Good-bye, Sweet 29

Dang. Thirty? Really?

Oh well!

Today I turn 30. I did it quite well, in fact.

Yesterday, after work, I drove about an hour south of Austin to stay by myself at the Mountain View Lodge, near Wimberley. I got there just after sunset, and I had my priorities in order: first I sat out on my tiny private balcony and read a book* in the fading evening light.

This was the view in one direction:

Then I went inside and knit as I watched My Fair Wedding, which is a guilty pleasure and an insult to one's sophistication and intelligence, because really, David, do you need to have all that drapey white muslin? Again? And are you seriously comparing these hardworking, basically smart and well-focused ladies with a pre-Higgins Eliza Doolittle?

Gratuitous knitting shot of the Whisper Cardigan:

Shrugs look weird when they're only half-done, don't they?

I continued knitting during the Daily Show, then read some more before turning in.

In the morning, I woke up to see the view from my balcony in the morning light:

I love the Texas Hill Country. A playwright whose name escapes me at present once talked about always missing Texas, and always longing for one's "childhood geography." This is mine, and I'll always love looking out over the distance to see the faint outline of more hills on the horizon.

Birds chirped a lot.

I went for a hike on the short nature trail:

Regular readers know how I love the color blue. Perhaps this is why:

I drove back into town, stopping (uh oh!) at the Knitting Nest. It's never in my direct path on an ordinary day, but there I was at the Slaughter Ln. exit, and their lovely supply of Cascade 220 called to me. In my own defense, I totally know what I'm making with it: yes, wedding stuff. (Knitzilla strikes again!)

Now I'm back home, enjoying a day off of work and preparing to hit the town tonight for an Arts the Beatdoctor show. (Did I mention it's SXSW? Batten the hatches, folks, this town's been hit by a storm.)

I'm lucky in many ways. I have good people in my life, and I have things to look forward to. It doesn't get much better than that.


* The book is Guy Gavriel Kay's Sailing to Sarantium, and I don't know how that guy does it, but he writes these rise-above-the-genre fantasies that somehow deal with all of life's evils and brutality and human mortality, and then they leave you feeling a little bit better about all of those things at the end. A serendipitous literary pick for the occasion.