How Mom Became Mayor.

Last week my mom informed me she had become mayor of our gym.

At first, for a quick second, I thought she was referring to becoming “mayor” on Foursquare.  And no, I’m not talking about the old grade school game with a large red rubber ball and four players.

Foursquare is a social-media game, played in real-time, on the smart-phone of your choice.  When you go to your favorite restaurant (or any restaurant), the local coffee shop, etc., you “check-in” on your phone.  Using your phone’s GPS, Foursquare finds locations around you, and then you make the selection of where you wish to check-in.

Frequent a place enough times, well more than anyone else, and you become “mayor”.

So back to my mom, the “mayor” of Life Time Fitness.  While she had developed proficiency with her iPhone 3G, I would be supremely shocked to find a Foursquare app on her main screen.  And I was right.  Mom had become mayor without the use of Foursquare.

This was interesting to me because mom attained the title in reality doing what she does best, being her social self.  It was not self-proclaimed as I had thought.  Certainly it involved her frequenting the gym enough to be noticed, but it also required something more.  Being known.

Mom’s claim to fame at our gym is that no one invades her personal space in a group fitness class.  If one does, you will get a tap on the shoulder asking you to move.  This isn’t to say my mom thinks she runs the floor, but she will call you out.

She is also a talker, and being from the South, knows no stranger (both traits which I inherited from her).  According to her, one person started calling her mayor, and it just spread.  And then one day (the same day she informed me of her title), she walked in door and the gym manager was calling her that.

For me the take away was this.  While Foursquare does require you to get out in the world, there’s no requirement for interaction.  You could go to the same coffee shop everyday, ears plugged listening to Pandora, eyes intently focused on your laptop screen or–maybe–a book.

While you may become mayor, who would know?  Only people who use Foursquare.  The social part of the game comes in adding “friends” and developing communities based on mutual likings for a particular location.  But again, this is not a requirement, just hopeful thinking.

Note: I use Foursquare and will become mayor of Santa Rita Cantina, again.

//A.J.

Golfing

Photo Credit

[Meant for Friday, but I got caught up in Easter Weekend Festivities]

Since returning to Austin, I’ve gotten in the habit of confronting the anxieties that sometimes creep up in the face of the unknown and untried.  Ignoring such feelings is impossible, and only builds them up like water behind a dam.  It will break at some point.

No.  What I practice (because I slip here and there) is focusing on the opportunity whatever the experience will bring.  Opportunities for new knowledge, or contacts, and sometimes, like yesterday to refresh a past resolution.  That was, to golf.  Not just swing on the driving range, but play a full 18 holes.

I had my chance  Friday and it was glorious.  Not so far as my game was concerned, but in my attempt.  I learned to important keys to my success in the game: (1) KEEP my head down; and (2) Don’t think about hitting the ball.  Number two was easier said that done, like a Zen exercise.  There was a particular satisfaction when I got some significant air on the ball, or even if I got it traveling along the ground in the direction intended.  My main goal that day was to make contact.

After that, I figured, the rest would take care of itself.  And for the most part, it did.

Barring some frustration, the day was a success.  I played attempted all 18 holes on this awesome course, on a spectacular Austin day.  More over, I have a renewed desire to learn the game.

Now I’m off for a run.  Gotta work off the Easter dinner.

//A.J.

Shift into Spring

ViaMoi/Flickr

“First day of spring–
I keep thinking about
the end of autumn.”

-Matsuo Basho

Growing up in Austin, there always came a time during the spring semester of school, when I knew the season had officially arrived.  The weather shifted just so, between hot and cool, and mild breezes over fresh cut grass and blooming flowers, delivered a understated yet distinct smell to my nose.

A comparable sense would be the way pavement smells right before it’s amount to rain.  After a few times you’re keyed into that smell and your brain makes the connection between it, and the coming rains.

