Past and Future Self

That last post was for my friends from grad school. This one's for me. I suspect too many other people would find it too mundane and rambling, but I want to do this for myself.

After the past few posts, concentrating on the BG chapter of my life, it only made sense to move on to what came next. I was skimming through the blog posts from my time in Kansas City, and what I was most pleased to read were the posts that were considered too uninteresing, too journal-esque by my readership at the time. In retrospect, I sorely wish I had blogged in more detail about my specific adventures, rather than glossing over them or just not mentioning them at all. Of course, for privacy reasons, some things are better left undocumented. But I do like having an exact chronology of things that eventually became more significant memories than I ever thought they would.

For example, while it didn't seem blogworthy at the time, one weekend proved to be one of the most defining memories of my Kansas City epoch. It was April 2007, and I have tried many times to recreate the tone, the mood and mindset of that time. Maybe the ritualized attempts at repetition are partly why I think of it as a "defining" memory, but I digress. I had free time and solitude to explore, and being spring in Missouri, it was refreshing to drive with the windows down for a change. I was still relatively new to the area, and I just went driving around, seeing what was around the next bend, over the next hill. No boundaries. Urban, suburban, rural. Any and all. I had a 35mm camera and the soundtrack to Final Fantasy VIII on, and I explored the crap out of South KC and beyond. Calling it "pleasant" would be an understatement, but there was nothing particularly special about it. Just a guy with a camera and a car, enjoying postgraduate, bachelor freedom and exploring a new world map, where I would make a life for myself. To this day, I have a hard time listening to Final Fantasy VIII in the car unless I have the free time to explore with it. That was a very positive experience for me, but there was really nothing to it. I still cycle through some of those scenic pictures as desktop wallpaper, to evoke a sense of leisure and freedom. Imagine a weekend with no deadlines and no people.

It's things like that that I find myself now wishing I had detailed in my blog. I guess I should have kept a "real" journal on the side, daily entries of activities and private thoughts, but keeping a diary was never my style. I can see the merits of it, though.

There are so many memories I have from living in Kansas City, and it was a complicated blend of good and bad, of frustrations and hopes. In particular, I always felt like being laid off in December 2007 ruined me in a lot of ways, and not just financially. I was frustrated over a lot of things, my place in the world, and I had just begun a course down a path that got blocked off. I will always wonder what would have happened had I not had the rug pulled out from under me at the worst possible time.

So, this week I am up to a few things that I might wish one day that I'd blogged about. That's what I'm saying. All of that was just a preface. I'm suspecting--hoping, even--that one day, years from now, I'll be sitting at a red stoplight, idly recalling this week, wondering when exactly it happened, and in what order. My memory by then might have divided this week up into separate weeks altogether, and it might be interesting to rediscover the details.

Recently the Captain was here for SXSW, just as he was last year. I already regret not blogging about it in glorious fashion. I am one day going to truly regret not blogging on a regular basis the past couple years. This time of my life is going to just be a blur. It kind of already is. But while the Captain was here, I kept bringing up my motivation for showing him a good time as "redeeming myself," to which he would say, "Whatever that means." Well, I know what I mean. Too long have I been a cause for sympathy or disappointment, rather than the guarantee of humor and adventure. Too long have I talked about how "we should do that sometime," rather than actually doing whatever "that" was. 2015 was a catstrophe of a year, but this feeling goes farther back than that. In fact, I think I could trace it all the way back to November 2007, if not before that, even.

So anyway, I emailed Dean "The Reverend" Yzon for what has been far too long. Months? I just didn't have much going on, but I still want to plan a visit sometime. On that note, the tone of this week has been set. It was time for me to address some goals on that front.

Monday I took Liam to Amanda's house, as my weekly routine. Give Juliet time to herself while I babysit the kids when they get home from school, then when the parents get home, leave mine there to be babysat while I go teach a piano lesson in Pflugerville. Then pick up Liam, probably go to the grocery store, then go home. That's the routine.

I left a couple hours earlier than necessary just to drive around and think. Think about SXSW, about 2007, about alternate universes of my life. Austin and KC are far more different than they are alike, but there are always threads that connect for me. For this drive, I was listening to the Halo 5 soundtrack, as I had done when the Captain was here for the festival.

Now, I know some of you are rolling your eyes. "So, first you were indulging in Ohio nostalgia, now you have moved on to the next time of your life, which was Kansas City. I thought you said you were living in the present?"

