They don't have a lot of money right now, so I figure I'll take them out a few times and get them a few good meals. Kerbey Lane was alright. I'd been there once before, way back with Joe and Bryan, I think. Nothing too extraordinary. Of course Amy and Susie went bonkers over the fried pickles. I don't get it. Found out that Amy has a tongue ring and a belly-button ring. I don't understand why anyone would ever want to do the tongue. That's just gross. Of course, I interested in Natasha and she had a tongue ring. I explained this to Amy and Susie, and they seemed shocked. They also seemed shocked when I asked if she had pierced any other parts of her body—they just seemed to look at each other as if to ask, how could you possibly even know about that. Honestly, I think they get a really distorted perspective on me, living here in Utah and not around all the time. I suppose they were too young to know me in my High School years, and since then I've been gone. Thankfully, they assured me they had no other piercings. Although Susie's got an ankle tattoo. Well, I suppose if you're going to get one, that's the place to get it. That or maybe really small on the back of your neck like Amber's got. I'm very much against tattoos as well, though. It's very rare you see someone with a tattoo without it looking base and dehumanizing. And of course Susie would like to pierce her tongue as well, but doesn't have the money. Maybe I can dissuade her on that one. The trick for Susie is not revealing the tattoo to mom or dad during the wedding in July, which will be hard. I just told her to tell them a few weeks in advance and let them cool off so it doesn't mess up the wedding.

Then Amy went to go see her boyfriend, Brenden, who I suppose I will meet on Monday. Susie, meanwhile, drove me to Grandma's and Grandpa's, where I'll be sleeping, of course. We had a pretty good talk about things in the car. I think she's finally getting some sort of orientation on her life. She seems much more focused about school, now. I had some pretty good advice to offer about what you can do with degrees and stuff, because I think she really had no idea what to do to get into editing like she wants to. She was thinking it was all Journalism, which she can't get into, but she was happy to hear that it's just as possible to get into editing with English. Also talked about poetry and about why we write poetry and stuff. Good bonding time, if you ask me.

I walked in Grandma's and Grandpa's door about 11:00 or so, and they were both still up waiting for me. So I sat down and we talked for a while about the Germany trip and other things. Then they went to bed. And now I'm about ready to retire myself.

Well, I'm looking forward to the next few days, though. Schlitterbahn. Grandma's cooking. Seeing Julie one last time before the wedding. I found Anu on the web a while back (got to thinking about her on the Germany trip, and also when Jovita emailed me a while back), so I emailed her and hopefully she'll respond and we can hang out. And of course I've got to find time for an Ultimate game. Should be a pretty good vacation.

Posted June 07, 2003 (11:32 PM) | Comments (1)