Hello, Austin! I woke up this morning in Miami, after too little sleep, and I scrambled to pull myself together in time to get to the airport. That was all accomplished without incident, and I checked in and grabbed an iced coffee and a granola bar before boarding my flight. I spent most of the first flight (Miami to Atlanta) plus my layover in Atlanta finishing HILLBILLY ELEGY - I really very highly recommend it to everyone, regardless of political spectrum. It's the kind of memoir that I long to write, although I can't write that memoir because my childhood wasn't as bleak as his (luckily, neither of my parents are disasters, so my home life was totally stable, but my community was disintegrating even then). I had avoided reading it for a long time because I thought it would be too preachy or annoying, but the author (an Ohioan of Kentucky hillbilly descent who went into the Marines before going to Yale Law School) did a really excellent job of capturing his version of the Rust Belt without either romanticizing it or overly pitying/condescending to it.
Anyway. After that I was all fired up about life and community, and I spent my plane ride from Atlanta to Austin scribbling ideas in my journal. Then I landed, grabbed my bags, collected my rental car, and checked into my hotel, where I had just enough time to rinse off and change before meeting up with Alaska Matt for dinner.
Longtime blog readers may remember Alaska Matt, although it's been awhile - he moved back to Alaska in the summer of 2015, which is the last time I saw him. But he moved to Austin a month ago, and so we had a delightful evening of discussing current lives and reminiscing about past ones. He picked me up at my hotel and we went to a Mexican restaurant that one of his new coworkers recommended, where we had delicious margaritas at the bar before proceeding to eat some v. tasty cuisine. Then, we went down to 6th Street, which is a supposedly famous strip of bars, but it seems to be full of douchebags. But we found a quiet corner, and I had three cocktails (some sort of alcoholic lemonade that went down way too easily), and it was all perfect. Perfect, of course, except for the fact that we were inundated with people way too young for us, listening to music that was uncomfortably close to our high school playlists (not that we knew what playlists were then)...but it was fun nonetheless.
But there's nothing more to regale you with - I need to sleep so that I can have breakfast tomorrow before going to San Antonio. Goodnight!
Anyway. After that I was all fired up about life and community, and I spent my plane ride from Atlanta to Austin scribbling ideas in my journal. Then I landed, grabbed my bags, collected my rental car, and checked into my hotel, where I had just enough time to rinse off and change before meeting up with Alaska Matt for dinner.
Longtime blog readers may remember Alaska Matt, although it's been awhile - he moved back to Alaska in the summer of 2015, which is the last time I saw him. But he moved to Austin a month ago, and so we had a delightful evening of discussing current lives and reminiscing about past ones. He picked me up at my hotel and we went to a Mexican restaurant that one of his new coworkers recommended, where we had delicious margaritas at the bar before proceeding to eat some v. tasty cuisine. Then, we went down to 6th Street, which is a supposedly famous strip of bars, but it seems to be full of douchebags. But we found a quiet corner, and I had three cocktails (some sort of alcoholic lemonade that went down way too easily), and it was all perfect. Perfect, of course, except for the fact that we were inundated with people way too young for us, listening to music that was uncomfortably close to our high school playlists (not that we knew what playlists were then)...but it was fun nonetheless.
But there's nothing more to regale you with - I need to sleep so that I can have breakfast tomorrow before going to San Antonio. Goodnight!
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