Dtown Update

Warning: Dull Recounting of Activities to Follow

I'm down to a week left in GP. I'll be headed back to ATX for Liz and Joel's wedding on August 4 and then embarking on a nice, long road trip to Santa Fe with Mom and on to Boulder to see Hope. SO excited!!

This past week I've been home alone with the doggies and the TV while Mom and Dad went on vacation. I was anticipating, with some melancholy pleasure, a quiet, lonely week at home, but that ended up being far from what happened. Monday was the only day I didn't see anyone after work, so I did laundry.

My mom was apparently worried about me being alone for an entire week, so she told a few of her friends to call and check in on me. At first I was upset about this, feeling like my mom was intruding on my social life and thinking me incapable of spending time with my friends on my own. However, I realized that these thoughts say more about my feelings about myself than my mother's. So, I let go of my grumpiness, and I went to the movies with one of her friends on Tuesday night to see A Mighty Heart (very emotionally moving).

Wednesday I had THE Dallas day. I left work early because I had nothing to do, and I drove 30 minutes to meet Maggie at Northpark (the same mall at which we've been shopping together since the 8th grade). We spend a couple of hours there shopping for clothes that we don't really need, ran into someone from high school, and finished out the afternoon at one of the two Starbucks inside the mall.

After Maggie left, I went to my favorite Half-Price Books just down the road from the mall. It is huge and boasts an in-house coffee shop. I spent at least an hour there and bought a book on Russian grammar and a novel by Philip Roth. I then went to my favorite Dallas restaurant for dinner: Cafe Brazil. It is the Dallas equivalent of Magnolia Cafe or Kerbey Lane. I love it. I used to study there late nights during high school.

The road home from Dallas was almost unbearably slow. I blamed this slowness on construction at the time, because all of the entrances to I-35 from downtown were shut down. I swore and complained at the traffic, as I spent at least 45 minutes in various lines to turn onto various side streets before giving up and going a completely different way, which normally would have take longer. A typical Dallas day: shopping, eating out, and horrible traffic on 35.

I came to find out the next day that in fact the delay was due to a huge explosion at a gas plant. I'm not making this up. See for more info: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/longterm/stories/072607dnltsexplosions_archive.b016aa7f.html. Anyway, I felt bad for swearing at the city after that. :(

Last night I went to the movies again with a different friend of my mother's to see 1408, starring John Cusack. The movie was a total disappointment. Total. The method of scaring was scattered all over the place, and even I began to think it was just funny and pathetic, rather than scary...and I'm afraid of ANY scary movie, no matter how lame.

The rest of the weekend will be spend with my friends doing different things, so I'm very excited about it. My parents will finally come back on Sunday, and then I'll be back in Austin on Friday. Hurray!

To sum up: Dallas ain't so bad; it just requires more effort and a lot more gas.