ATX!

I arrived in Austin yesterday to news of the plane that crashed into the IRS building two exits from my old house. We drove by last night on the way to eat Rudy's BBQ. The building was still smoldering. What a selfish act to bring someone else into his disgrunteldness. I wish someone else didn't have to die.

On a happier note, I'm happy to be here. Ashley and I went to Chuy's as soon as I got in and then ran wedding errands. I was glad to finally be able to participate in wedding stuff! It's raining this morning so my plans to work by the pool in Ash and Ev's apartment complex was ruined, but I'm waiting to have lunch with Aaron and catch up with him.

I think I was in a funk in Memphis. I didn't realize it until yesterday when Ashley and I were at the Barton Springs mall. Nothing makes me want to go back to Memphis except B. I forgot what it's like to be surrounded be friends and family--people you love and that love you. I think there's a symmetry in "going home." People are like you there. You can find people out in the world that are "like you," but you don't have the same frame of reference. You can create a new frame of reference somewhere else, but this takes a long time. I'm at the age where I'm breaking away from "where I grew up" to my own life. I've been working on what I want to do with that life, but I keep going back to the age-old question (for me) where do I want to live that life? Yes, I love to travel and experience exotic places for more than a week at a time. But every time I come back to Texas I feel something different. I feel it's familiarity. Even though I forget how to get places or certain restaurants, the streets feel familiar, the buildings, the trees. I don't want to have the familiar my whole life, but I like myself here better than in Memphis. I think that says something. The way Texas reflects myself back at me, as if a mirror, is the person I like, the person I want to be.