I am living in the present. But I am blogging outside of time. Speaking of which, and since this post is entirely for myself, I do have some questions for Future Me, upon digging up this post years from now. Is it working? Are you getting anything out of this post? How long has it been since this week? How many times have you visited KC since I wrote this post? Is Halo 6 out yet? Go back and reread the blog posts from 2007, Future Me, and write a blog post connecting it to this one, and what you feel like "now." Above all, do you look back on this week with any sort of whimsy or satisfaction, or was it entirely inconsequential and not worth the recollection?

Some more context for Future Me: With beautiful spring weather, before it gets bastardly hot for months on end, it seemed like a good time to replay my favorite game of all time, Final Fantasy VI. I am up to the opera house, but that sequence is too involved to play while I'm holding Liam. He's about 13 months old now, and I pretty much only play SNES while holding him in the rocking chair with a stack of board books to flip through. So, the opera sequence is kind of involved and time-sensitive, and I can't split my attention easily. I'll wait for him to be asleep before I can play some more.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is out in theaters, and I am itching to get a babysitter so we can go see it. I haven't even heard the score yet, but I've heard it pales in comparison to Man of Steel. I hope this movie inspires me the way the first one did. There, that ought to get a reaction out of Future Me.

Also, I am up to Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica, also out of intentional Kansas City nostalgia. I've seen the whole series probably four or five times now. This time, however, the entire point was to use the show to set the pace for a workout routine. I would watch one episode every day, while exercising, and not quit until the credits rolled. One episode is a good length for a well-paced and thorough workout, and over the course of four seasons, that should have amounted to many weeks of getting fit. But in reality, I've been watching the show while doing anything but exercise. Wash dishes, if anything. They were good intentions, though.

So, this week.

Monday, I watched The Bourne Supremacy, expecting to watch the third one on Wednesday. I watched the first half while killing time with Liam, and watched the second half at Star Coffee on my way to the piano lesson, since I had some extra time.

Tuesday, to give Juliet another day to herself, since my schedule was blissfully open, I took Liam exploring all afternoon, listening to all four discs of Final Fantasy VIII (plus the orchestral album and some bootleg unreleased tracks), hearkening back to when I would explore Kansas City. But this time, it wasn't really exploring, since I was already familiar with all of the roads. It was more like roaming. I was wandering. Still pleasant, but I would have to drive pretty far indeed to make any new discoveries. I know Austin too well.

I went out around Lakeway, Bee Cave, Barton Creek, West Lake Hills... to all the well-to-do neighborhoods where I usually find myself working gigs but not having time to stop and do something for myself afterwards.

Whenever I take 620 past Lakeline, I always want to stop at RC Fowlers, a sports bar boasting wings and poker tournaments. I think, "I used to have wings with Brad Fowler... this must be the universe telling me they are one and the same. The only thing missing is a good poker game." Imagine, if you will, a remote-controlled Brad Fowler. Hence, RC Fowlers. But I didn't go there this time. Again. But someday, I will.

Eventually, around dinnertime, I ended up at The Domain. It's just where I happened to be when Liam was desperate for dinner. There was a spot I knew would be good for both of us. The outdoor fireplace next to Starbucks, a sort of mini-park positioned between a bunch of restaurant patios. After playing there for a while, I took him around in the stroller until it got dark. One of the restaurants in particular caught my eye, and I decided I would come back to it tomorrow. For the record, it's Blackfinn Ameripub. The menu was enticing, and the ambiance had me at "hello."

As I said before, Austin and Kansas City are actually more different than they are alike. The Domain is the closest thing Austin has to KC's Country Club Plaza, although the architecture is different. Posh outlet stores and pretentious restaurants, a movie theater, kind of an outdoor mall. But the Domain is much more residential, with loft apartments above everything, and the Plaza has a couple more coffee shops and a Barnes & Noble. Basically, the Country Club Plaza doesn't get as boring as fast, but if we're being perfectly honest, they're both overrated as hotspots. I'm sorry, Austin, but it's true: The Domain is not all that. And I'm sorry, Kansas City, but it's true: the Plaza is nice, but it's... I mean, come on. It's a backup plan. It's a good one, don't get me wrong! But let's cut the hype. And they are both equally pretentious. Really. And the only reason I'm so nostalgic for the Plaza is because I used it as my base of operations so often. I never fit in. But the architecture is nice.

The point is that the vibe of the place got me reminiscing, mulling over some loose ends from my time in Kansas City, before the shit hit the fan in December 2007. Dean and I had schemes, ambitions. Asset development. Brad and I had ideas, aspirations. In terms both abstract and specific, I began analyzing how to transpose those motifs to my current life. The things we were going to build for ourselves in Kansas City... things I never really gave up on. I am being vague here, I know. The problem is that too much of it depends on other people.

