(no subject)
This weekend was so whimsical and fun. Gwen Moore came to visit during her spring break. 'I've infiltrated this whole new population of these passionate 19 year olds and they just assume I am one of them,' she said. She has recently enrolled in acting classes with undergrads at a community college to prep for MFA auditions.
Before going out we reminisced about long weekend nights in Berlin and set the intention to make our evening an epic one. We started off at a Belgian place in Southtown where we were seated near the door. A woman made a dramatic exit from the place mid-lovers' quarrel and flung the door open so forcefully that our table tipped over and a glass of water flew all over me, my phone and into my boots. The woman didn't even notice and was halfway down the block when the restaurant owner came over apologizing profusely.
I was more amused than upset by the bizarreness of the situation and by everyone else's passive aggressive responses about the woman and her date, who was desperately trying to pay and leave. By the time the water was drying up the owner, Miles, had brought Gwen and I fresh rounds of triple ales (on the house) and we got into a talk about shamanism, shrooms, ahuyasca and american health care. Miles is our age and took the restaurant over from his father a few years back. He took us to a bar down the street where we met with more of his friends (one a hilarious and irreverant episcopal priest, and another canadian crossfit nut and travel enthusiast who fell within five minutes for Gwen).
'Maybe you've summoned yourself a lover,' Gwen said when Miles walked us to the car and handed me his card with a number. I had told her I would rather have a lover now than a boyfriend at the start of the night, so we will see where that goes. Gwen and I stayed out on the balcony talking until almost 5 where we both literally fell asleep mid-sentence sitting up. We hatched a lot of upcoming plans including:
We watched a bride and groom take photos outside of the church and saw the groom so eager to care for his bride he ran circles around her picking up her train and making sure she was OK.
Then Gwen taught me how to do improv on a back porch of a Brewery where we had dinner and did multi-lingual improv games and got justifiably strange looks from the neighboring table.
This morning I met Mike in the park and we walked with Kemba for hours around the trails and laughed and caught up. He is comfortable enough with me now that he lets me know he is excited to see me and initiates plans, like a run on Wednesday this week to help me train for the half marathon next weekend.
Then I took mom to see the new Tina Fey movie at the Alamo Drafthouse and showed her Central Market where she wandered the produce section as if in a dream musing at purple kohlrabai and runing her hands over a bosc pear like it fell from outer space. She yelled at me at the check out for telling her the clerk was holding out a receipt for her and I finally remembered to let it slide and asked a few minutes later what had upset her. You are so critical of me she said. She yells at me now the same way my grandmother did when I held doors open for her and she told me, 'STOP THAT! I'm not an old biddy, you know.' I still don't quite understand her enough to prevent these kinds of things from happening, but they don't upset me as much as they used to.
Now that we have sugar snap peas, to make one of my favorite spring recipes __ , take a bath and call it a weekend :)
Before going out we reminisced about long weekend nights in Berlin and set the intention to make our evening an epic one. We started off at a Belgian place in Southtown where we were seated near the door. A woman made a dramatic exit from the place mid-lovers' quarrel and flung the door open so forcefully that our table tipped over and a glass of water flew all over me, my phone and into my boots. The woman didn't even notice and was halfway down the block when the restaurant owner came over apologizing profusely.
I was more amused than upset by the bizarreness of the situation and by everyone else's passive aggressive responses about the woman and her date, who was desperately trying to pay and leave. By the time the water was drying up the owner, Miles, had brought Gwen and I fresh rounds of triple ales (on the house) and we got into a talk about shamanism, shrooms, ahuyasca and american health care. Miles is our age and took the restaurant over from his father a few years back. He took us to a bar down the street where we met with more of his friends (one a hilarious and irreverant episcopal priest, and another canadian crossfit nut and travel enthusiast who fell within five minutes for Gwen).
'Maybe you've summoned yourself a lover,' Gwen said when Miles walked us to the car and handed me his card with a number. I had told her I would rather have a lover now than a boyfriend at the start of the night, so we will see where that goes. Gwen and I stayed out on the balcony talking until almost 5 where we both literally fell asleep mid-sentence sitting up. We hatched a lot of upcoming plans including:
- A Shakey Graves concert in Austin next month
- Camping at Enchanted Rock this spring
- A Dallas visit to see her improv troupe
- A concert in Huntsville prison with digital projection, movement and text crafted around the idea of duala rites and rituals
- A performance art festival in Edinborough in August
- Joining an international roving hippie colony called 'The Rainbow people' for one month
- Visiting the Kerrville folk festival in TX this June
We watched a bride and groom take photos outside of the church and saw the groom so eager to care for his bride he ran circles around her picking up her train and making sure she was OK.
Then Gwen taught me how to do improv on a back porch of a Brewery where we had dinner and did multi-lingual improv games and got justifiably strange looks from the neighboring table.
This morning I met Mike in the park and we walked with Kemba for hours around the trails and laughed and caught up. He is comfortable enough with me now that he lets me know he is excited to see me and initiates plans, like a run on Wednesday this week to help me train for the half marathon next weekend.
Then I took mom to see the new Tina Fey movie at the Alamo Drafthouse and showed her Central Market where she wandered the produce section as if in a dream musing at purple kohlrabai and runing her hands over a bosc pear like it fell from outer space. She yelled at me at the check out for telling her the clerk was holding out a receipt for her and I finally remembered to let it slide and asked a few minutes later what had upset her. You are so critical of me she said. She yells at me now the same way my grandmother did when I held doors open for her and she told me, 'STOP THAT! I'm not an old biddy, you know.' I still don't quite understand her enough to prevent these kinds of things from happening, but they don't upset me as much as they used to.
Now that we have sugar snap peas, to make one of my favorite spring recipes __ , take a bath and call it a weekend :)