Taking the train in Texas

Background facts.

Time it takes to drive from Austin to San Antonio: 90 minutes.

Time it takes Amtrak to get from Austin to San Antonio: 3.5 hours.

Time train is scheduled to depart Austin: 7:00 PM. There is only one per day.


My train experiment went like this . . .

5:30 PM: Drive by station to assess the parking situation. I thought the lot might be full. There is one car in the lot.

5:30 - 6:15 PM: Go have dinner.

6:30 PM. Return to station. There are now three cars in the lot, which is an old decrepit slab of asphalt with no delineated parking spaces. The station itself is a brick shack. I pass an American couple on their way out of the station, and an English couple waiting outside. That's it for people.

6:31 PM. The main decoration inside the station is a TV playing Wheel of Fortune at maximum volume.

6:32 PM. The station man informs me that the train is going to be two and half hours late.

7:00 PM. Consult with my San Antonio picker-uppers, who were already going to be up past their bedtime to pick me up at 10:30 PM. Drive to San Antonio and be there in 90 minutes (before the train even arrives in Austin), or stick with the train and get there in another six hours?

7:01 PM. Drive to San Antonio.

This would be why nobody takes the train in Texas.

A fun story for another day would be about how I can drive to work in ten minutes, but if I took the bus it would take an hour and a half.

Dreaming of public transporation that actually works,
Lisa

Girl parts

I'm going to have a lot of time for reading this weekend on the train. I'm taking a train in Texas. Taking the train in Texas is simply not done, so it feels like an exotic adventure.

So anyways, I went to the bookstore with nothing particular in mind. In the fiction section I got very, very confused. Let's have a look-see at the current state of the bookshelves:

Any book written by a woman, with any female characters in it, apparently has to have a photograph of some girl parts on the cover. Or, it has a pink cover with bubbly writing. Everything has been chick-lit pimped out. How am I supposed to be able to distinguish between something I'd want to read and a book that's all about boys and shopping when they all look the same? I'm fairly certain none of the books above are chick-litty, although I've only read one of them. I almost bought a book - I can't remember what it was now - that sounded in no way chickish . . . but it was slightly pink hued and had a girl part photo on the cover. This particular one was a head, but you couldn't see her face. You can never see their faces. I just couldn't get past the cover. Despite the description on the back, despite the pages I read here and there in it, the cover made me afraid it was all a lie and actually it was about a girl who really, really wanted to get married, buy shoes and procreate.

Book sellers of America have made me judge books by their covers.

(Not that there's anything wrong with chick lit. Personally, that just doesn't interest me.)

So I ended up with this one:


Devils. Should be ok.

Unsolicited recommendation - anything by Aleksandar Hemon.

European smackdown

As you might have gathered from the frequent postings lately of various European websites' forays into broken English, I've been trying to figure out where to go this fall. The plan has been to go see my friend in Brussels and also go to _________, because let's face it, Belgium on its own - although I'm sure it will be lovely! - does not justify a trip across the ocean.

With the current state of the dollar, anywhere in Western Europe was out.

Every former Eastern bloc country was researched (except I forgot about Slovakia and I tire of research now so too bad, Slovakia.) Bosnia was a contender until expensive flights ruled it out. Transylvania was also strongly in the running until I realized all the places I saw that I liked were geographically spread out and sometimes only accessible by car so I'd either need a lot more time or a car. I can't even imagine what gas prices are in Europe, renting a car is not an option. In the category of "Beautiful, but I think I'd get bored": Croatia, Slovenia. In the category of "I can see absolutely no reason to go there": Albania, Belarus. In the category of "too flat": Estonia, Latvia. Other places didn't make the cut for more nuanced reasons.

It has come down to Prague vs Budapest.

Prague is so beautiful that it's almost ridiculous. (See this library.) There is a church decorated with 50,000 human skeletons.

Budapest is less concentrated with the beautiful, but still has a lot of beautiful and plenty to see. It seems more . . . real. To counter the bone church, it has an underground labyrinth, caves, and a park/communist statue graveyard. Although I'm not generally much of a water person, the whole bath thing intrigues me. Budapest is more affordable than Prague. Hungarian food sounds better than Czech food.

So it sounds like I'm picking Budapest?

Lost

Unidentified paternal ancestor(s), with saws.

Peaceful House of Dracula

Romanian hotels, according to Romanian hotel websites:

• "Hotel Funnytime offers you a special family room with an unusual design."
• "The avant-garde restaurant is open from 7:00 until 23:00 and serves traditional dishes."
• "The Pompi Guesthouse in Brasov offers shimmery rooms, bathroom amenities, hot water all day long."
• "If you stay for a week you will be treated with a plain cake, which is baked on glowing amber. After ten days you can get to know with the beauties of nature by going on a cart."
• "The lightening works with a battery."
• "Peaceful and quiet, a retreat from the city bustle, House of Dracula is the ideal place to muse over your day, a place where you can comfortably take a rest, knowing that everything has been taken care of."

