As Jay Sherman would say, Hatchi Matchi!

Pure bravery-

http://www.woai.com/content/justice/story/Wheel-of-Justice-Roman-Rios/TTq6mqgTPEi6Di3D0gHC5w.cspx

-alluding to the mafiosos of Saytown

And now a list of things that make San Antonio bearable (despite the insane heat):

1). the weekly gourmet meals that my friend cooks for his wife and me
2). fruit cups with coconut, jicama, watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, grapes, strawberries, lime, and red chile powder
3). the Huev (Web) House bar
4). Africa Live exhibit at the San Antonio Zoo IF you are not suffering from heat exhaustion
5). every convenience store sells Chamoys http://www.bad-candy.com/candies/chamoy/
6). the Big Red/Barbacoa special...everyday


7). the long-term bums staking their places for years are actually pretty nice
8). River Walk Expansion- where I take a stroll and end up at the VFW for peanut butter crackers and a Big Red
9). KONO 101.1 FM
10). SeaWorld (especially the Great White ride)

Hitting close to home

I'm back in san anto and the gente stirs. International visitors from the Mexique are fighting for parking at La Cantera Shops in boxy black Escalades with cartoony Coahuila license plate. They ask for "banilla" at the gelato stand that has no such flavor and call out to each other (the days of the "estoy a la dillarts" talkie walkie are gone) in a tone reminiscent of the Mars Attacks-speak or Peanuts gang teacher voice.


literally on my street (actually, i've lived on both mentioned)
http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=27049750-e956-4de0-9194-160cfafe548a

portland

the 17 stretches of Portland
lay out in front of you
like tracks for railcars
crisscrossing the earth

loving one ocean, while despising the other
knowing the one you love is shrinking
at 17 different points

a map configuration

to spell the name of his best face

------

(rain) in portland

i threw away my umbrella
and ate the rain
one drop
at
a time.

the process of idea

Let's see...right now I'm moderately congested with tightened cracked skin that has become shiny because it is dead around my nostrils. My lips dry out easily like this, so I take dedicated breaths... too fast and a thick sniffle forms and sounds out. Making me sound dirty, like a homeless man on a bus.

Even though it's late afternoon, the overcast sky never seemed to really open up and have a day. I've missed a day. Thunder or a jet rumbles. It's rained a few times today, but not really leaving anything cleaner or refreshed.

To do: befriend a doctor specializing in sinus infections and lollipops

los encontramos

Apparently, I'm fluent in Spanish. A little fact I had practically zero knowledge of until this afternoon, in Rocio del Aguila's Spanish class, where I felt like queen of all things with a rolled r. I met my new christmas present today, it's called the Texas Archaeological Research Lab. Santa is Darrell Creel and if Santa had an Obi Wan mentor that would be Dale Hudler.

I miss Portland and I miss Mount Hood (that sneaky devil). This morning was colder than the "cold memory"- coming out of the movie theatre at night and sitting in my car doing operatic arias denouncing the cold and it's unannounced arrival and abrupt commingling with my bone marrow. that's the coldest memory I have on record.

Found my ratty old copy of the golden bough, and skimmed through it for inspiration the other night. It read like Foucault and I had a thought that went something like "war as the human expression of energized nature- the original function of Roman god Mars (Ares)- making plants grow". (on a post-it note that i wrote hastily, stuck to my computer monitor)

Carmex in a tube, a puzzle box that you must put together to open, my childhood crush, Brad Renfro dead at 25. RIP, I loved you in Bully. This is the news of the previous week, and honestly, the truest inspiration I've ever found- it was all in me.

running down a thunder road in jungleland

note to self: someday I can BE the Boss when they do his biopic (at least the mid-70s Born to Run scenes).

Let me say that Bob Dylan's manner of talking/singing has always reminded me of a 5-year old in constant response to someone taking away their toy (whatever the hell kids play with nowdays). Like "heeyyy...that's miiinneee" and carrying on as they try to reason with said toy-taker, continuing the subdued, slightly whiny intonation pattern.

Nonetheless, I'm intrigued (if Cate Blanchett came to Austin I would take her to the country & western gay bar on 4th St that looks like the inside of a Bill Miller's BarBQue) :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZGseissqX8

spinning the bucket of water with Dr. Raplanolovsky

Dear Mr. Robert Lee Moore, thank you for your contributions to math/physics/astronomy? It is in homage to these ideas that UT built a building with clear neo-Stalinist influences (especially around the edges, ha) with an absolutely opposite interior Escher-like maze. I prefer to loiter around its face, or is it the rear; a debate for decades to come- in the smoker's enclave, sitting on crate seats and braving the cornered updrafts tinged with Bali Shag.
There are some pretty interesting types that walk through the sliding glass door set-up. And like the white buffalo of RLM the most interesting one of all, an imposingly rotund Russian string theorist by the name of Kaplonovsky, may be seen hunched in line at the Seattle's Best coffee stand. My sources tell me he's known for his one-liner sentence fragment "Look (in thickest Russian accent you find yourself attempting)...if you want to be pedantic about it..." and shifty eyes. If only there was some way to both get this man to perform a cool hip hop song (about physics, of course!) and allow me to tape record it. Or let me photograph him doing the "Walk like an Egyptian" arm motions and put it on a t-shirt. I've also heard during a particularly boring student presentation he put his head down on the desk and began beating his forehead with a small empty water bottle.

On a serious note- here in Travis County, we have crime rallies. By definition, protests against crime because...people 'round these parts won't be standing for no deviancy-stay away criminal behavior, you are not welcome in central Texas.
http://www.news8austin.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=196063

Oh Texas, I love you and like to show off to other states that we were our own country once. When we bump into each other in foreign countries, after puffing our chests a bit and identifying ourselves as Texan, it's a time restricted steel forged friendship.

And for the record, W Bush was born in New Haven, Connecticut.