backyard crowing
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Hurricane Rita/ACL/a date
the jazzyfatnastees...rock my world. yes, they do indeed.
friday - i have an astronomy test and i will volunteer at austin city limits music festival!!!!!! yes, that's right, ima be a box office babe. woot.
dad is evacuating to barbara's house (that's in austin) and mom and the grandparents, aunt and uncle will drive up to kerrville. i think that's in oklahoma...
i talked on the phone with dad today, and i wish i hadn't told him mom & company would be escaping to kerrville. mom would kill me if she knew i told him where she and the family were going. when i told him kerrville, he goes, "oh, really? kerrville?" like he was getting ideas or something. i know he wouldn't go looting her house or anything, but she doesn't know that, she doesn't have that kind of confidence in him, and the fact that she doesn't have that kind of confidence in him makes me wonder if i shouldn't, either. no. my dad would do no such thing, i KNOW it. not unless he wanted his daughter to disown him. heh.
suspicion sucks.
anyways, uncle keith is going to missouri to be with the paternal grandparents. dad may actually come to acl, i don't know. i'll see if individual friday tickets are still available. they're a bit expensive anyway, fifty bucks or so. he wants to at least have dinner w/me while he's here, but honestly i have a two tests on wednesday plus a biology homework that i haven't even started on due monday.
i NEED to stop ordering cookies. i'm just killing myself, i really am.
i don't want to die of a heart attack, why do i eat badly?
i bet krista and lisa could tell me, they're nutrition majors.
good grief they're skinny, mom sometimes wonders about them.
oklahoma is a long way to go. mom is packing up my france box of keepsakes and my france photo albums. this is an odd feeling, the feeling that i know a hurricane is coming to my hometown. that's it, really--a hurricane is coming to houston, and i know it. all we can do is evacuate and hope for the best. my family will almost certainly be alright, they're obeying the reporters faithfully.
the weatherpeople are saying Rita will pass over an area in the Gulf of Mexico where there is warm water before it hits texas, and that this warm water is great hurricane fuel. however, it is expected to die down a bit before it hits the coast. when it hits, the hurricane may be a category five, four, or three. right now, it's a category five, and the prediction is that it will most likely be a four once it reaches the texas, or of course it might stay category five or go down to category three. louisiana will still feel some effects of the hurricane, and i'm pretty sure it may rain at acl. i'm bringing an umbrella.
i was just thinking about people who went from new orleans to houston to stay in the dome. now they will flee yet another city. what heartbreak that must be for them. i think people are listening to the reporters's reccomendations to evacuate more now than they were in new orleans just because of Katrina. that thing happened only about a month ago, so it's heavy on everyone's mind.
no one wants to be present for Katrina II, if that's what this is.
today at 6pm was the evacuation time for Galveston, but of course i've seen interviews of some rather interesting Galvestonians on tv who are too stubborn to leave. Houston hasn't officially been told to evacuate yet, but i'm glad my parents are anyway. everyone talks about Rita as if it will be a weekend thing--that after sunday everything should be fine again and we can all go home and hope our houses aren't too badly damaged. i hope (and i think i believe) that everyone is right. i wonder how dad got the weekend off, he said he would probably be leaving tommorow, and he'd still be here in austin on saturday, too. he seems a bit less concerned about this hurricane than mom does. when i called, i said something like, "I'm sure you've heard about Hurricane Rita, mom is leaving, are you?" He playfully acted like i was crazy. "Rita? Who's she?", that whole bit.
i just checked the face website, lou rawls was supposed to perform on saturday night but that was postponed, thank goodness. so that's how dad got off work. then again, there's church on sunday, so maybe he'll work then if the weather has cleared.
the Galveston mayor was on tv too, and 80 buses left galveston with people who don't have vehicles and the elderly.
gas may go up to five dollars a gallon.
baytown may be in Rita's path, and baytown has many gas refineries.
the refineries have been shut down, and "turning them on" again will take about a week.
mom will wake up and leave in the witching hours tommorow--i think 2 am or so, the goal being to avoid as much traffic as possible. i'm pretty sure this is the first time my parents have had to evacuate houston. of course, mom went through hurricanes of a lesser caliber as a resident of clear lake as a kid, but they just stayed home and boarded up the windows. they would sit around a battery-operated radio and have sandwiches or a hand of cards. now they're leaving the state.
some people are re-evacuating lousiana. some people never left.
how did i get so lucky as to be born in the United States?
why do i get the so-called "good life"?
i guess i ought not look a gift horse in the mouth, and i'm thankful.
i had a date last night. his name is Brian, and he's 27. i don't think i'll call him again, what with the age difference. eight years is significant, and i don't need to be getting into a relationship right now, i've got school to worry about. he's awfully attractive, though, a redhead. my first redheaded date! ah, and those brown eyes locked on mine when he sat down on the bus next to me! mom says guys who give you their number are a dime a dozen, that sometimes guys give out their number just to see what comes back. i don't know, i really don't. maybe she just doesn't want me dating a 27-year old. well, mom, i don't know whether i want me dating one, either. but good night...those EYES! he doesn't look 27. he could be 21 or 22. and hey, he paid for my salad and walked me home. so it was a date, i know that. what is it with me and the older guys? he did say that i wouldn't have liked him when he was my age, that he was an ass then, or something. he hasn't been to church in 2 or 3 months, and he donned a cross necklace that night, too. he's a greeter for acl, by the way, and i met him on the bus randomly. he works for a pest control company and likes that quite a bit. there was a little awkwardness during dinner, a few moments of silence here and there, but the weirdest part was the end. he walked me to the front of jester west, and there gave me his number. he said something like, "if you want to go see a show or something on friday, give me a call." so now the ball is in my court. now it's my turn to choose whether or not i'm interested. in one way, i don't want to get involved with anyone, but at the same time he seems interesting, and i'm all for the belief that age difference doesn't matter, and works beautifully for some people. i'm a hopeless romantic. but then there's France. if i study abroad, i'll be gone for 10-12 months or so, and that's a relationship ender if ever there was one, so why try?
he has the same phone as i do, and he has four brothers. he got into fights every two weeks during junior high, and was held back a grade and skipped one. so, he graduated with all of the original people he was supposed to have graduated with, i guess. he lived in 30 different towns growing up. he says "dude" and "like" often because he spent some significant time in cali. he has lived in austin for the last year, and he just got over a broken leg. that leg made him unable to work for the past two months, and he has just started to work again. right before he broke it, he sold his car. he was about to buy a new truck, but then he broke the leg and couldn't afford it. now he is without vehicle.
before he was in austin he lived in san antonio for awhile, with a bad girlfriend. he hated saint anthony, but says that's probably because of his relationship, not the city itself. he lived around blanco, so that's not too far away from where i was last year. he has never been to sunset station.
he's very polite. he said at one point, "i like all kinds of music. i know a lot of people say that, but i really do, i like all types." that's what i say about myself.
he also asked me if i was irish, and i stupidly replied "no", and then "yes" quickly thereafter. my mother's last name starts with "mc", who do i take myself for? of course i'm irish!!! oh well, i was a bit flustered, anyway...he is irish too, what with his red locks.
i don't think i'll call him back, but if i see him i won't ignore him.
my first date in austin!
9:35 p.m. - 2005-09-21
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