Yep.

I made this salad. I thought it was pretty.

Tune in tomorrow for more riveting commentary!

None of these things are like the others

A. Deceptively cute(ish)

This squirrel was recovering from an attempted aggravated sexual assault. The crime occurred right outside my front door. Luckily the victim had some good self defense moves and managed to escape unmolested. Her attacker was left unsatisfied and winded.


B. I did not know that

You can use Grand Central Station as a mechanism to see sun spots.


C. A note to the Academy

I would just like to mention to the American Academy of Arts and Letters that I would not refuse the Rome Prize. I feel like there is a another similar sort of fellowship in Italy - in a villa? On a lake? Google is getting me nowhere with that. I would also not refuse that, if it does indeed exist.


D. Aló Presidente

You probably already know that Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, is a little . . . um, nutty. I had a look into his TV talk show, which can go on for hours, mainly because Chavez repeats everything he says five times. The locale for the show changes. In one famous episode where he calls Bush ("Mr. Danger") a donkey, he is sitting at a table fully outfitted with papers, books, beverages, pens. The table is in a field. There's a herd of cattle in the background. Why? I do not know.

Also, he sings:

Reading Problem

This is the problem with reading at my house.

Out of pocket

I think every one of these 50 worst office-speak phrases are in use at my place of employment. If I ever say to someone "let's talk about this offline," please slap me. Today I heard someone talking about a "decision diamond." I have no idea what that means, but it killed a little bit of my soul.

(See also.)

Rosary

Now that I'm coming down from the busy-busy season, I'm working on lengthening my attention span.

The combination of getting a request for some earrings and it being too hot to go anywhere led to several hours of thinking about and doing one thing. Inconceivable!

As a result, there's some new stuff in the realm of writer evil eye charms. Here we see Oscar Wilde and a rosary-ish Shakespeare. Emily Dickinson and Proust have joined the party, and Edgar Allan Poe is back in stock. They are all available in the store.

(I've never read Proust, but he has good eyes for earrings.)

Old time religion

An old strangely familiar feeling came over me this week. I needed to write a letter. Not an email, not a post, not a text, not an IM, not some pointless Facebook thing, but a real letter. With pen and paper. That goes in the mail.

When's the last time you wrote a real letter? I recommend it. Reacquaint yourself with your handwriting.

PS. 5:45 PM on my sidewalk . . .

Mashed potatoes and saliva

On Saturday I went to the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, which is all self-taught artists and is entirely fantastic. When I am faced with something like a 16 foot model of the Lusitania made of toothpicks and am forbidden from taking pictures of it, it almost causes me physical pain. I could, at least, make note of a few things from the information they had written up about the artists.

Paul Darmafall
"At age 28, he began to experience difficulties with reality."

Martin Ramirez
"Only at the age of 61 did Ramirez begin to draw, often making large drawing surfaces by pasting together crushed paper cups, bags and envelopes with mashed potatoes and saliva."

Sarmor Khan
"His otherworldy interests worried his parents."

Preston Geter’s “Welcome Home Son, Have a Coke”

Hula Honey

Damn it, I did it again! I should really learn to look at the labels before I buy crap. This isn't as bad as the Lady Princesses, but still . . .

Where fashion sits

I'm home, I'm home! I'm so happy to be home that I actually unpacked immediately. I don't think I've ever done that before. I've been in DC and environs. Also - against my will - Atlanta. I hope to never pass through Atlanta again. There were many things that did not go right with this trip, and luckily for you, I just spent half an hour on the phone releasing all the whine and I think I got it out of my system so you will be spared it.

It wasn't all bad. There were good times too. One good thing, the conference I went to was at the Ritz Carlton. I have stayed in a place of such fanciness exactly never before. I was maybe a little overly fascinated by the experience. Naturally I documented my fascination via bad photos. First, the Ritz fireplace channel:

They thoughtfully provided the opportunity to purchase "Dinner Socks."

I was not wearing Dinner Socks when I had my "Liquor Dinner." Is that bad? In fact, I never wore socks the entire time I was within the confines of the Ritz. Yet they didn't kick me out and even pronounced my last name correctly on several occasions.


This is the chandelier in the elevator.


There was only Ritz underwear for men. I think this was part of the Ritz's plan to have its way with me. I returned to my room at night to find some kind of ceremonial cloth lying on the floor by the bed, the sheets turned down, chocolate on the pillow, the wine glasses out on the table and the TV tuned to the fireplace channel. The Ritz is smooth.