After 19 years here I feel attuned to shift into spring.  And with this shift came changes.  In the world and within myself, boy-to-teen-to-man.  And beyond all those things, there was something else: possibility.

Possibility of what?  I didn’t know.  But it was that uncertainty that I looked forward to.  An awakening into the new year (though the new year had started officially anywhere from two to three months prior to my ‘sensing’ spring).

So I feel spring in Austin yet again.  And just like when I was 8, 13, or 18, I feel that sweet, uncertain, possibility.

//A.J.

East Side Day Drifting

[I meant to post this on Friday, whoops!]

3:30pm, Wednesday

I picked an off hour to get my haircut.  At least that was the hope.  I hated waiting, even though, generally,  the free-flowing back and forth barbershop talks made time fly by.  It was a matter of engagement.  Find a thread and tune in.

Someone would talk about Obama and so-so Republican this, and that.  Someone else would be talking about the latest sporting event, currently the Texas Relays, and how their teams were doing.  And another dude would discuss what Houston rapper (Z-Ro) was, in fact, the most under-rated rapper in the industry.

As planned (and prayed for at my office desk), there was only one body between me and the fresh feeling low cut on a 75 degree day with light wind.  Perfect.  Cool, but not too cool, and clear skies with just the right amount of sunny heat.

I really just needed a line-up, a straight blade razor to frame my face inside the boarders of my hairline.  But my barber, on the days when I could catch him with a reservation or waiting line, convinced me to take a bit off all around.

I told him, low but not too low.  I didn’t want to see my scalp.  Lately I had been worried that cutting it too low might make catching signs of baldness all but impossible.

So off my barber went, buzzing and clipping away.  It was really a great day.  The shop’s front and exit doors were open, taking in the assorted sounds around 12th and Chicon.  I was in the East side of Austin, formerly what would be considered by some the “other side of the tracks.”

Since I’d lived in Austin, my only substantive memories of the East side were for haircuts, church, and occasionally chopped BBQ sandwiches.  The kind when even though wrapped tightly, the grease still showed on the brown paper bag.  The kind that, within 30 minutes of eating, guaranteed, you caught a case of the Itis (i.e. DEEP food coma).

So I should add smells to what I was taking in as my head was being worked over.  Because across the street and down a ways, less than a minute, there was a BBQ shop doing brisk business.  The sweet smokey smells of southern tradition drifted out of the building and radiated in every direction.

I found myself lost in the din of conversations around me, with the cacophony of hip-pop blaring from the shop’s surround sound system, and the whizzing of the clippers next to my ear.  I gave in and this world enveloped me like a unborn baby in the womb.

“This,” I thought,”is a moment worth capturing.”  The BBQ smells from across the street were mixing with the smells of the shop, the Kools on a few patrons breathe and clothes, the Church’s chicken someone had brought in, and various sprays needed to give black hair that fresh-cut sheen and smell.

My senses were fulfilled, and I wanted nothing more at that moment.

//A.J.

SXSW: Done and Done.

“Suddenly the Fedora population in Austin decreased by 62%”

SXSW came and went, and for me, this year was my first really getting into the festivities.  I went to two movie premieres, one day party (including assorted bands playing), caught the tail end of another party following Wake Forest’s win over Texas (Go Deacs!), and survived a hipster stampede flea market rush.

I know, that wasn’t a whole lot for most folks, especially when other areas of my life are in a lull.  That SHOULD have been the time when I to picked up the pace: went hard, went long, got home late, and didn’t wake up until noon.  But I’m not that person (I know better, anyways).

When life gives you space, embrace it.  Don’t attempt to fill it.  That will take care of itself.  So I did my time.  I enjoyed myself when presented with those opportunities, which overall were very rewarding.  New faces and experiences added to my life mix.

Next year I’m promising myself (You are my witness) that I WILL attend double what I did this year.  That should put me in good stead with the hipster gods.

Here’s a few pics from the past week:

Holler.

//A.J.