July 17- 20

Another unproductive weekend, come and gone. Ah well, it was fun. Low key fun, but I'm not complaining.

Thursday, I started the day with another glorious, if a bit early, few hours at the Texas Pie Kitchen, whipping up a peach, a German chocolate, and a couple lemon chess pies before the morn' twas done.

That afternoon, I had 2 (count 'em, 2!) job interviews. One with the engineering department at UT, which didn't pan out, I found today, but did grant me an entirely new interview experience: the guy doing the hiring asked me my favorite poem- to which I totally blanked- and then proceeded to pull a book off his shelf and read me his, a Robert Frost number. Weird, I know, but I'm usually a fan of the unconventional, so way to go, that guy. The second interview was for a position I want a whole lot, actually, with the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities. Since I started interning at TECEC, the idea of working in the non-profit section has become more and more appealing, and CTD has some pretty awesome stuff going on. I still haven't heard from them, but I felt like the interview went decently well; it's taken some superglue of optimism, but my fingers are still crossed.

That evening, I went with Geoff for a delicious bowl of noodles at Pho Thaison, one of the few original spots on the drag (original according to 2001 standards, mind you). Then it was on to the Dobie for to see Moon, a movie that uses the sci fi genre to get at some philosophical, self-confrontation type questions. It's kind of uncomfortable, I liked it quite a bit.

Friday, the main event was dinner with the housemates and our good friend Maggie at Casa de Luz, a vegan oasis in a town of at worst vegetarian-friendly dining. ... The food was filling and tasted pretty good for the most part. Still, not a diet I wouldn't have trouble sticking to... The evening ended with beer, more friends coming over, and Balderdash. All in all, an inoffensive, but enjoyable night.

Saturday, I spent the morning tracking down my new favorite song, as you know if you read my last post. Sorry for the redundancy. Sorry. The rest of day included some basketball (my game's improving!), a bit of pool lounging, and much tiredness. Still, I was able to rally my energy for a few hours at Lovejoy's, which was both lovely AND joyful .

Sunday I planned on doing on work and, surprise surprise, did not.


Monday after interning, I made veggie lasagna with Vanessa and it was awesome. What holds the future? Stay tuned!

July part I

Good heavens, this month has been crazily full of frolicking and tomfoolery, with nary an update in sight. My old friend (quite possibly my oldEST friend, outside of my family), Ivy, got in touch, and she sort of inadvertently inspired me to get back on the horse. Also, her blog is amazing, an adventure in itself. Considering the source, this is not much of a surprise.

Lots happening in ol' Austin town, I'll just run through some highlights and hope this leads to more regular posting. Again. Terror Tuesdays at the Alamo Ritz seem to be turning into a staple for my reliable entertainment. This week, we saw Dead Time Stories, three vignettes of common fairy tales, retold as horrific tales of gore and shock. Course, it also incorporated with quite a heavy dose of silliness, which made it that much better (... worse?). And it settled that age old question of whether Alien has the evil-face-attack market cornered: it does not. Also, the Drafthouse plays this opening sequence to (I assume) all of their movies which features a N.A.S.A. song that I have since become a smidge obsessed with: it's here. Share in the rocking!


Transmogrophy, a household favorite, played a super rocking show at Mohawk last Thursday with a group from SA known as Black Cock (googling that was a perilous adventure in itself, I don't recommend it. Unless... ya know... you're into that stuff. And that's cool!). The show included free hors d'ouvres, cupcakes, beer, and the most delectable girly vodka drink I think I've ever had. So despite the torrential heat, a fine time was had by all revelers and goofballs present.

Last Friday, our house went over to see some friends, and we ended up playing an epic, 4 or 5 hours round of Rock Band. I know that's nothing compared to some devotees' experience, but that was a first for me. Whooo.

And I had to turn that 4:30am bedtime right around because I had some sophisticated plans the following day. My old college roommate and I recently got back into the habit of periodically hanging out, and we set aside last Saturday to have a dainty lunch at Blue Dahlia (the rumors are true: their fritatas are fucking fantastic) before perusing the Blanton's latest exhibit on Fransisco Matto. I didn't know this, but apparently, we had both taken the same survey of contemporary South American art as undergrads from a truly amazing professor at UT. The exhibit itself didn't enthrall me a whole lot, but we did have a lovely gab down memory lane.

Last but not least, or even all inclusively, I'm learning how to not suck at basketball. It's going to be a long and arduous journey (and, if my commitment to this blog is any indication, perhaps one that won't get far at all...) but there's a court right by our house and my roommates are supervising my progress. Here's what I have going for me so far: tripping over own feet during a game is down to twice, and I'm now using the correct terminology of 'shooting' the ball, rather than 'throwing' it. Although you'd never know it, for all the flack I still get for using 'throw.'

