The "Keep Austin Weird" Moment That Totally Backfired...

I love Austin, and I love my neighborhood. I have lived here for six and half years (double the length I’ve lived anywhere else) and I have absolutely no desire to move anywhere else. I love living central where I can walk to the original Whole Foods, Book People (the greatest bookstore ever), and the Town Lake (excuse me, Lady Bird Lake) Hike and Bike Trail. All the downtown bars and restaurants are only a four dollar cab ride away, and three of the best breakfast places to cure a hangover are two blocks west of me. I love seeing local businesses, like Tacos and Tequila (yeah, you read that right TACOS and TEQUILA… on tap), succeed and giant corporations, like Walmart, kept out of our neighborhood.

I take a lot of grief from my family for not only moving to Austin, but staying in Austin. I’m pretty sure I disappointed my dad, by deciding to go to school here and not in College Station where his Alma Mater stands. (Okay, disappointed might me the wrong word. I don’t think I disappointed my dad by going to college, I just think he would have been ecstatic if I had become an Aggie instead of a Longhorn.) Every time Austin is brought up by or around my parents, it is followed by a snide remark about how weird this town is. Every time I do something they think is odd, it’s because I live in (or have lived too long) in Austin.

I don’t care. I love Austin.

But!

(Yes, there is always a “but”…)

Something has happened in my neighborhood that makes me think every negative thing my father or mother or anyone has ever said about the capital of Texas might be true.

Now, I know to a lot of people, this might not be a very big deal. In fact, I’m sure many of you will think I’m crazy for even taking the time to write a blog post and draw a picture to explain my hatred of this. But, look into yourself. We all have “things” that get under our skin. We all have pet peeves that we think are very important. I don’t like restaurant that offer you Tabasco, but no salsa. (We live in Texas IHop!!!) I don’t like it when Boyfriend leaves his work gloves all over the house. (Why did his boss buy him 10 pairs of gloves???)

And!

And, I don’t like, neigh I HATE the parking spaces on 6th street you have to back into!!!

So, I’ve used this map before, but here it is again. I live in the small community called Clarksville, which is located just west of downtown. The southern edge of Clarksville is W. 6th street. This isn’t crazy, rowdy, Girls Gone Wild 6th street. Nor, is it “I’m a pretentious douche bag who only downs Vodka Redbulls at Molotav” 6th street. (Please note, That I’m just trying to distinguish between the two very different areas of 6th street bars and not making fun, because –face it- we’ve all been there… multiple times, and who and I to judge…) This area of 6th street is full of specialty art and design shops, restaurants like the original Z-Tejas, and other small businesses like Yoga Studios and drug stores. The street was all hunky dory fine until the City came in and redid the parking spaces.

Like this…Yeah… Let’s talk this one through… 6th Street is one way. This means that anyone who wants to park in these parking spots has to drive past the spot, stop, make sure no one is behind them, and then reverse back into on coming traffic to park in the space. Why make traffic stop when someone is trying to park? Instead why not make the parking spots “slant” the other way, so you can just drive right into one, and then when you are ready to leave, you back out of the space when no one is coming. Really Austin? Why? This just doesn’t seem to make sense, and I promise it is not just my inability to back into parking spaces that makes these parking spaces so frustrating and ridiculous to me. I truly believe this to be a “Keep Austin Weird” moment that has totally backfired.

I Almost Ate An Entire Bag of Halloween Candy Just to Prove Boyfriend Wrong...

I almost had a small heart attack last night. I thought, just for a second or two, I wasn’t going to have any trick-or-treaters come to my door. I’ve been excepting kiddos to come to my house on Halloween ever since we moved in last summer, but I’ve been trying to down play how excited I was because last year when I thought I would have trick-or-treaters I didn’t get any and Boyfriend made fun of me for buying and crap load of candy. This year I didn’t buy any crazy decorations or dish out 12.99 for a pumpkin and I only bought one bag of candy.

