Wimberley in the Winter sparked by Tequila 

Wimberley in the Winter sparked by Tequila

Ouch. My head hurts. It hurts bad. Really really bad. RM had some of his family members in town last night and so they wanted to party. It would seem as if we had met all of RM’s family by now, but apparently we haven’t. there were 4 people there last night who we didn’t know. Now we’re all best friends though. Mercy. We drank a lot of tequila. Shot after shot after shot. I was so drunk I even smoked a cigarette. I think it was a menthol. I don’t know what that means. I don’t smoke. That’s probably the first cigarette I’ve had in a year and a half. This morning it took me a while to remember that I smoked one. Then I remembered that I’m trying to get into a research study that has a very strict no smoking restriction. Smart. The one time I smoke a cigarette is the one time in my life when I’m not supposed to. Oh well. It’s so dry in TX that there’s fire bans everywhere. You can’t even grill out anymore. No kiddin. Perhaps that’s why we smoked inside RM’s house. I’ll hope that’s why. You’re not really supposed to smoke inside his house. But everyone was smoking. Gross. Cigarettes are nasty. My hand smelled like butt and my tongue tasted like ass this morning. Gross.

We had a lot of fun last night. Or at least I did. RM’s sister is EXACTLY like him. It’s scary. RM is a little insane and loud. You probably wouldn’t want to meet a female version of him. You wouldn’t even think that there could be such a thing. But there is. And she was there. Picture if you will a Hispanic Roseanne Barr. Who has blonde hair. That’s her. No lie. She was pretty funny. But also a mean drunk. There was a person there that she didn’t like. So she told her and made her cry I think. Yikes. One time a friend of mine who is latino told me that latino people are known for speaking whatever is on their mind. Guess it’s true.

We ate a bunch of sausage and beans and rice. Hey---how did he make the sausage? Hmm…. Maybe the grill ban is not in effect in the county we live in. Or maybe he just doesn’t care. And we drank lots of bud light. And then somebody bought tequila. And then we drank it. They had some special salt to put on your hand. It was called “twang”. It was fun. The Hispanic Roseanne called it ‘twat’. All night long. Lots of jokes about ‘lick the twat’. Roseanne.

I don’t know what else happened really. We laughed a lot. Lots of it was funny. Then I was really drunk so I had to go home. Mary wasn’t ready so she stayed. Neither of us remembers why. I don’t remember getting back to the cabin at all, although I do remember being too tired to play w/ the gus, so I just scooped him up and let him sleep with me last night. (I have a rule that if I’m out late and have abandoned the Gus for several hours that I have to sit up w/ him at least an hour before I go to bed. Thems the rules).

And then I woke up and was confused. And my head hurt. And I’m not supposed to take any medicine b/c of this study. (but I had to take 2 ibuprofen anyway. I’m a rebel). When I looked out the window I saw some newspaper scattered in the back yard. And I had a bad feeling. I knew what it was. Yesterday I made a special trip into to get the Austin Chronicle. It comes out every Thursday and tells you all the cool stuff to do in town for 7 days after that. It is essential reading. And it was already Saturday and we didn’t have it, so I had to go get it. Whenever we get one late we always find out about something cool that happened the day before. This time? Not a damn thing happening all week. Nothing. Stupid week. Whatever. But I read it outside in the sun because it’s fun to sit outside in the sun in the middle of winter. But then I was really tired b/c Friday night was a really late night so I was too tired to carry the Chronicle inside. And I left it there over night. And last night the wind apparently blew really hard. And the Chronicle was EVERYWHERE. And by everywhere, I mean everywhere. I saw the first page of it in the back yard against the fence. When I opened the front door I saw Chronicle pages all over the place. Like it had snowed, but instead of snow flakes there were Austin Chronicle pages. Dang. They were everywhere. And no 2 pages were together. The wind was angry at the Chronicle. It was sort of funny, but not so funny when you can hardly stand up and when it makes your head explode by bending over. But I had to get it up so I did. I rounded up the first couple pages in the back yard. Then I went over and got some pages out of MK’s yard, which is next to ours. There were some pages that got caught in the tree in between our house and his. I scooped them up. Then I started collecting the pages from our front yard. And then pages had flown over into the other cabin beside ours—the Well House. So I picked up some in between our house and the well house. There was a golf cart parked in front of the Well House. Apparently RM or one of his siblings was bunking in there. and as I bent over to get another page, the dog Deuce barked loudly and scared the begeezus out of me. So RM must have been in the house. And Deuce was mad b/c he was stuck outside. But I had work to do so I continued. I got all the pages out of the yard of the Well House. Pages had blown into the yard across the street too, so I got them. And I balled them all up and threw them away. The end.

