These are the usual suspects... the people and places that pop up in the Pineapple with some regularity.
These little blurbs are not meant to be the A-to-Z of these relationships, but just enough background to get you by.
Some are pseudonymous.
AB
Well, of course you already know the Chaos, don't you, son?
ADAM
He is almost 32 (I think), and is a science geek with some big fat degrees, and he lives in San Francisco,
but he is from Texas. We've known each other online for about five (six? seven?) years. He is my online roommate, as it were. Go read about Burning Man and Thailand and rocket science.
The ARRANGEMENT
Also known as the Big A. This is every single woman's dream -- at least in Austin, Texas.
The Arrangement is the booty call, the drunk dial, the sure thing. A perfect Arrangement is one guy,
whom you have known for a long time; preferably you dated him at one point but that didn't work out
and you stayed friends; the sex was great; he doesn't have hang-ups; he lives alone and likes to stay out late.
Ideally he is that friend that you could take to a wedding as your date in a pinch. The Big A is not about dating,
but just about good, easy sex, on the fly, no strings. Being able to laugh in bed is a nice bonus for the
Arrangement, but not required. Total absolute utter discretion is required, especially if you have
mutual friends. Current Arrangement = none (I'm actually dating, you see).
The BAR
We always drink at the same place. To refer to "Norm on Cheers" wouldn't be remiss, although no-one does it because everyone that comes to this place is a regular, therefore to address it is gauche. The bartender knows what everyone in town drinks, and can tell by the look on your face when you walk in how strong it should be. And, they take checks.
The BEAV
My V.B.F. since college. I used to work for her company full-time (as in, the one she owns), doing graphic design and marketing and what-not, and
being her general lackey. We spend way too much time together. She is my rock.
CANDACE
Candace is a drinking buddy and fellow Reck1ess Ke11y addict, and she is quite trustworthy and wonderful. A girlfriend in the truest sense of the word -- the kind you talk about the
gory details of sex and boys and parents and dieting with. And, she let me live on her couch last year, which is very kind.
DAVE
My younger brother. I worship him; he is such a mess. He lives here in town with his girlfriend Karli, but
we don't see each other often. Our relationship can be touch-and-go.
DI
A great pal from college, currently lives in another city in Texas. She was the Beav's roommate for a couple of years. She comes into town every so often and
tears shit up for a few days.
ENGAGED MARRIED DAVID
Just like it sounds -- an ex-boyfriend of mine named David who got married in October 2002.
GRAMM
The Boyfriend. He lives in Dallas, and we
try to see each other at least once a month.
LANEY
A former roommate, a road trip accomplice, a confidante, a fellow Longhorn fan.
Born in the South, raised in the North, flourished in Texas, then got married and ran away to Europe.
She introduced me to Phish; I introduced her to Robert Ear1 Keen.
She taught me the concept of "not my town" and educated me on the
lifestyle of the Eastern seaboard. I took her to fraternity parties and educated her on Texas men
and Southern customs. Recently divorced, she spent last year bumming
around, alternating her time between Atlanta and some Norwegian man named Henrik in Oslo. Henrik dropped out of the picture and she moved to Austin... and lives with me!
LORA & VICTOR
got married last summer. I used to work with Lora, and she is the sweetest girl ever, salt-of-the-earth.
NOKD
A polite way to express a sentiment that my friends and I all learned at our mothers' knees: "Not our kind, dear." Usually uttered by Mother when you were hanging around questionable friends in junior high. This isn't a racial or status issue, or about haves or have-nots... it's about our kind of people. It's about whether you fit in and feel comfortable around us, and vice versa, or do we all have to play nice-nice pretending we have anything of mutual interest to discuss? One doesn't have to own a finger bowl to know not to drink out of it. You don't have to love us or approve of us, but you certainly do have to make a half-hearted attempt to like us, or at least fake it.
NOLAN
If we had met at any other time in our lives, I?m sure we would have killed one another directly.
Instead, we were 19 and 20 and we knew it all. We were smarter, more jaded, more blasé.
Our friends were pedestrian, our parents naïve. We thought of ourselves in terms that
required unusual punctuation (like blasé and naïve). We drank to excess and wrecked
cars and people -- and we still do those things to an extent - only now it's unintentional. Nolan and I don't see each other much ever, as his dot-com casualty severance ran out and he is living a bohemian student life in Dallas, trying to having just completed his degree.
"NOT MY TOWN"
The philosophy that when you are away from home, you can do anything you want to, since you don't know anyone or care what they think. Limited, obviously, by one's choice of traveling companions.
PLAN B
Because we always seem to start soooo late in the evening, inevitably at around 1:30 or 2:00 am, no one is ready to go home. So, we all collect whatever provisions we have available and rendezvous at someone's casa.
POOH
One half of the team of Tigger & Pooh. They are a couple that lives here in Austin and are just cool as all get-out. Tigger has a
journal but I don't link it because she doesn't want the spotlight.
She likes to be "a cul-de-sac on the Information Superhighway, rather than an off-ramp."
THOR
My lovely new iBook, a gift from Gramm.
THURSDAY NIGHT SUPPER CLUB
We have an informal group that meets once a month for dinner at a different restaurant in town. There are always cocktails before and cocktails after, and things usually get a little crazy. Lots of random hook-ups are born at Supper Club. We haven't actually met up in over a year, so I guess TNSC is on hiatus.
the TOOLS
A group of guys we know, that individually are great but in a group create this force that sucks IQ points from all who come near. The Tools are very into their
dogs and their beer and their country music. But, these guys aren't rednecks -- they just like to embrace the Texasness of Austin more than the Austinness. If that makes one
whit of sense. Includes Andrew, Pat, Nick.
TYRONE
My former laptop, the PowerBook I borrowed for an extended period from a friend.
WAYNE
My newest ex-boss. He is the head honcho of governmental affairs for Small State University, and I was his assistant.
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