Leaving Austin, Texas in the rearview.

It's kind of like breaking up with someone. And how appropriate that in regards to my loss of the Live Music Capital of the World, I can only think in song lyrics. "I stand committed to a love that came before you, and the fact that I adore you is but one of my truths." I gotta be with Josh, so I had to let Austin go.

The act of leaving wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Even though I had only 5 days notice, no time to say my goodbyes or really to prepare at all, leaving wasn't so bad. I didn't have time to think about it. And how could I be sad? I got Josh back from Afghanistan much sooner than I had expected, for a variety of reasons that are not entertaining enough to explain and/or they're none of your damn business. His hair is almost as long as mine, and he's in better shape than he ever has been, as long as I have known him. Hate to be all mushy in such a public forum, but good lord my boyfriend is hot.

He got here last Saturday evening, and we left Austin early Monday. We had to make it all the way here, to Jacksonville, North Carolina, by yesterday evening so he could be at work this morning. And we did pull that off, though 10 hours of driving one day followed by 19 hours the next are pretty hard on your body. Especially if you've just been on 4 different planes back from the Middle East 2 days previous, and have brought with you a weird Afghani flu and fever that you've had for a week. Poor guy.

I knew this trip was going to be a long, rough one. What I forgot was how awesome road trips with Josh are, now that we have it down to a science. At a quarter tank of gas, I get on my phone and go through this website I love that tells you where there are big rig fuel stops along major roads. Josh maneuvers us in to the diesel pumps between the semi trucks and fills up, I wash the mirrors and headlights and then run inside to get snacks, and we're back on the road within 15 minutes. I download 4 or 5 podcasts before we leave, and those are almost 3 hours each if you listen straight through, which we never do, because inevitably every 20 or 30 minutes something they're talking about in the podcast reminds one of us of a story and we pause it and run off into weird conversations. We watch the sunsets, and sunrises. We count roadkill and spot animals, bitch about bad drivers, and look up random facts we've not had time to think about in a while.

For instance, there's a song by the Nixons that I used to love in high school, called 'Baton Rouge'. I knew it was a town in Louisiana, and I knew I liked the sound of the name, but I didn't know that it was named such in 1699 by some French big wig I can't remember the name of, who showed up and saw that there was a tall, red cypress pole strung with animal carcasses that marked the dividing line between the hunting territories of the native peoples. So, being the creative fellow that he was, he named the town le Baton Rouge. Which is French for 'the Red Stick'. I would never have remembered had I not been driving through there, that I used to wonder about the name before I had Google.

Every hundred miles or so, one of us always sees something that starts a conversation we would never normally have. We passed an exit for a town called Uriah, so I had to tell Josh all about how stupid I thought it was that people all over the internet were convinced that he was the one who got knocked out in lasts night episode of The Ultimate Fighter, just because they showed a black guy getting put in an ambulance. As if Uriah is the only black guy on the show. We saw a giant red barn style building claiming to be the biggest fireworks store on the planet, so Josh told me about 5 bomb techs that died in an explosion in Hawaii, trying to clean up a building in which fireworks were stored incorrectly. Apparently when there's that much flash powder in one place, if it isn't stored properly it doesn't take much to set off an explosion that could blast out  the buildings on all sides in a spectacular fireball worthy of the movies. Then we drove over a bridge that went on for miles and miles, through the wetlands of Alabama on the Gulf Coast, where the trees are those wild, ancient things growing out of the standing water, whose trunks flare outward like fingers reaching into the murk. I love those trees, and was so excited to see that kind of landscape in real life. This is understandably weird to a guy who mostly knows me as a girl who loves tall, ragged mountains and deep, clear water, so I told him everything I could remember about The Witching Hour, and how Anne Rice's descriptions of the old magic lurking in the bayous of the deep south had always seemed romantic to me.

Before I knew it, it was 11:00pm last night, and we were setting up the trailer at the park where I'll presumably be for the next 3 months at least. Right next to Camp Legeune where they are currently firing something that rattles my little house and rumbles deep into my eardrums every time they set it off. Fuji says it's a How-something. 155 mm cannon. Why they have to be setting it off at 10:15 at night is beyond me, and it sucks because Josh is still sick, worked a 12 hour day after travelling for almost a week straight, and the poor guy needs to get some good sleep.

This, right here, is where it gets hard to leave Austin. He's asleep, and I'm awake... trying to think of something to write for Fightland and failing, wishing there was a band playing tonight that I could go see with Ms. McKenzie. But, I have Josh back, and it would have had to happen eventually, so I am counting my blessings and considering myself fortunate... but man, I miss that place already. No city skyline is ever going to make me smile half as much without that glowing owl skyscraper in the center of town. No where else I wander is ever going to be so full of music, pouring into the streets from every open bar door on 6th street. No place will ever have so much of my kind of character. I never got to go into that bar called the Mooseknuckle. I never got to paddle a kayak around Town Lake. But I did plenty of pickle shots, I saw lots and lots of live music, I made friends I am certain I will keep for the rest of my life. Wish I could take all those things with me.

But, this is my life and I'll never take for granted how unique of a chance I have. Time to start over in a new place again. You know I dig you baby, but I got to keep movin.