A Stroll Through the 90s
Oct. 26th, 2005 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walbournMy taxi dropped me off at the Driskel around 10pm. I checked in, dropped off my bags, and wandered out to find food since my last meal was breakfast. The hotel is next to the convention center, and just off of Austin's bar district, Sixth Street. I lived in Austin for a decade, and don't think I spent more than a handful of nights on Sixth Street. A brief stroll tells me that there is nothing particularly interesting to eat open at 10pm on a Wednesday night. I turn up towards the UT campus since I know there is late-night food around there for students.
Plying through my memories of UT, the options that spring to mind are Player's, Taco Cabana, and Trudy's. Hmmm Trudy's. It's on the north of campus, and my hotel is 15 blocks south. Still, I've almost gotten to the Erwin Special Events Center--the southern most part of campus, and where they once had cattle-call style registration for courses before the touch-tone system went online--so why not? I'm still on Pacific time, and a long walk with be both good for me and hopefully get me tired enough to go to bed when I return to the room.
Cutting onto campus, I pass parking garages that went up after I graduated with my Bachelor's degree, next to it is a new construction project, all stand on what was once the general student parking lot.
"What building is that?" I ask a passing student, a young woman probably a bit disturbed by the strange older guy who clearly doesn't belong on campus.
"That's a new art museum."
"Ah, thanks. It's been a few years since I was on campus."
I pass the Jester dormitory where I lived for two years and formed some of the most lasting friendships and relationships of my life. Much of it is the same, but subtle things are different: the glow of a Wendy's sign where there once was a campus store. Some of the streets are blocked off to vehicle access that were once open.
I grab a copy of the school newspaper, The Daily Texan, and quickly leaf through the short pages filled with scathing essays about the Iraq war, the Bush administration, the schools' ties to questionable business practices in its fundraising--which never fails to delight and yet never changes--, the huge section devoted to sports since it is probably more important than going to church to the average Texan, and the poorly drawn student cartoons that never actually seem to be humorous that fill the last page before the classifieds.
Most of the buildings are familiar: Welch, where I had many a science class. Taylor hall, or what's left of it after they tore half of out to make room for the new CS building--why couldn't they have destroyed the half containing the Nale Dale Memorial Dream Research Center!? Painter Hall, where the tiny little closet in the basement containing the only true color display on campus owned by the C.S. department in '92 was housed. The RLM building, where I went for a lot of math courses. The Experimental Sciences building where![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
appleang often ended up. The Biology building where Andrea had her lab and spent most of the 4 months we were dating and actually living in the same city. The Andrews dorm cafeteria where I'd eat meals over the summer. The Kinsolving dorm where appleang was living when we meet, and where I stayed while going to summer classes.
My life was happy at UT in the early 90s. I was poor, but I had no real obligations but to do homework, go to class, work part-time, enjoy time with friends and lovers, and play a fuck-ton of D&D. Really, that's all I really wanted out of life: a vocation where I get to work with amazing friends likehdan every day, hanging with friends whenever I wanted, surrounded by the people I loved. I don't really care about having kids, or making a fortune, or owning a house. Yet my life today in Seattle is about as far as one can imagine from that ideal, and back then I didn't have the weight of years of depression and disappointment, the sense that I had screwed up every major relationship in my life for the past decade. The divide of years, of depression, of dreams that came and went separates me from those days. I'm grateful that many of those friendships are still alive, but the memories of this place haunt me still though in less profound ways than they once did.
I finally arrive at Trudy's at close to 11:30p CST, which is fine because the kitchen is open until midnight. I sit, order, and await my tea and chips & salsa to arrive. This was the central location for Trudy's, a place only a few blocks from where Andrea lived in Austin. We went there a few times, once to meet up with her lab mates for a graduation dinner. I miss the silly little expressions she'd have, the way she lit up the room with her smile, and how she'd use her hands as she talked. Memories of the place are tied up with her, and with co-workers since we ate at the north location habitually.appleang and Kim never cared much for the place, so those reminders are elsewhere in town.
It occurs to me that Kim never really wanted to stay in Austin. Her preference had always been to move back to California and live near her parents. Andrea was really just passing through, going to UT for her PhD program after leaving Oklahoma, and she had already accepted a job in Portland before we started dating. Was there some desire to escape in me that drove me to pursue those relationships? The close-knit web of history was I thought a comfort at the time, and only later became a painful reminder.
The burn of the salsa, the smooth sweetness of iced tea by the pitcherful satisfies my hunger and quiets the flood of memories of lovers long gone. A few minutes later the waiter brings out the migas & fajitas, probably wondering why I'm eating like a starving man. Well, it has been eight hours since my last meal.
It is the tastes that drown out the other memories, the tastes of something I once knew as 'home'. Delightful, satisfying, simple. I cannot recapture the comfort that came with sleeping next to the woman who was my wife. The passion I felt for Kim is gone, a passion that was fed by her combination of being kinky, secretive, and emotionally needy until she decided it was 'for the best' to give up. The images of Andrea's expressive face looking at me with love and openness will never again be real.
I finish up, pay my check, and start the long trek back to the hotel. I spot a taxi and flag it down, trading $8 for an hour's walk on a full stomach. I spent so little time down on Sixth Street, that the hotel and the area around it seem unfamiliar, less like I'm a stranger in my old home town.