6:00PM Halloween Night…

Boyfriend: (talking to me on the couch while I’m reading and he’s watching football) “You need to go pick up the Laundry.”

Me: “Doesn’t the place close at 9? I’m not going now because the trick-or-treaters will be here very soon.”

Boyfriend: “We aren’t going to have any trick-or-treaters!”

Me: “Yes, we are and when they come to my door I will be there with candy for them!”

Boyfriend: “Fine. I’ll go get the laundry.”

Me: “I’ll go. I just won’t go until later, after the kids come begging for sugar.”

Boyfriend: “No, you’re right. You’ve been waiting to this all weekend. (Um, more like since June) You stay. I’ll go and I’ll pick up another bag of candy on the way home. But, before you get all excited about the hundreds of kids that will tramping up and down our front stairs, why don’t you look out the window.”

Me: “Why, what’s outsi… WFT?!?!?!”

Yeah, so here I am defending the children of my neighborhood from evil Boyfriend who doesn’t think they will come and ask for treats and I look outside and see kids with their parents SKIPPING OVER MY HOUSE!!!

Me: “What the F? Are we not good enough for those little brats? Is our house not cool enough? Do we deserve to be the bottom feeders of our street because we didn’t shell out hard earned money for a black light or black trash bags to make a haunted house? (Thank you over achieving neighbors across the street.)”

Boyfriend: “They clearly are discriminating against us because it is obvious we are a rental and that means we are young and have no kids and must do lots of drugs and poison candy.”

Me: “So what if we rent! Does that mean my Kit Kats aren’t as good as Mr. Long Time Resident across the street? Hell no! And so what if we poison our candy, isn’t that what parents are for? Good parenting is not not letting your kid go to rental house. Good parenting is checking the candy for poison and razor blades before their little brats eat it!”

Boyfriend: “Why don’t you just sit outside? Then everyone will know you’re not creepy and they will let their kids take candy from you."

Me: “And get eaten alive my mosquitoes? I don’t think so.”

It’s at about this time in the conversation that three kids have passed up our house (I know this because I keep peering out the front window) and Boyfriend leaves to go pick up our laundry. I sit on the couch getting madder and madder.

Me: (totally internally now) “Pass by my house. Snobs! All of you. Just because there isn’t a Lexus under my carport… Besides those kids were all alone with their parents. No friends, no siblings… They were probably the really over baring, protective types that didn’t have kids until they were 45. Snobs. This is what I get for living in central Austin. If we lived down south or up north this wouldn’t have happened. Kids would be lining up for my Almond Joys.”

A few minutes of stewing later…

Me: (again to myself) “What if no one really does come? Boyfriend is going to rub it in for weeks that I hid candy from him so he wouldn’t eat it, just to have no trick-or-treaters anyway. (Grabbing a Hershey’s Bar) Maybe I should just eat it all. Yeah, I’ll eat it all and then when boyfriend comes back I’ll just tell him we had a crazy big rush and it’s all gone and why didn’t he pick up another bag of candy while he was out. And I’ll take all the wrappers out and throw them away in my neighbor’s trash can. Or I don’t have to eat all the candy, but save some of it in my underwear drawer. Yeah, that way I’ll have some left over… Reeses Peanut Butter Cups for a few months sounds like a good plan to me.”

Luckily before I started smashing chocolate in my mouth there was a loud knock at my door followed by the beautiful music that is, “Trick or Treat!”

I had lots of very cute kids come to my door. Snow White was very popular and so was Spider Man. My favorite was a girl who looked about 10 in a gypsy costume. The cutest was a tie between a little guy dressed up as a dinosaur who cried when his mother picked him up to walk down my porch stairs because he wanted to walk them by himself. This seemed like a pretty reasonable request to me, and I watched as his mom put him back at the top of the stairs and he slowly walked them all by himself. The other cutie was a robot of about 4 who came to the door with his little sister (3 maybe) who was dressed up like a mermaid. He made sure she held her bag open and told me not to give her candy until she said, “trick or treat” then he got his candy, looked me straight in the eye and said, “You have a very happy Halloween.” I told him, “Yes Sir, I’ll try.”

