NEW POLL: HELP ME DECIDE ON MY NEXT TATTOO

Ever since I joined the cool kids club by getting myself permanently inked I've been excitedly daydreaming about what my next tattoo will be. You can help by voting in the poll to the right, where I've listed some of my favorite ideas. If you have any other suggestions feel free to share them with me in the comments section below.

The results were as follows:

Chinese character on my back - 0 votes
"Economic Anthropology" in a heart on my bicep - 2 votes
Ryan Dobosh's face on my left calf - 1 vote
Mark Siano's face on my right calf - 0 votes
Letters on my knuckles spelling out "I luv catz" - 1 vote
Neck cougar - 8 votes

Thanks for voting. I'll let you know when I get that 66% supported neck cougar tattoo.

ATX: BATS, TATS, AND THE GOLDEN GUN

Both for the sake of my memory and for the benefit of those for whom a visit to Dobosh country is still in its anticipatory stages, I recall here the highlights of my wonderful week in Austin, Texas.

PART I: Food
Austin has tons of great cafes and restaurants and I had very fine guides in Dobosh and Sandra Dee. I concentrated on the eating of Mexican food, something that Indiana is sorely lacking. My favorite discovery was migas, an egg dish with chiles, Mexican cheese, and tortilla chips added in at the end for texture. It is typically served with black beans and tortillas so you can make your own little breakfast tacos. Here is the migas I enjoyed at the South Congress Café, accompanied by a freakishly delicious potato pancake made with (dear god!) gouda cheese.

A recipe for migas is available here. Yum.

PART II: People
A town of roughly 700,000, Austin is filled with the kinds of characters you would expect to find on a small blue island in a giant red state. The lively, youthful atmosphere has much to do with the presence of several large universities and a famously happening music and bar scene. It is also so blanketed in independent businesses (particularly cafés and restaurants) that I was initially certain that there was a citywide statute that restricted chains. Turns out it is merely the iconoclastic preferences of Austinites that prevent Starbucks and 7-11s from proliferating. What a cool town.

Ryan, his lady Sandra Dee, and VacationKougar™ spent almost every morning visiting a different café for coffee, crosswords, dominos and leisurely reading. Everybody was friendly, sometimes overwhelmingly so. I was impressed by the fact that nearly everyone, from the ubercool baristas, to the joggers and bicyclists, to the flirtatious taxi driver who told me he “didn’t think they grew ‘em that purdy in Seattle” had numerous and visible tattoos. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if everyone else, legislators and lobbyists included, had hidden ones.

Ryan fits in quite nicely.

PART III: Activities
Not to demean my lovely hosts,
but I could have had a great time in Austin even without the help of locals. Granted, a 7-day bender might have lacked the variety and texture of my actual visit.

Originally I had justified the lengthy stay by convincing Ryan that he wanted to give me driving lessons, helping me along in my quest to obtain my driver’s license this year, a mere 15 years late. While I still need a lot more practice, I did enough driving that it became fun, rather than terrifying, and Dobosh was marvelously patient with me.

One of the first things Sandra Dee recommended I see was first Thursday on South Congress. A recently revitalized and now quite charming strip of shops and restaurants a mile or two up the road from the capitol dome, South Congress is most exciting on the first Thursday of every month, when artisans and craftspeople set up tents and live bands entertain the crowds. I spent a pleasant couple of hours browsing things and stuff, buying gifts and commodities, and slowly making my way towards downtown and the dome (barely visible here at the end of the street).

On my way north I couldn't help but notice a crowd of people gathered both on the Congress Bridge and in a small park beneath the bridge.

As I looked for a place from which to observe I overheard someone explaining the attraction; it was the bats. Austin is the home of North America’s largest urban bat colony, 1.5 million little creatures who come out en masse every night around sunset to feed on a nightly average of 10,000-30,000 pounds of insects. Ryan and I had been talking about going to see them but his work schedule kept getting in the way so it was serendipitous that I happened upon them myself.

The smell of 1.5 million bats is really something. I don’t know how desirable a riverfront condo in Austin would be, nor did I see the appeal of dining outdoors at the nearby T.G.I.Fridays.

The next day miss Sandra Dee was my tour guide. We spent the afternoon exploring the capitol (which, in true Texas style is actually larger than the federal version):

Later, we enjoyed cocktails and hors d’oeuvres at the Blanton Museum before a late dinner and a night on the town with a bunch of Sandra Dee's friends.

