So that's that.

So we totally live in Austin now.  Why the heck does the water taste like burnt rubber?!  I mean, it's supposed to be so pretty and natural, etc, but man...that's some nasty, nasty water.


The move went better than I expected.  The last time KB and I made a move without assistance from friends was moving her entire third floor apartment into my third floor apartment on the other side of Houston about a month before we got married.  It was a bit fraught, to say the least.  Since then we've both admitted to sharing the same thought at different points in the day. "Well, this is it.  I'm moving (his/her) stuff, but then leaving (him/her) on a curb somewhere."  Lessons learned?  1) Hire movers, and 2) Eat lunch, for crying out loud.  We both get cranky if we're a little too hungry.  I like to think that my heroic build and mirth are directly related, so pass the cupcakes he said joyfully.


Our new house is fantastic, and we can't wait for people to come visit.  You know who you are.  Heck, you're probably reading this.  Both of you.  It's weird to think that it took KB going to seminary for us to get a bigger, better house. That seems entirely incongruous, but then again, when have we ever done things in a predictable fashion?

One of the funnier parts of moving was getting boxes out of the attic.  Okay, maybe not the actual act of getting in the attic to retrieve them (that was terrifying; the attic on 22nd is like the boiler from Home Alone), but seeing the treasure trove of things we stored up there.  An entire library of CD's and DVDs, at least one wedding present, pictures galore from ages past, and a lot of great memories.  We got rid of a lot (a lot) and kept a lot.  I was suprised at how simultaneously cathartic and costive (emotionally speaking, of course) going through the attic turned out to be.  On the one had, it was the lifting of a burden about things we had stoed up there, but at the same time a reminder of things we may have tried to forget.  I imagine it's the same way with any great purgation of things; we imbue our treasure with so much emotion and connect them to so many memories that ridding ourselves of them or even just going through them can open the floodgates.  If one were in seminary, this would be the opportune time to insert a small homily about storing up treasures in Heaven.  However, since one is not...

I really wanted to take a picture of KB standing on the porch holding her lunchbox with both hands for her first day of school.  She gave me a withering look and told me to go back to bed.  That's good wifin', y'all.

My phone does next to nothing

I’ve noticed a something unsettling. 

Let’s say you’re in a meeting.  A totally awesome meeting, being led by a dashing young(ish) analyst with dynamic facial hair and the body of a Greek god (Dionysus was the fat, drunk one, right?).  There’s charts and graphs, insightful synthesis of new ideas, thoughtful analysis of markets, wit.  But you, office denizen, are entirely uninterested.  What do you do to avoid engaging in this KICK-ASS meeting?  Look at your Blackberry.  Uh-oh, maybe you got an e-mail in the last few seconds that desperately needs your attention.  Better check and see.  And carefully re-read those last seven massages.  Carefully.

These office denizens have started their sloping journey into complete withdrawal from humanity and are practically entering the world of the computer.  Like Tron.  They can avoid meetings or conversations by simply retreating into the soft, ambient comfort of their smart phones.  They can snap a photo of a place they looked up on Google while playing Angry Birds With Friends and post the entire experience on Facebook.  No human interaction necessary.  The unsettling thing I’ve noticed though, is that I cannot do any of that!

If smart phones do all that neat stuff, my phone is stupid.  Very stupid.  It can’t really take photos worth showing to anyone, it can’t get on the internet, it does not have games that are enjoyable in the slightest, and it doesn’t really do that well with phone calls.  What does my phone do well, I can hear no one ask?  I’ll tell you: lose buttons.  Buttons fall off my phone like a champ.  Buttons fall off my phone so frequently that I suspect some weird form of call phone leprosy.  I think this phone is actually worse that my very first cell phone eleven years ago.  I mean, at least that one kept its buttons AND I could play Snake on it. That game was awesome!  Snake goes around, eats the apple, gets bigger, and five minutes later fun has been achieved.  Not even close with my current phone.

So why do I care?  I have no intentions of spending money on a new phone; this one still works (sorta).  Maybe I’m jealous.  Jealous that others can find maps, check box scores (that’s still a thing people do, right?), update their social networking whatsits.  Maybe I’m jealous that they have their own personal refuge. At any given moment they can halt a conversation or meeting under the guise of urgent, important business, while I must remain present and (somewhat) attentive. They have an escape hatch, an out, a Zack-Morris-like ability to take a “time-out”, freeze the world and be somewhere else.  I merely have a Zach-Morris-like cell phone.

I don’t really think that modern, technology-driven escape routes are a good thing.  Being present with those around you is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself; the things you’ll hear and learn are priceless.  Smartphones and escape hatches cut us off from people, from knowledge, and from friendship.  I just wish I had them every once in a while, like we all do.  What I really want is to play a game or twelve of Snake.