And that's when it hit me. I was out and about, alone with my baby, on a Tuesday night, lamenting that other people were unavailable to join me. I'm the one with the supposed ball-and-chain of a baby, and he's out on the town with me. I am not the stereotype home-body dad whom you never seem to hear from, and give up trying to socialize with. Having a baby isn't the end of being awesome. That's a myth. I am still awesome. It's you people who need to get out more.

And so I continued to ponder lost goals from 2007. I hoped that Future Me had more answers than I did. Intangible solutions remained just beyond my grasp.

Later, at home, I multitasked on the laptop, searching the past and future for these intangible solutions with a little New Amsterdam gin to assist. I think the last two times I had a Bourne marathon, I was drinking gin, so it just seemed like the thing to do, even though watching two movies over three days doesn't constitute a "marathon."

On a side note, the combination of the citrus-and-juniper taste of gin and the two cues from Battlestar Galactica "The Dance" and "Fight Night" still, still, still remind me of fighting to find a parking space at Oak Park Mall in Overland Park, KS, to do my Christmas shopping in late November 2007. Careful what you listen to in the car. It could leave an impression. But I don't regret that. And I don't mean to imply that I was drinking gin while cruising the parking lots. Just that gin was kind of a KC thing for me. Whenever we were at a bar and the waitress asked for my order, and I hadn't decided yet because I was too distracted by the banter, I would blurt out "gin-and-tonic" as the tentative "appetizer" of a drink. When I moved to Austin, I discovered that gin was better straight; no tonic. Tonic water is for pussies. So, gin became a Kansas City thing. And a Christmas thing. But I digress.

Then again, digression is the very character of this entire blog post.

I told you this one's for me.

Wednesday, as per routine, was Juliet's day to take Liam as well as go babysit, leaving me to my afternoon off. I finally did something I never got around to doing since moving to Austin, and went to the rock-climbing gym on North Lamar. It obviously reminded me of the one in Blue Springs, MO, with Dean. (Obviously? Ha! As if anyone reading this even remembers those blog posts. I'm not that vain.)  Perhaps hitting the gin the night before rock-climbing was not one of my better ideas, granted, but the finger injury I mentioned a few posts ago hindered me much more.

After rock-climbing to my (dis)satisfaction, I went to Cuppa Austin, which used to be Scooters Coffeehouse. It's not the same without the assortment of flavored grounds, but the ambiance of the place is largely intact. So I went there to evoke Scooters in KC. Actually, if I really wanted to recreate my rock-climbing in KC, I should have gone to Einstein Bros. afterwards, because that's what we would do. We'd sit there with a cup of vanilla hazelnut and talk about our ideas and ambitions. I thought about going there, but I wanted to go to Formerly Scooters for sure, and I only had time for one coffee shop.

Again multitasking on my laptop, connecting with people and outlining a budget and itinerary for a Kansas City solo trip, this time I watched--you guessed it--The Bourne Ultimatum, following up on Monday night. Getting in a mindset of a more glamorous time, but filtering out all the bad things from those not-so-halcyon days. I was intent on making 2016 exceed even my most ambitious New Year's resolutions, while struggling to define a way to "redeem" 2007 in my eyes, as the Captain says, "whatever that's supposed to mean."

Looking forward to the fifth Bourne movie. Hopefully, I will watch it in Kansas City with the right people. Future Me, if you missed out on that, it must be a serious regret for you.

After getting a solid caffeine- and shaky-cam-induced buzz,  I hit the road to meet up with my friend Ariana for dinner at the place I picked out the night before, blasting John Powell's music.  There is nothing finer than Waterloo while you are driving to meet a friend for dinner at the bar of your choice. I think the Pikey would agree.

Other than that, there's not much else to say. It was what it was. We were there for a while, and it was good. With that, the parallels with Kansas City were complete.

Thursday, today, was a day of unpleasantries. Back to the grind.

Well, Future Me, I hope this was memorable for you. Otherwise, it's an awful high word count for such frivolity. For me, it was just a pretty good couple of days, but I'm hoping the memory of it gets better with age. Like Scotch. And I'm sure there were other KC parallels that I left out.

I still haven't found the answers I was looking for. But I am holding on to those intangible 2007 goals, unfulfilled as they were, vague as they still are. We were building something back then. This is a revival. Glory awaits us.

"Activate the asset."