Do you get weary of all the Keep Austin Weird shirts and bumper stickers? Do you think all the gentrification and constant downtown construction is exponentially reducing all the beloved weirdness that led to the slogan in the first place? Perhaps. And yet, from my perch, this fine little town of ours continues to hold bizarre people, places, and events aplenty. I love the kookiness so much that, though my game plan is to never again marry, I might make an exception if there were a way for me to wed the city itself. That being impossible, I nonetheless feel ready to pledge a til-death-do-I-part commitment to this Land of Odd. more ›

By the time you read this, I will have been in Barton Springs twice this week, which is a 100% increase over the number of other times I’ve gotten in that godforsaken body of water since I moved here nearly seventeen years ago. Unfortunately for me, I am one of those people with a horrible memory, by which I mean I remember way too many details, dates, and traumatic events and, thus, associate just about everything in the present, no matter how joyful, with something crappy in the past. Once, my young, hot boyfriend, Warren, and I played a game of Freaky Friday where we pretended to be each other. My role was easy, at least on the surface: chill out, don’t worry about the relationship, the weather, money, or anything else. His job? Call me every thirty minutes and say, You know, I was thinking about what you said this morning. It reminded me of the time my uncle took me fishing when I was six and I got a hook caught in my eye… more ›