Clarksville! (we used to be black, but now we're just gay for Satan)

Clarksville

As many of you know, Boyfriend and I recently moved to a new home in Clarksville. I thought I would write a nice post about my new neighborhood.

This is Clarksville…


These are Clarksville’s original residents...

(Okay so these aren't the exact slaves that lived on my street, but you get the idea...)

That’s right kids! My neighborhood used to be the plantation and slave quarters of Governor Elisha M Pease. (Yes, girly name. I know.) Interesting facts about Elisha.. (Manners and a respect for Texas Governors would say I should call him Governor Pease, but Elisha just rolls off the tongue and for some reason I have yet to spell Governor correct. Why are there two Rs???).. Anyway, Elisha was from Enfield, Massachusetts. Enfield Rd is the northern border of Clarksville. He was the fifth and the thirteenth governor of our great state. And he owned a large plantation in West Austin! After the Civil War and after Elisha’s slaves were emancipated he set aside a large area of land for his newly freed “employees” to live so they would keep working for him. In 1871 Charles Clark, a freeman, established the African American community of Clarksville. It was the first freeman’s town west of the Mississippi. You can still see Charles’ home on West 10th street. Wow! Austin is such a progressive city!

Yeah… not so much…

In the early 1900s the city of Austin decided that the Black residents of Clarksville had it too good.
“Look you guys, this is prime real-estate, and the white people are beginning to feel cramped downtown, and we’re going to have to start getting these streets ready for the hipster invasion in about 80 years… so… well… you’ve got to go. Like now.”
That was pretty much how the notice to the Black community started. It finished like this,
“YOU ARE FOREVER BANNED TO THE EASTSIDE!!! Oh, you don’t want to move? Well we’re just going to cut off your water, you will never get electricity, and I hope you like dirt roads…”
Most of the community moved, but a few stayed and used kerosene lamps and got their water from Town Lake (now Lady Bird Lake) until the 1970s.

Guess who didn’t want to live in an old black neighborhood. White people! So in the 1950s the immigrants moved in. Anthony Colanetta opened Anthony’s Laundry. (Which is still there and has been a savor since the washer has been broken at my place. Thanks Anthony!) He also leased the place next door to Hylton Nau. I have already written about my love for Nau Pharmacy’s and their breakfast tacos, but the whole place is super awesome. Chocolate Malts and Shakes, funky toys, and the best candy counter in town! In 1979 Craig Weller and Mark Skyles open Clarksville Natural Grocery. As small grocery story which actually isn’t crazy overpriced. A year later they teamed up with John Macky and opened the first Whole Foods. Whole Food and its national offices are within walking distance of Clarksville and my new home.

(Inside Nau's Pharmacy)


(Whole Foods on 6th and Lamar)

The population is a little different now. Over priced student apartments line Enfield because of the very popular UT bus route that drives that road. Hippies still live in the small houses covered in ivy with beads hanging on the porch. Doctors, Lawyers, and their Mercedes driving wives tore down the other small homes to build large homes in all different types of architecture. Almost every home has a cat that lazily sleep on the fount step in the evening, and a dog they walk in the morning.

Clarksville was just recently voted One of the Great Neighborhoods in America because of the history and it’s people who want to keep it local. I agree. I love walking to Nau’s on a Sunday morning to sit in the diner and read the paper and magazines while listening to the local chatter. I can’t wait to take “future dog owned by myself and boyfriend” to the dog park across 10th street. We walk to Cheepos to buy used DVDs and video games. Our cactus friends are getting repotted and new soil this weekend with goods from Shedd Nursery. Boyfriend and I take a walk usually every night and here are some photos from our walk yesterday.


(motitos from the original Z Tajas in Clarksville)




("Art" outside Cheepos)


(The Castle... did I tell you we have a Castle...)


(The downtown view from the top of the hill.)

more to come soon...