But it wasn’t all dissolute behavior. In fact I spent much of my week in Austin studying and so was determined to make the most of my last day in town. After a lazy afternoon we spent driving, enjoying cold beer, and sitting under the AC vent, Ryan packed up his Colt 1911 and we headed out to Red’s Indoor Range to shoot a few rounds. Since I’d never fired a gun before Ryan decided against bringing the heavy rifle, allowing me to instead use a firearm passed down from his grandfather and plated with gold by his father in the 1970s. It was a most impressive weapon.

And though I was nervous as heck and a little harried by all the other ammunition exploding around me, I did ok.

Actually, I killed it good.

It took me at least an hour to calm down enough to consider the next item on the agenda: getting a tattoo. Ryan and I had dinner on South Congress then wandered over to a studio a few doors down. I had been drawing sketches on my feet all day and showed one to a tattoo artist in the middle of inking a woman’s ankle. He told us he could do it after he was done with his current customer. And so we waited.

After browsing some magazines for inspiration for Ryan's next tattoo, we decided to grab a quick drink. Ryan wrote down his number and we headed upstairs; above the studio was a bar called the Continental Gallery where we ordered two Maker’s on the rocks. Following the stairs to a 3rd floor we made the happy discovery of a dark, deserted room with a ping-pong table and a lovely view of the city.

Dobosh isn’t at all competitive, so I found quite convincing his argument that when we got the call from the tattoo artist in the middle of a game where I was ahead 9 to 2, we had to run and would “never know the outcome of the game.” Whether or not I could have done something so audacious as to tie Ryan by 2 winning sets to match his 2 winning sets will forever remain a mystery. One thing is certain however – when I get back to China I’m hiring an elementary school student and going into training.

Since I’ve been back in Bloomington showing off my new ink a few of my friends have asked what possessed me to get my very first tattoo(s). Truthfully I’m not entirely sure. It was neither a longstanding dream nor a totally impulsive action. I’d given some thought to getting something, but I don’t quite know what sparked the final decision. I was certainly influenced by the style of Austin’s residents (particularly Ryan) and by the visual assault of the “lone star” in the city, but in the end it was just something I wanted to do.

While I was in the chair I understood it a little better. Radiohead was playing on the stereo, tiny needles were making indelible marks an inch from my toes, and every so often I would look at Ryan happily. There was a stubborn pleasure to doing something so permanent to my body and it felt right to have a visible reminder of the memory of my trip. The pain (which was mild and brief) brought me into a perfect present, and crystallized the moment when a dear friend was close at hand.

Here are two views, with, and without shoes.

It was impressive that I made it through the next day without tripping over something or crashing into a wall, so often did I look down to gaze with admiration at my feet. Later, while making a phone call, I suddenly realized that the stars weren't placed very symmetrically, with one a full centimeter lower than the other. But I don't mind at all, and in fact it is probably a good reminder that nothing is perfect and it really doesn't matter when there is so much more in the world to care about and to fight for.

But damn. My feet are looking CUTE.

CAR CRASHES AND TRAIN TROUBLES

I was sitting in the back seat of the car, idly playing with my phone, staring out the window at the receding town of Marion, Illinois, and breathing a sigh of relief at having escaped the family reunion without having been forced to renounce my support for the pinko policies of our president. I definitely wasn’t paying a lick of attention to what was happening in front of the car.

“Uh-oh, this isn’t good,” came Rick's voice from the front seat.

I leaned left to angle for a view of the front windshield. A gray Cadillac with a smashed hood was swerving wildly and heading straight towards us. While I’m not sure if I registered that the driver was slumped in his seat I somehow knew he wasn’t conscious.

The muscles in my neck constricted. Zombies arose in my mind as one possible explanation. I should have braced for impact but I stayed stock still as Rick drove on and then veered right at a crucial moment, pulling the car up on the sidewalk between two telephone poles as the car sped by us. Safe, we turned to see the Cadillac smash into a telephone pole about 100 feet away.

We all heaved massive sighs of relief and Rick made a U-turn to check on the condition of the driver. When we got there two guys had already stopped to open the car door and try to rouse the man. He was an old guy, late 70s-ish, unconscious but alive. The airbag had deployed but there was a thin stream of red technicolor blood down one side of his face. It seemed that the poor fellow had suffered a heart attack or stroke and lost consciousness with his foot on the gas. He seemed to have first hit a business that sold memorial headstones and then veered towards us before the second collision stopped him.

Rick got a blanket out of the guy’s trunk and found some ID to give to the paramedics who arrived within minutes. I put my head on my mother’s shoulder and cried a little.

On our way out of town I remembered to take a picture for Sarah, who shares her last name with the town. Most of it was quite a bit nicer than this sorry place.