So I had to drink lots last night. On Friday night we went out on the town and I refrained from drinking too much so that I could get us home. Mary did not. She tore it up hard. So I was due. Friday night was perhaps the funnest night I’ve had in TX. And I’ve had a lot of fun ones, so that’s saying a lot. But Friday night was great. Just totally great. The kind of fun we used to have, that we haven’t necessarily had in a long time. The first couple months in TX were really fun for me, but not so much for mary. And things were difficult between us pretty often for a variety of reasons, but things have been really good lately, and it’s awesome. I would have thought it would be hard to like TX anymore than I was already liking it. But I’m liking it even more everyday. And Friday was just sort of a culmination of that. On the surface it certainly doesn’t sound like anything extraordinary or anything, but it was just fun. I was pretty stressed heading into it as I was trying to line up plans with 3 separate couples. And it was hard to get it lined up, and one of the couples bailed, but it all worked out. We were going to go check out Artz rib house for the first time, which I was looking fwd to, but brad wanted to go to a place called 219 that had great happy hour deals, so we agreed to do that. I did not realize though that 219 was downtown. And downtown on a Friday night is pretty much packed up. And I’m frugal so refuse to pay for parking. So we drove around downtown for about 10 minutes looking for parking. I was pissed. I was mad we went down there. I was cussing. But whatever. I wouldn’t say anything about it, I’d just never go back. And we get to the place and it’s totally hipster swanky. Seriously. Sort of like the Blue Light Grill in Cville. Fortunately, since it was one of the few times we actually were getting to go out, mary had made me dress up, so I actually fit right in. And the hipster place was totally packed out too. brad and gwen had gotten there 15 minutes earlier and were still waiting for a table. And we had to be at a concert in less than 75 minutes so I was really stressed. And starting to be mad. And the whole time we were looking for a place to park I had to pee so bad it started to hurt. So that made it worse. But I was going to try my best. And after I got to pee, and after I ordered a drink, suddenly everything was better. Alcohol is my friend. Fortunately, brad and gwen had snagged a corner couple of seats at a bar, so we ended up just getting our food and drinks there. and they were great. And we had fun. I had a couple $2 beers, mary had a couple $4 martinis. We got some fancy little mini cheeseburgers with mozzarella and basil and something else, and they were really really tasty and were half price. And the fries were half price too. all apps half price at happy hour. YUM. We will go back there. it was really good, and nicely priced, and the bartender was super---she left off one of mary’s martinis, so she got a nice tip.

After dinner we went to a concert and met up with some of my other friends. It was really crowded in the place, but it was super fun. And for the first time in a long time Mary had a good time at a concert, which made everything so much more fun. I was really really happy. It was one of my favorite singers too, which made it even better because previously she had thought she didn’t like him.

After the concert we went over to our other friends house and drank and told stories and watched My Name is Earl off of the Tivo. Oh---holy crap. I almost forgot. There at their house was one of their other friends who I had met before. I met her at Ginny’s Chicken Shit that one time, and she told me how she had won the Chicken Shit Bingo the first time that she ever played and then she never played again. Smart. She was cool.
So it was fun that she was at their house, and she was talking some—cuz normal people usually talk—and I was listening, she totally sounded foreign. Which is fine, except that I had met her before. And talked with her before. And I had no idea she wasn’t from here. It made my head hurt. Here she was talking, and her accent clearly didn’t sound Texan or Midwestern or any kind of American variation. I wanted to lean over and ask Mary if she knew that this girl was foreign, but I knew that I had had a couple of drinks and perhaps I wouldn’t be too adept at using my inside quiet voice. So I just sat there. But she kept talking. And I couldn’t get over it. And it kept bothering me. And so when she mentioned something about how they used a certain kind of fillings where she was from I blurted it all out. “You’re not from here huh?” I said. And I told them all the stuff that had been going through my head. And they laughed at me. She told me she was from Macedonia. “Cool” I said. “that’s the former Yugoslavia” she said.
And I thanked her for telling me that, because I had no idea where Macedonia was, nor did I know anything about it. Truthfully, I don’t know anything about Yugoslavia either, but at least I have heard Yugoslavia, and can comprehend what Yugoslavian means. I have heard of Macedonia but have no template for it. Yugoslavia is better, but Macedonia sounds cooler.