June 30- July 3

In the adventure bin this week (daily updates. psh. who needs em?):
1) Terror Tuesday at Alamo Drafthouse downtown. They were showing Maximum Overdrive, an awesomely bad 80s action-suspense flick, which I recommend if you're high, wasted, high-waisted, or easily amused (that would be me).
2) Tuesday at TECEC was the amazing executive director's last day before a three week vacation, so Wednesday began what will surely be an extended adventure. Day 1- I drafted an e-alert. No fires yet.
3) Thursday began as many do for me: at Texas Pie Kitchen. I baked a cherry cream cheese pie and two chocolate pumpkin cream cheese swirls, which took a lot more steps than the seemingly simple recipe would've lead one to believe. I also got to take the extra pumpkin filling home, possibly for pumpkin bread french toast. !!
4) After baking for hours, I went to take a computer skill tests for to help me on my job search. I discoved I can type about 55 w/m and scored 90 on spelling test. Really, though, spelling? In the age of spellcheck? And also, while you're taking the test, it doesn't let you backspace if you've already spaced past the word. What the hell? So even if you see that you made a mistake, you can't fix in the test setting, even though in a real environment, you can. Another example of how standardized testing fails.

June 27- 28

The weekend was a polarized one, split fairly evenly between not doing a damn thing and doing very much adventurous things.
1) Found a neat band at a house party: Higher Than Why. Check em out for all your socially conscious, jazz infused, touch of nerd core rap needs.
2) On Sunday, the plan was to go to Barton Springs, but we ended up at this neat little public pool- Big Stacy- instead. It wasn't too crowded, entrance was free, and Donnie discovered that it was built by the FDR administration during the Depression. Nice one, Frank!
3) A bunch of us went to a bbq on Sunday evening (which subsequently turned into Monday morning...). Among the many raucous conversations, joke telling, and Saul Williams recitations, we had a quick youtube-athon, including this gem.

And the weekend was over way too soon.

June 26

Just one adventure for today: after doing pretty much nothing all day, David and I met up with a buddy of ours and went to Club deVille to boogie down at Soul Happening, a semi-regular funk and soul vinyl dance party-athon. The music was great, the beer was cold (well, for about five minutes), and the people were gettin down. At one point, we joined a train and scooted around the dance floor, and while 'Love Train' wasn't the song playing, I of course was watching this in my mind. We had a swell time, although I'm paying for now in sleep deprivation and a dull headache.

O, some initial neat from the beginning of the evening:
Group near David and I: "Man, David D. is such an asshole!" "I know! Did I tell y'all what he said to me today?" etc. etc.
David, getting up and pulling out his driver's lisence: "I couldn't help over hearing; I'm David D."
Group: gleeful laughter from all parties

I mean, they didn't say 'gleeful laughter,' so much as they errupted into it.

June 25 adventures

1) The day began as most of Thursdays have here in Austin: at ARCH with Texas Pie Kitchen. I've been out of town for a few weeks, so I hadn't been in ages, and it was good to see all the pie peeps. As a vet baker (...) I supervised a couple of first timers on some Caramel Apple Pecan pie, which has a lot of steps and also looked and smelled like some kind of sinful rapture.

2) Went to Faulk and got my library card. Yay!

3) My roomie/ best friend/ TextTwist co-pilot David and I headed to Barfly's for a few rounds in the late evening. We ended up talking to a couple of people who live in Toronto, one of whom, by the way, went to school with Bryan Lee O'Malley and knows people that the Scott Pilgrim characters are based on. For example, consider this exchange:
K, to her buddy: "Like, you know John?"
L: "Yeah."
K: "That's Scott!"
me, on the inside: "omygodomygodomygod ok, be cool. watch that drool on the corner of you mouth..."
So yeah, not only does Scott Pilgrim and crew exist, I know someone who knows them! Ah!!! Commence freaking out!
The rest of that night kind of disappeared in a well of vodka-sodas. One of our other roommates, Vanessa, showed up and we gabbed with some random dudes, and David went off in search of Amazon companions, which he found. We ended up shutting the place down, inadvertently stole a glass (ok, it was kind of advertent), went home, watched How I Met Your Mother and ate fritos until about 3 am. And it's only Thursday!

Opening up the stuff drawer

24 June

The day was full of adventures! I starting interning at the Texas Early Childhood Education Coalition (more efficiently known as TECEC) this week, and today, almost the whole team drove up to Waco. The research team gave a couple presentations on an upcoming study they’ll be releasing soon that involves some statistical analysis of McClellan County children, families, and community structures. The drives up and down were great, as the whole TECEC bunch is nothing but good people. Bits of awesome are as follows.

1) The first presentation in the morning was for the board of the Waco Foundation (please, click on this link and check out the first picture on their page, it will brighten your day I promise). Sitting in, I learned that TECEC's director of research, Dr. Don, got his PhD in immunology and mentored under Ted Phillips, a neurologist and MS specialist both my mom and I used to work for. Ted's not only a good doctor, he's also wry like a deli loaf, into ambient techno, and a damn fine human being. Small world. Small, awesome world.

2) After the first presentation in the morning, half the crew headed over to the Dr. Pepper Museum for refreshments and a sip of recent Texas history. I had a Dr. Pepper float with Blue Bell ice cream which was delicious and very Texan, although it really gave my blood sugar the run around.

3) The second presentation of the day happened at about 5 in the afternoon. I’d been to a couple TECEC presentations before and man, there had never been a turn out like this before. Granted, the previous events were maybe targeted toward smaller groups, but I was still floored by the support, not to mention enthusiasm, of the folks who showed today, including the mayor, Virginia DuPuy! Also, this presentation took place in a so-called green building, where the toilet gave you an option of flushing for liquid versus solid waste. Dang. Now that is som'nelse.

Good show, Waco, next time someone makes a Branch Davidian joke, I got your back.