I went to Eeyore’s Birthday.

I wanted to do it all up right, so I played the part of Joe Pedestrian. I opted to leave the car at home and catch the number 5 southbound from my apartment down to where it transfers to 338 southbound. Got to the park at 1pm. The busride home was an abject failure; sat in the sun for 40 minutes waiting on the 338 northbound, then when I got to the transfer point, I saw on the schedule that I’d have to wait another 25 minutes for the 5 northbound. Fuck that. Thirty minutes later, the number 5 whizzed past me as I was walking back home. Capmet inefficiency in action.

I only stayed at the festival for an hour and half. It’s not my scene anymore. I’m not sure it ever was. I saw three people I recognized, and not one of them was a friend of mine. There was the World’s Tallest Hippy, the dude who rides his bicycle wearing a thong on his ass and a fluffy cat on his shoulders (he was wearing shorts), and The Silver Man. I saw no one else that I knew, not even the people I expected to show up.

There was only one drum circle this year, and it was rather pale. Maybe I was there too early for it to really cook, but there it was: lame. No viceral throngs jumping and grinding. Just an open space where the few who felt like dancing threw themselves around among the four disorganized clumps of drummers getting drunk on their own rhythms and five-hundred onlookers standing there with their cameras held high.

Beating a drum does not make you a drummer.

It’s not quite the free-thinking and self-expression rite of spring that it used to be. It’s family-friendly now. Not so many people dressed up in costumes or flopping around toplessly or passing the douchie on the left-hand side. The festival seems to attract people (like me) who are there because it’s “uniquely Austin”, and that by going we can make a tenuous grasp at some slim claim on being “open minded” and so very bohemian.

It’s not my scene anymore. My season for free expression is over. I’m no longer a 20-something. I can’t look into a crowd like that and say, “ooh, fresh opportunity!” I don’t see the throngs as people I could potentially interact with; I see them as that which gets in my way. I’m thirty-something; I need some people I know there with me, not strangers. My opportunity comes from traversing the bonds I have with others, and since I went alone (my fault), and since I left alone (my fault), I can’t totally fault the festival for my poor experience. It’s just not my scene. So I vent here.

Perhaps Eeyore and I do have something in common: we hate being happy.

Tired of the heat, the mess, the sweat, the work, I finally did it. Last Saturday I cut my hair. Say bye-bye to the long curly locks. Say bye-bye to the maintenance, to the split ends, to the knots, to the “new growth” (broken hair) that gets in underneath my glasses and into my eyes when I’m driving, bikeriding, walking, etcetera. I made my decision after days of careful consideration, and visited a nearby salon to do the deed. At $40, it looks damn good. Still kinda longish on top and faded to short on the sides and back (y’know, the typical “I used to have long hair” haircut). It now takes me five minutes to wash and condition my hair instead of the 10+ minutes previously.

After having long hair for almost 4 years, it’s just so weird reaching back and not feeling a ponytail. Yeah, weird.

When I started out back then, I was like, “yeah, there are girls out there who dig long hair on guys.” And indeed I found them: all five of them. It got me social mileage but didn’t get me much else. Now that I’m not fucking with it all the time or having to worry about whether it’s unkempt or not, I can focus on, y’know, scoring.

My one regret came when I was about to leave the salon. I had paid, gotten the cosmetologist’s card, and was about to leave when we passed her chair. I looked down and saw a 6-inch thick pile of my hair and it then hit me how much I gave up. All that work, all that time growing it, and boom it’s on the floor. I stumbled and had to pause. She consoled me and commended me on doing the right thing. So far, from the reactions from friends, I’ve done the right thing.

The next day I trimmed back my lambchops and made the split wider. That move kinda added weight to my face, but it looks more appropriate for the cut. At least for now.

And now…to lose the weight. Bike riding to work, anyone?

You just get that urge, y’know?

My teeth are doing better. The right fillings aren’t so sensitive anymore which is fortunate because the lefts are still tender from the week-old fillings. I’m having my right wisdoms removed this wednesday, so hopefully my left molars will be fine enough to eat on. After the wisdom holes heal up, I’ll be good to go until I can afford to get the left wisdoms removed. And then hopefully the dental drama will be over with.

I called my sister last wednesday to wish her a happy 28th birthday (that means I’m getting old, too). Surprise of all surprises, her cellphone is out of service. Looks to me like she and her hubby haven’t been paying the bill. I might try later this week, but shit at least I tried. Y’know?

