I HAVE A COOL HAT

Josey got it for me in Montevideo. I think it resembles a Sherpa’s hat. So when I don said hat, I feel like an ancient man. I stop speaking English both aloud and in my brain. I can be the Sherpa of Austin, Texas. We are a proud people. We are the mountain climbing, mule hauling, guides not unlike the ones who directed Television News Anchor Ann Curry out the doors of the Today Show studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, across the globe, and up the ancient face of Mt. Kilimanjaro. All this before she decided she was tired and had to head back to the Today Show studios where Rachel Ray fed her Hot Cocoa and a whole Turducken.

I had my hat on the other day while I walked from Book People over to the Whole Foods Corporate Headquarters, where the Corporate Big Wigs have decided to plant an Ice Skating Rink. I Bought to pastry, bagged it up, and headed up to the roof where they put the rink. I sat watching the children and parent ice skaters, all of which are so much the antithesis of the ice skaters of television, who are graceful, beautiful, effortless. Each time a Father/Daughter Duo would pass me by, the father would turn his head, scowling in my direction as though I might hobble over to the two of them as they were lacing up and attempt to marry his daughter.

Or maybe it was not suspicion, but rather, sardonicism. Like, maybe his is thinking, “How is this sorry sherpa allowed to be here? Where is his progeny? Mine is RIGHT HERE. SEE? THAT’S RIGHT. THE APPLE-CHEEKED AND SENTIENT MANIFESTATION OF MY FISCAL PERSPICACITY.”

It was true: I had not had a child with me. I sat there, finishing my spiced sweet roll, watching the kids and dads shuffle by, their bladed feet trotting over the laid out carpet, with debit cards ready for a swipe. Then, on my way home, I rode through the UT campus, zig-zagging through a crowd of soon to be graduated people, wearing caps and gowns and heading with proud parents in tow for an auditorium. “MY PROGENY IS BOUND FOR SUCCESS!” these beaming parents are thinking. Then I went home and took a nap on the carpet of my still bed-less room, sleeping on my folded arms in a way which is sure to leave red fissuring marks on my face when I wake up. Sure enough, I wake up and they’re there. Red fissures looking like a topographical map of Pennsylvania forestry.

ALSO

I am going to Pennsylvania soon. This is exciting.

ALSO

I have decided to be more disciplined with the writing in this online journal. I have decided that I will post a new entry at least every week. I will do so on TUESDAYS. That way, some day I’ll have amassed a great pile.