THESE BOOTS WERE MADE FOR....
These boots, both constructed for entirely different purposes in life side by side tell a lot about how I feel lately. Portland and Austin. I never needed my cowboy boots in Austin the way I need my Hunter boots in Portland though and I am loving this city and the new utility it has brought to my life. More urban, more nature without a doubt, and to be honest I even feel more connected to my intellect here than I have in a while. I have to say though, I miss Texas. I really miss Austin Texas. People are happier there, generally it seems that the streets of Austin are filled with people stoked on life...except in July when the heat causes insane road rage. Other than that people have this general glow of happiness, and it is contagious and I am use to that energy. I am less use to having to muster up the luster on my own! I had not really been able to quantify this exact emotion until recently when a bunch of Austin Texas boys rolled into Portland on the last leg of their first tour. The Wheeler Brothers, if you don't know their music check them out....they have really come a long way in the last year and have a sound all their own, and very cool guys worth supporting! http://wheelerbrothersmusic.com/ Anyway they were in Portland playing a show at a local place on our East side... somewhat comparable to Austin's gentrifying east side in that it is still affordable and where all the rad people live and before I go over there for brunch I have to make sure I have enough of a mis-matched outfit and my nails are funkster enough to not feel self conscious while I am sipping a Sunday morning hair of the dog. Groups of people that walk by look like they are a in a band, together. Each group cooler than the next, slightly coordinated in the colors (various shades of black/brown/grey) but different enough from each other that they clearly bring their own jam to the jam. And the shoes people, the shoes are not the shoes of happy feet! What they are missing most for my taste is sincerity because they appear to be competing for which one has the more miserable look on their face. When the wheeler brothers played at The White Eagle Saloon on a Tuesday night, small crowd they were smiling the whole time, generally happy guys and it translated into the energy of their music, and eventually like pulling teeth into the crowd. 
I'm not asking for Portland to start shitting rainbows and burping cotton candy, but pursed lips and and a strong desire not to make friends has got to go. It made me miss home in a way that I hadn't missed it since I moved here! I miss my friends and their friends and the ability to walk onto any patio bar in Austin any day of the week and it was like a group party for everyone! It hit me especially when they wrapped up their show and the band that they opened for came on. WOW stab my eyeballs out and seriously I love birds, and graphics but the dude had a silhouette of a crow on a white T-Shirt and again a miserable look on his face. Don't they know this attitude didn't exactly "work out" for Cobain?
Come to think of it the whole city seems to be in a competition for this prize....."who can I not smile at, give the death stare to for not stopping at the pace I'd perfer a stop to take place, and let me walk across the middle of a street, disregarding the thought of "jaywalking" being illegal... with the Heisman hand out and walking as slowww as possible..." I get this all the time here, the Heisman, boom...STOP....YOUR CAR .....I AM WALKING NOW. And I want to say, "are you serious buddy?" I also want to scream "do you think this will hurt me or you more when my gigantic black SUV with Texas plates hits you for being dum. Yes I am from Texas, no George Bush is not from Texas he is from Connecticut and this isn't Europe!!!! " To add to that if you are even at a small roll, keeping their safety in mind but barely rolling you get an entire new look. I call it the "cockface" but it could also be described as the "look up down"...where a middle age man, decently dressed or whatever decides it's his turn to cross so- hand goes up and he proceeds never making eye contact with you but nose slightly in the air, but eyes right on the hood of my car so he thinks I don't think he is looking and worried. Also to fully pull off cockface he must have a closed mouth a gaggly frown with a double chin that ordinarily wouldn't be there but he is straining so hard to produce eyes on the sides and back of his head that it causes his center of gravity from the neck up to shift about 3 to 4 inches back. Take the worse iPhone face you have ever seen and multiply it times whatever number makes you feel powerless and angry all at once, and this is the face. What women do in these same instances is an entire blog on it's own so I can't even go there. In these moments I find it hard not to just give them a little nudge with my car. Not to hurt them but just to cause a reaction and see if they have teeth! Because of the insane amount of peds in Portland, and the bad looks I was getting for the size of my car with just myself and Hanz in it I actually traded in my gigantic black SUV for a more fuel efficient car. And while I love the new whip I am silently angry this attitude and city already has me conforming. Truthfully, I didn't need the big damn thing and the gas mileage was eating my lunch so I guess they are right, but it doesn't always sit well with me, you know "being wrong".
And so it is Austin is cool, cool places to go the coolest nicest people ever, but it's not REALLY that pretty of a place. I mean Texas people let's be real for a second yellow is the new green, and the only reason you don't always notice the fact that the ground is the color of poo poo and pee pee is because you are probably always looking up at the bight blue sky to avoid noticing. That is what I did.
This post will come together soon I promise... interlude........
The place where I do see people smiling and full of life is in Forest Park, surround by so much O2 you feel high and could run for a year it's so much fun and the beauty of nature here is so distracting. Portland gets an A+ for positive vibes of that place. On the day to day, at work or out and about I have decided to combat this NW attitude, to do this I will just ham up my Texas. This may require drinking wine for breakfast, or something more extreme like renting out some billboard space for portraits of the highway men, or maybe one of those little stickers for my car that is a Texas flag and says HOME...I need one of those. Whatever it takes I will get back to my roots and take it to Panhandle from time to time. Matt called me out on it this weekend, we were giving directions to a guy, and as we departed I yelled "beautiful day to walk"....but it sounded more like "buuuuuyyuuutaaafuull dAAyy to waak". I am determined to keep my Texas energy and friendliness a part of my day to day, even if I have replaced my cowboy boots for rain boots, they won't get me down!!!! Maybe next time I get a "cockface Heisman" combo, they will just get a "Beautiful day to walk, sir" and a big Texas smile.