The reunion was pleasant and it was good to see the extended family, a big bunch of very friendly people with political views completely contrary to my own. I sobered up with fear on the first night when one of the cousins turned to ask me what I thought about the direction the country was going in. I wouldn’t attribute malicious intentions to anyone – quite possibly they were just curious about probing the logical capabilities of a real live liberal in their midst – but I did feel quite alone and rather under attack. Thankfully it didn’t last long. The next day I identified one group unlikely to debate which party was to blame for the econopocalypse: the under-12 set. I spent much of Sunday bent over coloring books and browsing the more hilarious options in the Mac photobooth with the kids.

My cousin Nora knew something about imovie and suggested we make a film, which, after hitting on voice-overs as our filmic stamp, we did. Here is a cropped version, featuring Danny voiced by sheep, Amanda voiced by Nora, and Dustin voiced by Danny:

I spent the next week in St. Louis with the fam and my giant stack of books. (For the record I read about 8, far short of the goal of 2/day). Meals were eaten, garage sales were perused, floors were sanded. I spent a particularly delightful day and night in the town of Washington, a little old town on the Missouri river where Rick is fixing up a stately brick house built in 1926.

There was some sadness in the trip too. I got the news that a good friend of my fathers passed away from a stroke and on Sunday attended the memorial for my uncle Dave. It was a good time to remember that these functions serve a positive purpose, ritualistically and socially. There were many reunions of people who hadn’t seen each other in decades and much laughter and fond memories.

I boarded the Texas Eagle last night at 8pm, and watched the sun set over St. Louis (and railcars heaped with coal) before the train left the depot.

Once the windows returned nothing but my own dark reflection I turned to drink and book, buying a wee bottle of Dewar’s in the lounge and drinking it on ice while reading contentedly from George Saunders’ CivilWarLand in Bad Decline. I spent a few pleasant minutes trying to decide how to describe the sound and feeling off the train (eventually deciding on rattle/scrape thump-a-thump) and then drifted off to sleep, curled up on my two seats and raised footrests.

I love Amtrak, I really do, but the rails in this country are in a sorry state and it is a rare trip that doesn’t encounter some problem or delay. So I wasn’t entirely surprised when a group of loud and pissed-off travelers came tromping through my carriage at 3am on their way to the observation lounge. It took me quite a while to get back to sleep as I could hear them loudly venting (“they better give us a whole hell of a lot more than free snacks for this”) and reviewing the nights’ events. Turns out the last carriage had come loose and separated from the rest of the train shortly after we left Little Rock. The passengers were trapped inside without air-conditioning or explanation for almost an hour. Finally they were picked up and added to our carriage. In recognition of the inconvenience, there were free snack packs and unlimited free drip coffee in the lounge for the whole next day. Personally I would have given them scotch instead.

This event narrowly beat being briefly woken up by a conductor yelling at the couple in the seats in front of me around midnight: “I SEE what you doin’ there. You betta stop that or you’ll be gettin’ off at the NEXT stop – there are CHILDREN here….. I SEEN you get up when you saw me come in” – apparently my neighbors were trying to join the rail equivalent of the mile high club.

The next day was tremendously pleasant. I moved back and forth between my seat and the adjacent observation car reading and eavesdropping on conversations. Two Texan women with big hair, copious make-up, and genteel manners talked about being trapped in the disconnected train carriage, laughingly recollecting the deep discussions about life they had had during that dark hour. A burly man with tattoos and gold jewelry sat by himself with a large bottle of iced tea and a bag of Werther’s Original’s candy, looking over an Amtrak rail map and swearing aloud. Two boisterous little boys climbed over the seats and swarmed their patient grandfather while engaging in verbal one-upmanship.

“I’m smarter than you”

“No, I’m smarter than YOU”

“grandpa is the smartest person in the world”

“Unh-Uh – GOD is smarter than EVERYONE”

[pause]

“No, I am smarter”

“Not not not not not not not not not…”

“QUIT IT!”

I also observed one of the boys chewing half-heartedly on one of his arms and arguing “We can drink our blood, but we can’t drink our arms.” His companion agreed, adding sagely “we can drink our guts.”

But my very favorite had to be the absurd but strangely compelling “that scared me to my donuts.”

I also enjoyed watching the awkward courtship between a cute hippy girl and a young hipster who spent our layover in Fort Worth smoking outside of my window. Pictures are below.

The observation car:

Temple, Texas:

The surprisingly Indiana-like landscape of the state:

I arrived last night at 7pm in Austin, the new home of the amazing Ryan Dobosh. It promises to be quite the week.