If
there is some intelligent
entity governing my life, I imagine that she is quite pleased with the
timeliness of this personal project wrap-up.
Two years to the same weekend that #3 officially consummated her affair
with ‘Diapers,’ the house closed. So,
this is full circle in linear time.
Back
then, I had been in Austin for the week, seeing old friends and checking out
bands at The Armadillo Bazaar. The plan was to hang and get grounded after a whirlwind
of multi-state moves. So, I’m standing
there, listening to a familiar singer and I think, “I’ve got to find a way to
get home (but we just bought a new one).” I don’t know how I'll do it; #3
won’t ever agree to it. So, I follow
Bestie to the line for a lunchtime pint and decide that I will adult-up before
the trek home.
In
less than 48 hours, the break-up email would come. I would be in IKEA, reading
a list of measurements for new blinds for the new office in our new home, when
hemorrhoids that I didn’t even know I had would drop and begin to implode
inside. “Something is terribly wrong,” I would tell myself. And there on a
public toilet, I would try to avoid the pain, playing with my smart phone that would effortlessly relay a crafted email.
“Stay
with friends. I won’t be here when you get back,” #3 promised.
So,
you can see—for the sake of closing this personal perseverance project—I must
go to The Armadillo this year. I must stand where I stood two years ago when I knew that I needed—but didn’t yet know why I needed—to come home so that my feet might be anchored when the thundering
effects of Fate’s synchronicity comes around the bend and knocks me in the
chest. “NOW,” It will command. Through this ritual, I can really, truly know
that everything will begin in the land of soy and honey.
This
performer, Terri Hendrix, was the last band I saw before #2 and I packed a
U-haul for Tallahassee. On a Sunday
afternoon, 2 dozen girl-girl dance partners scooted across the floor—with about a hundred straight people—in the oldest
dance hall in Texas. We got there first
and got to drinkin’ first, and so we set the tone.
“The
lesbians will be having fun today. We
won’t be sitting on the wayside and watching other people with the good legs
God gave ‘em scoot on by. Everyone will just
need to grow up,” we declared by feeling and doing what straight people take
for granted while they aimlessly exhaust about the earth. It was one of the
last impressions I had of Texas and I took it with me on my many moves, silently self-professing that my love could dance if gays (and exhausting breeders) could get over themselves and
grow up.
This
adorable and talented Ms. Hendrix is the performer I watched when I had my
epiphany at The Armadillo two years
ago. http://www.terrihendrix.com/music/ Clearly, Fate is telling me that she should
be gay. I should tell her. I think I will, and we can live happily ever
after.
“Why
don’t you write a blog?” Dim Sum had phoned during the Hendrix show. I got
back to her after I caught Anchorman2,
a pint and a gourmet pretzel at the Alamo Drafthouse.
“I’m
just taking in all of the pictures—sensory data is colliding. Nothing connects enough to build a rhythm, to
make a story.”
“Write
about that. It seems to help.”
“I
know—but the blog is supposed to be about lesbian dating, and I’m not doing, or
watching, any of it.”
“Why
does it have to be about that?”
“I
don’t want to be a bore!” But, I’m
thinking and not admitting out loud, “I’ve spent the past five days walking
around with Dicken’s ghost of Christmas Past. He won’t shut up about how stupid
I was with #2. God, there’s so much
material.”
I glance
over at two grass baskets that I bought for my house host, Betts. She wants to put roots in them—potatoes and
onions. They are identical to two
baskets that I toss’d during the move a mere three weeks ago. I glance over. They’re just on my front seat, rolling about with
a bunch of other stuff I’d picked up throughout the weekend—not in bags with
the store names on them.
“Wow!
Walmart is already out of bags,” I had said when Betts and I were buying Christmas.
The clerk was stacking our purchases on the turnstile that had empty arms for
bags.
“No.
We’re in Austin.”
“Hh?”
“No plastic bags anywhere
in the city limits.”
(I
remember when I shopped at the very first Whole Foods. It was an old inner city store. You could
roll an orange down the length of it, and the employees weren’t required to
bathe if they didn’t have a rental agreement or know anyone who had a shower. I always said, ‘There must be a required
amount of THC in the bloodstream to work here.’ But, one guy shared an adage that
I pocketed and shared in Tallahassee, ATL, OC, Roll Tide Land, and Cajun Country. He looked up
from an induced haze, retracted the plastic bag and refused to give my
granola and OJ a co-habitating home, ‘Save the earth [man].’ Clearly, he was a prophet. But, this dictating of blind authority and refusing bags for others to choose or not to choose to save the earth reeks of communism and conservative controls.) “This measure is extreme even for the hippies.”
It’s
always weird to start over, beginning again in a new city. But, this is
my city. And, I get lost every time I try to find once-familiar entrances to
parking lots and theaters… or highways because there is this super toll road that
is in the way of everything, and it is always empty.
“Wow!
Did anyone ask the hippies if they would pay to use this monstrosity? Wait, are there any more hippies in Austin? Who the hell is running this joint if they aren’t?”
On
the phone with Bestie—who was apologizing that I drove 37 miles to see a show
on a Sunday afternoon and couldn’t find parking—said, with exasperation, that
she and hubby got there 45 minutes early.
“We
barely got a seat.”
“I know. I have to get
used to this pace. I remember what it was like—always leave 30 minutes early
and expect at least one wreck along the way. It’s just that it’s ‘break.’ I thought with the kids being gone (UT/St.
Ed/ACC students) things would be a bit slower.”
“Yeah,
not really. Austin is different. You don’t
really notice if the students (70,000+ of them!) are here or not.”
I
stop to think about those 110 degree summers that were bearable because (at
least) there is room for the wind to blow and for a spirit to breathe, and then I wonder
deep inside—where authentic wonder and hemorrhoid pain comes from—, “Did anyone
ask the hippies if this is what they wanted?”