Work is picking up. After a tedious week of very little to do, but with a ton of stuff just waiting on customer go-ahead, it’s finally avalanching and we have rush jobs and lots of stuff to do. Lots of ass is being kicked.

This Saturday is Eeyore’s Birthday Party down at Pease Park. It’s a rite of spring, a hippy holdover for 42 years running. It’s dirty, it’s hot, it’s dusty, it’s sweaty, there are massive drum circles, reggae and rasta bands, people in costumes, people wearing little more than shorts and body paint, the smell of cannabis floats in the air, and the cops just walk around and not care.

This is an event that I look forward to months in advance. My whole regimen of allergy shots is inspired by being able to go to EB without allergy problems. I bought a bike last year so I could ride it down there. And this year it is my hope that my mouth is well enough to let me go. I’d hate to miss it 2 years in a row.

Ok. Sun’s setting soon; should wrap this up and ride on home.

I left the house around 2pm and headed up to Mojo’s for some tea and a parking spot. Having successfully done that, adding to the previous successes of the day (see Saturday’s journal entry), I ran into my friend Kate who was heading down to Eeyore’s as well. We swung by our friend Collin’s house to pick him up, and the three of us walked to Pease Park from there.

The crowd there was amazing. Bigger than my memory of last year’s turnout. Before we even reached the main area, the smell of pot wafted across as a welcome sign. We took a tour of the scene and found a place on the hill to spread out the blanket. Sat there for about 20 minutes, people-watching, before my feet got antsy and I left them to go walk around. Now, this is where I say, “This picture here is of the red-girl,” or “Here’s the green people who look like the incredible hulk and his three bitches.” However, even though I had a camera, I didn’t feel like taking pictures. Had I had a digital camera, I think the story would’ve been different. Something about the delay and expense of film processing, y’know?

So anyway, the oddballs and freaks turned out in droves, and once again my faith in this town is fully restored. Some amazing costumes. Not as many topless women as was expected this year, but there certainly were more than last year. An oddity, though, was that of all the women “going free,” not a single one was bare-nippled: every one of them either had pasties or wore paint. An oddity, to be sure. Not that I’d mind, of course. Mmmmm.

The drum circles were excellent, as to be expected. The vibe of the main circle was different, though. The usual two guys in the core drumming circle were oddly absent. They’re like metronomes. In their absence, the circle kind of had this odd habit of keeping a shifting beat until the shouts arose in the crowd, which would drive the drumming into a faster pace, steadily increasing tempo until it splintered apart to settle back into some slower, more dominant rhythm. Funnier still is how I constantly draw similarities between drum circles and neural networks; a sea of randomness kind of settles in this odd emergent behavior of complex rhythms. Heh. Yes, that’s how my mind works. Didn’t get to “trance-out” this time around, like I usually do, but I still had fun nonetheless.

I ran into several friends of mine, some I knew were coming, some others I hadn’t seen in almost a year. Ran into Sean and Claudia; they’re the gracious souls who offered me their futon for three weeks when I first moved here. Ran into one of the barristas from Mojo’s. Saw several other folks. About an hour before sunset I was found by my friends Patrick, Bart and Sarah. They had just gotten there ten minutes before their search for me ended in success. I guess they got that radar. Zen Navigation at its finest. We hung out, walked the loop twice, before sitting down for a few before we all left to Bart and Sarah’s place for the evening.

Out of the whole day, not once did I drink booze or smoke-out. I just ate some of the festival food and drank gatorade and lemonade and, with all the sweating and allergies, by day’s end I was completely dehydrated and exhausted. At least I have my first “sweat of the season” done and over with. (These pores are now clean!) The rest of the summer should be fine. But boy did I get trashed. And it feels so good.

I spent most of today recuperating. My allergies kicked me in the head yesterday, neverminding my dose of Claritin yesterday morning. I went through half a roll of toilet tissue before I finally slowed down enough to go get some antihistamines. A nap earlier today helped in that regard, definitely. By the time I showered, got dressed, did some help around the house, left to go to Walgreen’s for antihistamine, and ate some dinner, I was feeling much better. And now, after my first dose’s “medicine-head” effect is over, I’m feeling quite good. A little sore, a little tired, but good.

This whole “going out and doing things” thing makes me feel so alive. Wow. It’s a nice change to simply wander around, without aim, without schedules. It’s in this space where Serendipity plays. She should have a bigger role in my life, just like my first 6 months here in this town. I’m thinking this might be a good idea; shake things up a bit. Hmm. This has the potential to turn into an interesting summer. Stay tuned.