Memorial Day Weekend in Austin

Okay, my pants are tight today. I think I ate my weight in chips and salsa in Austin over the weekend, but it was so much fun I just couldn't stop. Our hotel (Hotel San Jose) was right down the street from Guero's Taco Bar, so it was our own darn fault for putting ourselves within walking distance of the temptation. But I refused to drape on the overalls and wallow in my own bloated pity today. I stuffed myself into my regular jeans and I forced myself to stay on the treadmill seven minutes longer than usual. Hopefully I'll begin to deflate soon.

Angela and I frequented Guero's when we lived in Austin and we never bothered to look twice at the touristy t-shirts back then, but we both bought sassy ringer tee's when we were there on Saturday evening. We also bought sassy ringer tee's from Shady Grove on Barton Springs, which turned out to be our third chips-and-salsa outing in three days. It was cloudy and cool there Sunday afternoon and the patio was packed, and we felt obligated to try to bring a piece of the relaxed atmosphere back to Dallas. We'll just have to wear those t-shirts on the patio in our own backyard and try to revive the great conversation over a bag of Tostitos. Oh, and I bought a t-shirt with a screen-printed image of Ghandi on it at Waterloo Records while we were there buying Alison Krauss and Patrice Pike CDs. I love the uniqueness of an orange, tan, and brown Ghandi on a brown tee. But I'm worried that this t-shirt buying frenzy makes us uncool. Even though the tee's are sassy in that carefree Austin kind of way, they mark the moment that we became touristy outsiders in a city that used to be home. But then Austin doesn't care, so neither will we.

We didn't see much live music. We did walk up and down 6th Street and we heard a ton of music billowing out of all of the open club doors, but we were never stationary long enough to take in more than a couple of minutes of any one song. We did sit and watch a cover band at Guero's outdoor cantina stage on Sunday afternoon, but cover bands aren't really the Austin sound and the crowd was made up of too many middle-aged men in khaki shorts to have been considered hip to the Austin music scene. But the margaritas were good.

We got a cup of coffee from Jo's on the way out of town yesterday. It's a a coffee shop in an avacado green trailer that sits in the corner of the Hotel San Jose parking lot, and it props open its windows every morning to draw the crunchy, relaxed Austin crowd that seeks bagels, poppyseed muffins, and big lattes for three bucks. We mostly sought the lattes, but the carbs were good too. And the friendly plain jane at the window actually recommended drinks for both of us, which was a refreshing change from the usual coffee shop cattle call that requires you to string together a series of short phrases that you would never dream of assembling on your own, and then causes you to feel like a loser when the barrista has to put your jumbled up mess in the proper order. (I love Starbucks too! The cultures are just different.) This coffee gal was funny and friendly, and just one of those people that you couldn't help but feel an instant friendship with--although she had me pegged as a mocha gal and I'm partial to vanilla lattes. But that's what's cool about Austin - it asks questions and doesn't act surprised when it finds out it has made the wrong assumption. It's just curious.

I told Angela on the way home, "You know, Austin is cool because it seems to scream thank God you're not like everybody else, when a lot of other places just want you to blend in." Austin truly embraces individuality. Perhaps that is what we should have bagged and brought home with us--the celebrate uniqueness vibe. Well, until I learn to step outside my own comfort zone and develop an even deeper appreciation for differences, the ringer tees will have to do.