Compartmentalizing

It’s a weird feeling to come home at least once a week and notice that something else is missing from my home.  That is to say, it’s not been removed but rather removed from its place.  It now exists in some bizarre, unreachable realm.  Most people call it a box, but Schrödinger’s Cat would beg to differ (and probably beg to be let out).

KB made a pact with herself that during the month of July she would pack one box per day, and she has far exceeded her goals.   We are building an ever increasing stack that will eventually get moved onto a truck with all of our other belongings and sent to our new house in Austin.  It’s a hard thing to watch, really.  She takes certain amount of delight in packing, perhaps because of a certain “Day of Bags” of which I dare not speak.  I take only an enabling role, bringing in more boxes (Thanks, Spec’s!).  It’s hard to watch all of the things that have built our surroundings for seven years get put into boxes, but it’s even tougher to realize that, wow, we sure do have a lot of books and CDs, two things that seem to be headed the way of the Evening Paper.  It’s a disconcerting feeling to see one’s life and interests neatly packed away.  Everything someone could want to know about me is being stacked neatly into a container, ready to be loaded onto a truck.  Favorite book?  Catch-22.  Someone that came into my house and saw that displayed might then understand my love of satire.  Favorite music?  The blues.  My CD collection is full of blues tunes, new and old.  All of these things are not me, but inform who I am.  Only a few people get the real details, but visitors can see glimpses from what is in our happy home. And now that’s in boxes.

The other aspect of boxing up everything around me is finding things.  Most telling, no less than three (3!) journals I’ve started and then just let fall off into the void.  At least one begins with a comment about how I lack the discipline to keep a regular journal.  Oh, Nick from 2003…you’re so right.  I mean heck, when was the last time I posted here?  I have to wonder why I seem to find the idea of keeping a journal so appealing, yet so difficult to maintain.  It just stuffing more of myself into boxes, but it’s such an fascinating thing.  Other than just the record of daily life, I suppose it has to do with keeping your inner thoughts on record so you can remember not only what you did, but how you felt, all in the hopes of exhibiting personal growth.

Of course in the case of this blog, it’s the hopes of getting one of those blog-to-book deals, becoming famous, and landing on the cover of Texas Monthly with the headline “The Next Kinky Friedman (But This One’s a Gentile)”.  I even play guitar…

Departures and Arrivals

Reader caution advised: This one might will get seriously maudlin. 

We’re leaving Houston late in August. Not for good I hope, but for now.  We’re headed off to Austin to become part of the Seminary of the Southwest community.  More specifically, KB is going to be studying there in order to become a priest.  I will be studying there on how to be a clergy spouse: how to host a tea, the finer points of playing bridge, gossiping about the organist.  To be fair, I think that last one is a senior level class.  Okay, most of that last bit is not true (but God help me, I do love to gossip).  Seminary is something that has been in the works for KB and for us as a family for a long time, so this is an exciting time.

We’re less excited about the prospect of leaving those dearest to us.  They know who they are, and if you’re reading this and aren’t sure, assume it’s you.  It probably is.  And thanks for reading my drivel.  But I digress.

We are very fortunate to have formed some incredibly deep bonds with our friends and family here in Houston.  Aristotle says that friendship is based on finding another either good, useful, or pleasant.  Our friends are all three.  According to The Philosopher, a genuine friend is someone who loves another person purely for the sake of that other person.  We are fortunate to have friends like these; people that we love simply for who they are.  And who they are, is wonderful. 



Distraction!



I can’t help but think about making our exit from Houston (our fair city), and how that is a microcosm of life.  One of the wisest people I know once told me that how we make our exits in life (from a party, from a job, etc.) are foreshadowing how we will make our final exit.  Will it be kicking and screaming, upsetting those around us?  Will it be slipping silently out the back, hoping to leave unnoticed?  Or will it be a blessing, assuring those that matter most of your love, and how much fun you’ve had with them, before gracefully leaving through the front door?  I’ve tried my best to live by the third option, but this one will be tougher.  This one might involve some kicking and screaming.  I promise to do my best, though, because it is without a doubt the exact right thing for us to do.  It is the wonderful culmination of years of patience and prayer, and it's a very exciting new adventure.  But it is still a change, and it is still difficult.

We’re very fortunate, though, to have some impressively great people waiting for us in Austin.  People we’ve known for years and have always said “Boy, I wish we lived closer to them”.  And now we will.  So we depart with a heavy heart, but arrive into the arms of the best Welcoming Committee Austin could have provided us. 

For that, we wholeheartedly thank you Austin.  Let’s play bridge sometime.  I’ve got some serious dish for you…

Seriously, Austin?