Tomorrow starts early, I should try to get some sleep. Sleeping alone has become my 'normal', whether it is in the comfort of my own bed or the strangeness of a hotel bed. Try to not think of it as living with a hole in my life that should be filled, simply accept it as fact.
Plying through my memories of UT, the options that spring to mind are Player's, Taco Cabana, and Trudy's. Hmmm Trudy's. It's on the north of campus, and my hotel is 15 blocks south. Still, I've almost gotten to the Erwin Special Events Center--the southern most part of campus, and where they once had cattle-call style registration for courses before the touch-tone system went online--so why not? I'm still on Pacific time, and a long walk with be both good for me and hopefully get me tired enough to go to bed when I return to the room.
Cutting onto campus, I pass parking garages that went up after I graduated with my Bachelor's degree, next to it is a new construction project, all stand on what was once the general student parking lot.
"What building is that?" I ask a passing student, a young woman probably a bit disturbed by the strange older guy who clearly doesn't belong on campus.
"That's a new art museum."
"Ah, thanks. It's been a few years since I was on campus."
I pass the Jester dormitory where I lived for two years and formed some of the most lasting friendships and relationships of my life. Much of it is the same, but subtle things are different: the glow of a Wendy's sign where there once was a campus store. Some of the streets are blocked off to vehicle access that were once open.
I grab a copy of the school newspaper, The Daily Texan, and quickly leaf through the short pages filled with scathing essays about the Iraq war, the Bush administration, the schools' ties to questionable business practices in its fundraising--which never fails to delight and yet never changes--, the huge section devoted to sports since it is probably more important than going to church to the average Texan, and the poorly drawn student cartoons that never actually seem to be humorous that fill the last page before the classifieds.
Most of the buildings are familiar: Welch, where I had many a science class. Taylor hall, or what's left of it after they tore half of out to make room for the new CS building--why couldn't they have destroyed the half containing the Nale Dale Memorial Dream Research Center!? Painter Hall, where the tiny little closet in the basement containing the only true color display on campus owned by the C.S. department in '92 was housed. The RLM building, where I went for a lot of math courses. The Experimental Sciences building where
appleang often ended up. The Biology building where Andrea had her lab and spent most of the 4 months we were dating and actually living in the same city. The Andrews dorm cafeteria where I'd eat meals over the summer. The Kinsolving dorm where appleang was living when we meet, and where I stayed while going to summer classes.My life was happy at UT in the early 90s. I was poor, but I had no real obligations but to do homework, go to class, work part-time, enjoy time with friends and lovers, and play a fuck-ton of D&D. Really, that's all I really wanted out of life: a vocation where I get to work with amazing friends like
hdan every day, hanging with friends whenever I wanted, surrounded by the people I loved. I don't really care about having kids, or making a fortune, or owning a house. Yet my life today in Seattle is about as far as one can imagine from that ideal, and back then I didn't have the weight of years of depression and disappointment, the sense that I had screwed up every major relationship in my life for the past decade. The divide of years, of depression, of dreams that came and went separates me from those days. I'm grateful that many of those friendships are still alive, but the memories of this place haunt me still though in less profound ways than they once did.I finally arrive at Trudy's at close to 11:30p CST, which is fine because the kitchen is open until midnight. I sit, order, and await my tea and chips & salsa to arrive. This was the central location for Trudy's, a place only a few blocks from where Andrea lived in Austin. We went there a few times, once to meet up with her lab mates for a graduation dinner. I miss the silly little expressions she'd have, the way she lit up the room with her smile, and how she'd use her hands as she talked. Memories of the place are tied up with her, and with co-workers since we ate at the north location habitually.
appleang and Kim never cared much for the place, so those reminders are elsewhere in town.It occurs to me that Kim never really wanted to stay in Austin. Her preference had always been to move back to California and live near her parents. Andrea was really just passing through, going to UT for her PhD program after leaving Oklahoma, and she had already accepted a job in Portland before we started dating. Was there some desire to escape in me that drove me to pursue those relationships? The close-knit web of history was I thought a comfort at the time, and only later became a painful reminder.
The burn of the salsa, the smooth sweetness of iced tea by the pitcherful satisfies my hunger and quiets the flood of memories of lovers long gone. A few minutes later the waiter brings out the migas & fajitas, probably wondering why I'm eating like a starving man. Well, it has been eight hours since my last meal.
It is the tastes that drown out the other memories, the tastes of something I once knew as 'home'. Delightful, satisfying, simple. I cannot recapture the comfort that came with sleeping next to the woman who was my wife. The passion I felt for Kim is gone, a passion that was fed by her combination of being kinky, secretive, and emotionally needy until she decided it was 'for the best' to give up. The images of Andrea's expressive face looking at me with love and openness will never again be real.
I finish up, pay my check, and start the long trek back to the hotel. I spot a taxi and flag it down, trading $8 for an hour's walk on a full stomach. I spent so little time down on Sixth Street, that the hotel and the area around it seem unfamiliar, less like I'm a stranger in my old home town.
Tomorrow starts early, I should try to get some sleep. Sleeping alone has become my 'normal', whether it is in the comfort of my own bed or the strangeness of a hotel bed. Try to not think of it as living with a hole in my life that should be filled, simply accept it as fact.
