I got in my bike ride tonight. Stopped for an iced coffee at Epoch Coffee House on North Loop. The counter guy called me sweetheart. That was nice. I read a local music paper and saw that the uncle-figure to my old friend Amy, Steve Ullrich, released a new album produced by Brian Beattie. Austin seems to refuse becoming truly disconnected, no matter how hard one tries, or doesn't try. There is always a familiar face, a friend of a friend mentioned in the paper.

After my iced coffee, I hopped back on the bike. A cool breeze blew and rain fell out of a mostly starry sky. I cruised by a friend's house. He was either out or out of town. Rode up to Alamo Drafthouse Village. Nothing playing for an hour except Wall-e which just didn't seem like the right movie to see tonight. Glided back home. By that time the brewing storm had dissipated and the air was completely still. Change seemed to make its attempt, then reconsidered. The conditions on the ground are just too stubborn. My front lawn--except for the green patch around my watered Pear tree--is already scorched straw.

I was thinking about riding my bike downtown to see fireworks, but I'm really groggy and tired, and I don't want to get hit by a car so I won't. I've been watching serious adult dramas from the late 80s the past few days, Ironweed with Jack Nicholas last night, and Dangerous Liasons today. Ironweed took some effort to keep watching. A depressed alcoholic (Nicholson) who accidentally dropped and killed his baby son while drunk 25 years earlier, stumbles around in a fog with drunk friends (Streep, Tom Waits) watching people freeze to death, cough from TB, etc. Yes our collective American past was not a bowl of cherries. Dangerous Liasons used to be my favorite movie, but rewatching tired me out. The things about the story that used to seem so racy and true now seem sad. I'm 20 years older. Instead of wondering what sort of trouble I can get into I'm wondering why people inflict so much suffering upon themselves and upon others.

Tastes change, movies change. I no longer know what my favorite movies are. I liked The Iron Giant quite a bit, was very moved by it. Million Dollar Baby. There Will Be Blood was terrific. 

In terms of music, I'm into Stars of the Lid right now. Where they got the inspiration to create their sound is a sublime mystery. What sort of world do those guys see, and hear? It's where I'd like to go.