It was like something out of Orwell’s Animal Farm if Animal Farm had been about vehicles.  You know: one wheel good, two wheels bad!  As we drove through what I’m told is called Hyde Park, the unicyclist emerged right in front of us, almost as if materializing out of nothingness.  One minute, an empty street.  Then, suddenly, unicycle.  The rider’s air of smugness and superiority was a thick as the most delicious bacon imaginable.  He continued on his way undaunted by observers, firm in his belief that not only were two- (God forbid, four-) wheeled modes of transport inferior, but that you’d be able to grate cheese of his abs by the time he made it to his adult kickball league.  Fine, artisan cheese.  Granted, I am assuming to know his inner monologue here, but how far off could I be, right?  Dude was on a unicycle.



One of these.



So this is how you welcome us, Austin?  You send out the Ambassador for Unicycles to welcome us to our new home.  Don’t get me wrong.  I have nothing against the unicycle per se, nor do I have anything against Austin, despite my smarminess.  Heck, some of my dearest friends in the world live in Austin, along with friends I have yet to meet (too cheesy?).  I’m not even sure why this irked me as much as it did.  Was it because he seemed to choose this mode of conveyance solely because he wanted to be “unique”?  Was it so he could tell people he rode a unicycle everywhere?  Was he a clown college dropout?  Okay, if it’s the last one he totally gets a reprieve because I can’t juggle either.

An improvement.

I guess it’s the sheer, brazen impracticality of the thing.  No one would choose to ride a unicycle because it is a convenient way to get from Point A to Point B.  One would only choose this to make some sort of statement, but the fact that he was riding through a neighborhood in the middle of the day on a Tuesday suggest he’s not in this for the audience.  I just can’t get my head around the idea of doing something so impractical just to make a point.

I suppose that is untrue, though.  Opinions are formed from ideals, the most impractical part of the human person.  Any statement we make expressing those ideals exposes some part of us that is set deep within, daring others to critique that which we hold dear.  I think the fear of rejection runs pretty deep within a lot of people, so putting yourself on display like that is a huge risk.  It’s a bold thing to step forward and bare your soul.  Or your unicycle.

So here’s to you, Mono-Wheeled Nameless Austinite: keep rolling along.  For God’s sake, wear a helmet.

Keep Austin 170 Miles From Here

Everyone has seen the t-shirts that say “Keep Austin Weird.” The slogan started at the turn of the century as a show of support for local businesses.  Then came the t-shirts and bumper stickers, and like another famous slogan in Texas, this rallying cry became something that Austinites used to show their outside-the-mainstream culture, their “weird” diversity, and their love of all things different.  Lest we forget “Don’t Mess With Texas” used to be about littering.

Since that time, other cities have taken up the slogan’s bones in the format of “Keep (City Name) (Attribute).”  Most notably, there’s “Keep College Station Normal.”  This speaks not only to the ancient rivalry between UT and A&M, but to College Station’s more conservative bent.  When someone from College Station wants to rag on Austin they will, without fail, used the phrase “purple hair” as a pejorative.  “This kind of individualism (that a lot of people do, it seems) isn’t tolerated in College Station!”  This is usually followed by a lot of harrumphing.  But I digress…this is not about College Station.  After all, they gave the world Freebird’s.

There’s a new shirt springing up around Houston.  “Keep Austin 170 Miles Away”.  When my Houston friends and I heard this slogan, we howled with laughter.  Double-over, crying laughter.  Cleansing, therapeutic laughter.  Why?  Because we live in Houston and frankly, we know the score.  Houston is built on a swamp.  The air here is barely breathable.  If you don’t have a car, chance are excellent that you’re not leaving the house.  Our sports teams kind of suck.  A lot.  We’re not considered a college town, even though we have two major universities, three smaller universities, and a downright decent community college system.  As Houstonians, all of this keeps our egos firmly in check.

But damn it, H-town is fantastic.  The food here is amazing, and completely lacks all pretention.  The sheer volume of high-quality culture rivals any of the largest cities in the US.  The Menil is arguably the best and most accessible art museum in the country.  When the National Museum of Ethiopia needed remodeling, they sent Lucy to HMNS.  We get our fair share of touring music, and the Woodlands Pavilion can’t be beat.  The economy of the city is strong, and jobs are available.  Most importantly, I’m convinced that the people of this city are the nicest and friendliest in the state.  We all know that we live in a swamp, but we’re making the best of it.  We’re humble, but deep down we know that Houston is great.  So why “Keep Austin 170 Miles From Here”?  Because while it is undoubtedly a beautiful town with a lot to offer, we just don’t have room for the ego.

A month from now KB and I move to Austin.  God help us.