2003-03-14 - 1:55 a.m.
Instead of using my expensive but free-to-me South by Southwest music conference badge to get into shows and have fun, I biked home from South Austin and worked on my diatom-sized web career. How's that for old and shriveled? Now that I'm in my late twenties, I have to begin asserting my age and the wisdom and fatigue that accrues. Soon it will be time for Geritol smoothies and the first of many carpal tunnel syndrome operations. I can hardly wait until my subscription to Golf Digest kicks in, so I can begin visiting the greens to swap health updates with my ball-wacking buddies. Okay, that's facetious. But I AM tired, which old people usually are. Today was long and hot and brought several petty annoyances of the kind that drives you crazy while they're unfolding, but once over strikes you as kind of funny. For instance, today I went to work and discovered about 5 paychecks in my folder that no one told me about. That's kind of funny, because what the hell am I living on? (Very little money.) Then I had to drive about 6 miles without any brakes on my bike. The reason why I had to do this is because some bald little slacker cycle-fixing guy at the shop near my house took too damned long to get to tightening my brakes, that I ran out of waiting time and had to bolt. Apparently, this fellow's job description includes talking on the telephone and chatting for extensive time periods with some in-the-flesh customers, while failing to acknowledge the existence of other customers � like those with jobs that require them to work efficiently and be at certain places at certain times. At the bike shop, I got all huffy (no pun intended) and left. And if you've ever seen me in the midst of a hissy fit, you'd know that it's a funny sight. Just imagine a hamster getting angry and indignant ��it's not much different from that. After 25 minutes watching baldy talk, I rode to South Austin, and when I arrived at my destination noticed that my bag with all of my important junk ��bank card, phone, reporter's notebook � had a humongous hole in the bottom of it. Miraculously none of the bag's contents spilled out onto the roadways of downtown Austin. Upon locking my bike, I noticed giant greasy tire treadmarks running up and down my legs, and when I tried to wash it off it wouldn't come off. It looked like weird tribal tattoos, which are against my religion. Oh well. Not all sucked, however. A bunch of people and I went to a restaurant called Rudy's Barbecue and when I told the folks behind the counter that I'd never been there before, they all stopped working and shouted 'rookie!' at me. Then they handed me some turkey, which was excellent. This place had banana pudding and creamed corn, two of my favorite yellow food items. Rudy's also has a "Cutter Cam" which shows a man's hands in the process of cutting ribs into presentable meat pieces. A Contrariness Demonstration
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Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse. � Lily Tomlin |
