Category: Personal

Just a link to my personal fundraising page and a few extra images.
http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/erichagan

When I was freshly unemployed from Cypress I went to Flatstock at South by Southwest as I am wont to do. It was fun as per usual and I found some things to buy from a studio called Cricket Press. I didn’t know what I was going to do with them but after a while I got my new bedroom put together and decided that they would look good in there. Michael’s had a 70% off sale on framing a couple of weeks ago which is lower than they usually have sales so I had the prints framed.

I picked them up yesterday after I got home (more on that in a bit) and tonight I hung them up. I think they look pretty good.

Anyway, about getting home yesterday. It was a gorgeous spring day (February 23rd. You know, spring) and I need to put some miles on the bike so I decided to ride to work. That went fine. The ride home is a bit tougher it being more uphill than down and me having done 25 miles into work and a full day at the office already. So I’m going up the hill towards Kenai on Parmer and traffic is passing me but slowing as the light is red. A Suburban goes by and there’s a teenage girl, probably not more than 15, in the back seat with the window down, both hands on the window, head poking out barking at me. Like bark bark, arf arf barking. They go on past and stop at the light and I pedal by them and she’s still barking at me and then the light turns green and we cross for a third time, girl still barking. It’s been stuck in my head for the last day as it’s definitely the strangest thing to happen to me in a while. I got some mileage out of it on the bookface though so that’s good I guess.

The prints are here:
The Rabbits
The Foxes
The Cicadas
Lightning Bugs

When I walked out of Mighty Fine after lunch today there was water coming from the sky. Just taken on face value this is a strange thing to say because it doesn’t rain here anymore. The other thing it doesn’t do here anymore is Winter so imagine my shock when I walked out into the parking lot and didn’t get wet because the water was bouncing off of me. Truly I am a wizard and my might is awesome and terrible. That and it was sleeting.

My plans for today were install new license plates, hair cut, Mighty Fine and then down to Houndstooth for coffee and work. The license plates are only half done because I don’t have the technology to install the front holder thing. I guess I’ll take it to the dealer tomorrow afternoon and get them to put it on and finally do the state inspection. Hair cut went as expected. Mighty Fine was crowded with the post-church crowd. Initially I decided to brave the weather and drive into town for my coffee but about three miles down I-35 it really started coming down in earnest and I thought better of subjecting the new car to the aggressive, weather agnostic Texas drivers and came home. By the time I pulled into the driveway there were actual snow flakes mixed in with the sleet.

It reminds me of the first winter I spent in my house. Cypress had, in typical bizarre fashion, scheduled its Winter Christmas Holiday Solstice party for Valentine’s day at the Driskill Hotel and the weather turned very cold over the course of the day. I went down, had dinner, chatted with the people I saw every day at work and then left to visit my friends Hunter and Cali. I watched them play poker for a little while and then looked out the back window and saw snow. We all reveled in the novelty and had a little miniature snowball fight. Then I realized that I needed to get home before the roads got really bad and the drunks from 6th started filtering up into the suburbs. I got all the way up Parmer, down 1431 and into the neighborhood very slowly but without incident. The street through the neighborhood hadn’t been driven since the snow started so it was just a flat white blanket of snow. I crept down the road and, with the engine idling, touched the brakes, instantly locking the wheels and sliding in slow motion onto the curb of the hated traffic circle. In shame, I drove off and over the two blocks to home. At this point it was after 1:00 in the morning. I stood out on the back porch in the dark watching the snow fall and listening to it whisper. If you don’t get snow regularly it is beautiful and serene. I felt like the only living thing around. The next morning all of the neighborhood kids made the saddest little foot-tall muddy snowmen which melted by the end of the day.

NOAA says we’ll be back in the 60’s tomorrow and 70’s Tuesday but today is winter.

I spent the night at aunt Kathleen’s house and it’s about time to get back on the road. I think I’m going to go ahead and fill the car up while I’m in town and see if someone will sell me some coffee. The drive yesterday was nice. It’s very pretty country up in the mountains and I even found a little hippie, organic, sometimes vegan bakery and coffee shop by accident in Asheville to stop and stretch my legs and have a snack. According to the car I’ve averaged a little over 28mpg but that includes all the driving around in Winston-Salem and driving in the mountains. We’ll see if I can do better today.

