Human Nature

I keep waking up to my ex's cell phone alarm going off in my mind. It was a new cell phone she had bought only two months before we parted, but somehow the insipid tune burrowed into my subconsciousness. It can best be described as the soundtrack to a jejune short film about a twelve year old Japanese girl shopping at a mall. Fortunately, I know where the coffee and the french press are in Sam's apartment and I was able to get up and distract myself.

Yesterday Austin was at least 70 in the sun, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Despite the free standing houses, strip-mall design, and dearth of sidewalks and pedestrians and transit, I am fond of this town. It has some of the best parks and public space in America. Sam and I spent a good many hours yesterday walking around man-made Lake Lady Bird, as did appearently most Austinites. Being on the Balcones Fault, you really feel that you are at the crossroads of four major ecological regions. To the east everything is flat to the gulf, and the hills start in the western half of the city. It's too green to be a desert, but it retains that purity of desert air.

The highlight of our nature walk, however, had to do with impure natural urges. Despite Texas's fiscal conservative bent--no income tax--the government is socialist enough to install a few public restrooms along the trails. As we approached one sand-colored 70's hexagonal cell I was looking forward to using, we saw a young man go in, and ten seconds later a young woman joined him. I felt a very American emotional mixture of anger at abuse of power and admiration for the gumption of "the little guy". As we passed by the booth, we heard metal crashing and then a woman's guffaw. If you can't have romance, at least you can have a laugh.

The above photograph is of Sam and his dog Howard. Unfortunately I wasn't there for this magic moment, but I'm sure you can understand why I wanted to share it with you.