August 09

Man, I was all over town today on my bike — I live on the eastside, over by the old airport. I went downtown this morning, worked for a few hours, then took off for my second trip this week up to Balcones and 2222, then I biked down to ‘04 to teach a bass lesson,  then back across the river… downtown… and finally home.

It was a beast out there — big hot. I told a friend the other day I thought big hot was over for the summer, and that now Austin’d subside to real hot for awhile.

Well, I was wrong. But I’m used to it –I’m glowing a little, I mean it was 102° today, and that sun was on me for a coupla hours, easy, but I feel good: putting my body through all those paces, drinking all that water, working my way through all those cars, it was a workout.

When you’re out there, you realize what heat sinks all our fucking cars really are — as I pass them I feel the emanant glow from each reflective, metalloid, internal-combusted unit out there, and I swear the temperature will go up 5° — 10° with trucks and buses. Get behind a bus? — it bakes you. I kinda like it, it’s like a carbon monoxide sauna, hahaha — not for the squeamish, that’s for sure.

And you’re gliding along, you know, and you get out, as I did today, over Mopac on that big bridge on Koenig — toward’s Russell’s, you know where I’m talking about? – out in the wide open, under that merciless Central American sun, on asphalt, above MORE asphalt, and more cars, and all that heat that concentrates in the city rises up and you think — if thinking’s the word — you think, man, I could just float on this heat, just lay down on it and let it bake all the shit and the crud and the artifice right out of me

Then you hydrate, because guess what, — you’re at that place where you’re gonna start seeing oases any minute.