I made it. The flight to Raleigh was uneventful except for the fact that the guy sitting next to me was basically a terrible human being. Not that I had to deal with him or anything but terrible none the less.

I caught the Avis shuttle as it was driving up and got my car almost immediately except for the part where you have to turn down $70 worth of stuff you don’t need.

It was a straight shot on I-40 all the way to Winston-Salem and I got the car dropped off just a little after 5:00. A nice kid from the dealership drove me over there and I met my sales person checked out the car, signed some paperwork, gave away a bunch of money and then learned how to work the car. There are a ton of little buttons and gadgets and crap but underneath all of that it’s just a nice car. It’s comfortable and drives good and all that jazz.

Also the dealership was hosting a preview of the new Mission Impossible movie and I got to go see that too. It was ok. About what I expected. A bit long in places and completely ridiculous but entertaining in the way that modern action movies are.

So far so good. Tomorrow I drive to Nashville to see aunt Kathleen and maybe cousin Janet and Jim and Parker if they’re available.

A disproportionate number of posts here have been made from DFW as of late. This time I’m off to Winston-Salem, NC. I am buying a car there. Why there? The one I want is not being made next year so I couldn’t order one and the local dealer wanted me to be their girlfriend in order to get one that met my criteria into Austin. The NC dealer was pretty reasonable though so I’m flying out there and driving it back.

It’s a little mini-vacation and a chance to see my aunt in Nashville and my cousin and her family there as well.

Looks like someone is going to bring their yip-yap dog in the flight. Yay.

I have a lot of stuff. That should not be taken as a brag. I am terrible about throwing away things that are past their useful life. I am worse at tossing or donating or selling things with either a sentimental attachment or with a particular historic obligation. When my grandfather died my grandmother gave me his work clothes. Well, some of them at least. Four or five suits, some amazingly tacky sport coats (blue gingham anyone? It’s like a picnic tablecloth with arms), dress shirts, even a tuxedo with black and white coats. He was always bigger than me, bigger in all dimensions. Taller by probably three or four inches, considerably heavier, a people person for the right people. Larger than life. So I accepted the clothes because my grandmother wanted me to have them though I could never hope to wear them. Years passed. As I have had work done to the house or have needed space in one place or another I have moved all of these clothes from one closet to another, taking them out to look at and smell the smell of the hall closet at Mim’s that has remained with them after all of this time.

But the weight of all of the past I am carrying around is heavy and today I did a very hard thing. I cleaned the closet. I took, with the exception of three things that I have actually be able to use occasionally, all of my grandfather’s clothes, and some of mine and gave them to Goodwill. There are some good things in there. Brooks Brothers shirts, Neiman Marcus suits. There are less good things as well. The tux was not particularly great and was probably something he owned of necessity rather than pleasure. But it’s gone now and I feel kind of stunned. I instantly regretted it. Why couldn’t I have just kept them? Why can’t I keep all things forever? When I’m gone we can send me and my past on in some kind of giant Viking funeral and all be released from and by our burdens.

Of course that’s ridiculous. I expect I’ll get over it but for right now that’s good way to go from a normal Sunday to a nice melancholy. The weather is perfect for it. Cold, rainy but more drizzle and light rain than a good, hard, cathartic storm; dark to fit the mood.

The worst part is that it’s not over yet. There are five boxes of random stuff in the garage that need to be winnowed, the aluminum melting furnace that needs to be dismantled and tossed, a broken car wheel and two radiators that need recycling and another hard one, a dresser that belonged to my other grandparents. It’s in disrepair and probably ought to be tossed but that will be as tough as the clothes. There’s also a lamp of theirs but that’s not as big of a deal. That will all have to wait until next weekend though. In the mean time, the will to do this has passed and I am spent. I kind of need to put the Christmas tree up which is it’s own emotional experience but a less sad one. It remains to be seen if I’m capable of anything more for today.