And that’s what happened this weekend for the most part. Mary went horseback riding yesterday. She signed us up for some loser social group. Not just signed us up—gave them money! But it’ll be good for her because it gives her things to do like ride horses. And we might meet some cool people. I doubt it, but we might. While she was doing that I rode into San Marcos and sold some cds to the music store. I was psyched. Before moving to TX I sorted through all my cds and pulled out all the ones that I didn’t want anymore. Holy crap. There’s lots of them. Ones that were selling on ebay, I sold there and got some $$. But there’s lots that aren’t big sellers. Earlier in the week I had taken a bag of them to Cheapo discs. Somehow I had decided in my mind that they would pay me the most. I had decided wrong. They offered me 6 bucks for the whole stack. I politely declined and the guy apologized for offering so little. Whatever. So I walked down the street to Waterloo and tried to sell them there, and they only wanted 2 cds out of the whole stack, but offered me $6 for just those too. that sounded good to me. I didn’t know what I was going to do with all the other cds I had though. So on the way to San Marcos to get the Chronicle yesterday, I decided I’d try to sell them to the cd store there. and they guy offered me $9 for half of the cds. ROCK! So the last 5 cds in the bag I don’t know what to do with. I guess I’ll donate them to goodwill or something. I’m totally pleased with my $15 for cds that I don’t want anymore. And I still have dozens to sell.

I love Texas. I really truly do. And there’s lots of exciting things on the horizon, which I’m really looking forward to. We might move closer to Austin, which is very exciting. I love it out here in the middle of nowhere—I really do. And there will be lots that I miss about it, but it will be awesome to be so close to so much stuff—IF we do it. And I’m certain that mary would like it a LOT better closer, so it’d be cool. And this morning, for the first time ever, I found something that truly sucks about living in a small town: there’s no Hardees. I’m so hungover that I don’t have the energy to make any food. But I could certainly drive to hardees to get a biscuit. Mmm… and that would make me feel good. But there’s no hardees here. There’s nothing here. I don’t’ know if the Dairy Queen has breakfast, and if they do, I don’t want it anyway. There’s a place called Mimas that has really good breakfast tacos, but I think they’re closed on Sundays so it’s not worth venturing out. So I’m hungry. Really really hungry. And I don’t know what to do. I can’t focus. I need food. There’s no good tv dinners in the freezer, and I don’t want a sandwich and don’t want cereal. And there’s nowhere to do. Dang.. I miss Hardees.

But back to TX. Know what I love about TX? Well, everything, but specifically, I am loving the winter weather. Holy crap. Our first week back it was in the upper 80s a couple days, and it’s been at least 70 every single day. Sunny and sunshine. I love it. Most Texans are praying for rain since it’s so dry. I’m selfish and self centered. I like the sun. It’s fun. (although it really is getting pretty dusty around here. When I go outside in my slippers they get covered in dust. I don’t like that it. So I guess we could use a little rain so that my slippers don’t get dust on them). But the sun makes me so so happy. Every day I get to wear a tshirt. One day last week I was working and had worn jeans and a collar shirt. I was so hot I could hardly stand it. I ended up getting off work early and as soon as I got home I changed into shorts and a tshirt, and put on some flip flops, and sat outside drinking gin and tonics. Gin and diet tonics actually. Did you know that tonic water has calories? It does. 60 or 80 or something like that. That’s just plain silly. It’s water! What the heck? It’ll be diet tonic water for me please. I’m sure there is some difference in taste, but I can’t tell. It makes me thankful every single day to be here. 70+ degrees in the winter suits me just fine. It might get cold one day, but it’s not now, and I love it. This morning, w/ my fuzzy hungover head, I was sitting outside with the Gus, wearing my comfy lounge pants and slippers and my super faded Eagles t shirt. I was looking for my special orange shirt that I’ve had since 1991. I don’t own a more comfortable shirt. It’s so thin and worn that it’s perfect. When you’re hungover you need to wear comfy things. I needed that shirt, but couldn’t put forth the effort to find it in the pile of clothes on the floor. But I found the Eagles shirt (because I had worn it yesterday and it was still on the top of the pile) and although it’s only from 1994, it’s still pretty worn too and is a good comfy shirt for a hungover morning. So outside, in my faded Eagles t shirt drinking some iced tea for breakfast, I was a little cold. And I was mad because I had to get up and put on my favorite blue and red Lebowski sweater jacket. And then I laughed because I realized that I was mad that I had to be wearing a sweater jacket in the morning in the dead middle of winter. It’s probably 59 degrees outside. And it’s winter. TX is awesome..