I start fires

I got in the habit of only posting on here when I thought I had something to say, or something to contribute to the spate of lived experience one reads from the little screen. A bit of a bad habit, I suppose.

I left Austin at the beginning of July, and right around the time I started to think about the trip, I heard that the Cathedral of Junk was closing. (This beautiful 33 foot structure built out of recycled junk - which I've written about a couple times before - is climbable, unique, and lots of fun to explore.) The announcement came after several months' worth of troubles with the city government and zoning code violations, and I remember reading an article that used it as a fitting metaphor for the city as a whole - the conversion from epicenter of weirdness and freedom to sterile urbana sprawling into suburbia. Fitting too, I thought, that I would be leaving at this time, as the Cathedral closed.

But right as I was getting ready to leave, owner Vince Hannemann decided to keep it going. Truly, I realized, this was more fitting: something great about Austin that I will miss, until the next time I'm there (I have no idea when that will be). I will miss a lot about Austin... friends, Tex Mex, Weird Wednesdays and the Alamo Drafthouse, East Side arts and bars, running along the "Town Lake" before dusk under swirling skies of pink and orange, etc., etc.

In Boston now. I told almost nobody when I was coming, and I thought about pulling some surprises when I showed up, but wasn't wily enough. First several days back, I started to reconnect with people, and it felt good. Watched the fireworks, and then went swimming and hiking at Breakheart the next day with Susanna and friends. Took the T straight out to Kevin's - two days without a shower, even after wandering that little mountain in flip-flops, seemed to be fine and appropriate - for a fun get-together in East Cambridge. Next day, from my base in Jamaica Plain, off to Mission Hill to watch the World Cup. Only coffee until 2:30, and then pizza and beer. And then to Dorchester for grilling with Buddy and Tanya. And on and on.... Boston is a city full of neighborhoods and character. Explorations, meetings, moments....

I started to develop a - for lack of a better word - existential attitude in June, in the last few weeks in Austin. It developed out of a general lack of planning, from a practical standpoint (like packing and getting ready to leave my apartment), a professional standpoint, and an aspirational standpoint. Very few goals, very few definite ideas of what to do next (beyond making some films, doing some writing, and trying to find some money). It amounted to a cosmic stream of mental health. When what lays before one seems to be all that exists, that existence seems superb. And I know that in the society in which I live, the purest form of this mental clarity is unsustainable. But there are still a few embers in the fire. And as soon as I can make it to the store, I will douse them in lighter fluid.