Heading South
I always get anxious before a trip (even before a vacation, for Pete's sake!). I get a little wistful (even sad!). I start wishing I didn't have to go anywhere, that I could be in my own bed on the following night, when I know instead I'll probably be between bristly sheets, with a strange, useless heater whirring through the night.
Funny, since I spend the rest of the year longing, in the back of my mind, to go somewhere, wishing I had the kind of job that sent me on trips, wishing I could afford a vacation in Europe or on an island. Hotels seem romantic and exciting to me then. Actually, some of them are exciting. I like that kind of hotel!
I don't think I'll be staying in that kind of hotel in Austin.
I contacted a writer I know from Washington -- she's temporarily in Austin working on a book and teaching -- to see if we could get together. She not only jumped at the chance but offered to pick me up at the airport tomorrow evening. How nice! Then we'll go to dinner. Maybe she'll even drive me back to my remote hotel afterward. A boy can dream.
Thursday I'll have either lunch or dinner with a fellow homosexual who is on the panel with me Thursday morning. I knew him in graduate school almost 20 years ago, and we were in a writing group by mail with some other grad school friends for a few years in the 1990s. Then the other members, all women, started having babies and it got hard to keep it going.
This guy and I aren't that close -- in fact we barely knew each other in grad school. He was very out of the closet. I was very . . . not. I felt threatened and intimidated by him just because he was gay and out. Isn't that silly? It's true.
But in the years since, although we've been only in occasional touch, we've gotten to know each other better, mostly through our writing (which is a certain kind of getting to know each other, but a getting to know each other nonetheless). It will be good to see him.
I have another friend from DC on the panel, and who knows, we might hang out too. She and I used to work with yet another woman who now lives in Austin. I'd like to see her too, but since I'm there so briefly I don't know if it will work out.
I'm sure I'll run into some other people. And I hope to just wander around town a bit.
Today when I was privately fretting about how the trip was starting to feel like more trouble and expense than it was worth, I told myself to just stop already: It will be an adventure.
Funny, since I spend the rest of the year longing, in the back of my mind, to go somewhere, wishing I had the kind of job that sent me on trips, wishing I could afford a vacation in Europe or on an island. Hotels seem romantic and exciting to me then. Actually, some of them are exciting. I like that kind of hotel!
I don't think I'll be staying in that kind of hotel in Austin.
I contacted a writer I know from Washington -- she's temporarily in Austin working on a book and teaching -- to see if we could get together. She not only jumped at the chance but offered to pick me up at the airport tomorrow evening. How nice! Then we'll go to dinner. Maybe she'll even drive me back to my remote hotel afterward. A boy can dream.
Thursday I'll have either lunch or dinner with a fellow homosexual who is on the panel with me Thursday morning. I knew him in graduate school almost 20 years ago, and we were in a writing group by mail with some other grad school friends for a few years in the 1990s. Then the other members, all women, started having babies and it got hard to keep it going.
This guy and I aren't that close -- in fact we barely knew each other in grad school. He was very out of the closet. I was very . . . not. I felt threatened and intimidated by him just because he was gay and out. Isn't that silly? It's true.
But in the years since, although we've been only in occasional touch, we've gotten to know each other better, mostly through our writing (which is a certain kind of getting to know each other, but a getting to know each other nonetheless). It will be good to see him.
I have another friend from DC on the panel, and who knows, we might hang out too. She and I used to work with yet another woman who now lives in Austin. I'd like to see her too, but since I'm there so briefly I don't know if it will work out.
I'm sure I'll run into some other people. And I hope to just wander around town a bit.
Today when I was privately fretting about how the trip was starting to feel like more trouble and expense than it was worth, I told myself to just stop already: It will be an adventure.
posted by Billy at 11:55 PM
1 Comments:
Hope your travel is uneventful, your sheets comfortable, your panels productive and the experience untainted by preconceptions. Enjoy. Don't forget the bats at sunset, that's a real big thing down there.
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