Megan Stielstra's Blog

We’ve spent the past three lovely days in Austin doing the following:

Lounging with C.’s Uncle Raymond and Aunt Debbie at their lake house

Swimming in this pool

Eating Texas BBQ

Drinking much Shiner Boch

Reading books FOR PLEASURE! NOT BECAUSE I HAVE TO FOR WORK! (just finished The Uses of Enchantment by Heidi Julavits [on Holly’s rec, which seemed fair ‘cause I’ve made her read like fifty books over the last year so one was the least I could do] [but also the girl’s got stellar taste] [Thanks, Holly] and it was awesome, so much so that I just started it again because A. I slammed through it for the story, very consciously NOT allowing myself to study HOW it was written and it was really interestingly structured on top of being a super good read, which I determined because I started talking to the characters, as in, “No wonder you were such a little bitch, Mary Veal, look at your MOTHER,” or yelling speculations out loud such as, “I know who you are, K./the man! You are really _________” (I won’t say who I thought K./the man was in case y’all read it, which you really should, but also because I was wrong) and also B. there’s all sorts of little plot twists that are probably apparent in a really cool way if you read it a second time, like The Sixth Sense or Usual Suspects. I also just started Miranda July’s short story collection No One Belongs Here More Than You ‘cause I read “The Swim Team” in Harpers and it was one of those stories that makes you go WHY DIDN’T I WRITE THAT!? and then you rush to the computer and write really fast and really well and ALSO her film Me and You and Everyone We Know is in my top five movies EVER and ALSO she made this website which made me nearly wet myself (Dear Miranda July Who I Love: I was thinking of starting a cheerleading team and was wondering if you’d be on it? And we could get good outfits and write cheers that went like this: Hooray for you and hooray for us and hooray for green grass and tiki bars especially that one outside of Chicago that’s sort of in the middle of nowhere at least not somewhere you’d expect to see a tiki bar!) AND Sarah Vowell’s Take the Cannolli.

Watching movies (Bobby [loved it] and Die Hard II which Christopher calls, “That movie where Bruce Willis is wet and running through steam for two hours,” and then I add, “And also he swears a lot,” and Christopher adds, “And why don’t the bad warlords just take off after they lock him in the cockpit of that airplane?” and I say, “SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF!" and Christopher says, “And it’s really cool when he ejects in the parachute in the middle of that explosion!” and I say, “Bruce Willis is AWESOME!” so then we rented Hostage which we’re watching as I type: the cute guy from Black Donnally’s is still really cute and the freaky guy from Six Feet Under is still really freaky.

Sleeping in

Renting a speedboat and racing around Lake Travis for two hours looking at all the beautiful homes (there’s this one that has a built-in waterslide from the house to the pool to the lake!) and playing the “If I ever have money I’ll live THERE” game

Wearing a LOT of SPF 45 (but we missed a spot in the middle of my back and now I can’t lean all the way back when I sit down because it BURNS LIKE FIRE)

Hanging out with Christopher’s good friend Tym. Who he’s known since high school. And I’ve heard all sorts of stories about him, like “Tym who drove me from Texas to Chicago in ONE DAY,” and “Tym who produced the play on the recyclable set and gave all the proceeds to charity,” and “Tym the painter,” and on and on and it’s such a wonderful moment in a relationship, I think, to finally meet the friend you’ve been hearing about for years and then, when you do, it feels like you’ve known them your whole life. We spent the evening talking, wandering around Tym’s neighborhood in Austin and doing this.

Hanging out with Christopher’s cousin Matt at the Austin Botanical Gardens

Hanging out with our friends Mike and Chrissy and their almost-four-years-old son, Simon, who is probably the coolest guy in the Universe. We met them in Chicago through our friend Tracy (Simon’s godmother) when Mike was at the Art Institute and Chrissy was working with the designer Amy Rigg, and selling her line, Freckle, at Penelope’s on Division (Dear Penelope’s on Division: you know those white leather heels I just spent so much money on? EVERYBODY asks me where I got them, they’ve inspired shoe envy across the masses) and then later, when Christopher and I were in Prague, Mike and Chrissy stayed with us for a week and we went to all sorts of museums and drank lots of absinthe and we love them tons. So ANYHOW, it was Chrissy’s birthday, and there was a big ‘ol party with cherry cobbler and whiskey and Scorpions (the album, not the bug [I just asked Christopher if a scorpion was a bug or an animal and he laughed at me. He said, “ALL BUGS ARE ANIMALS. THERE ARE PLANTS AND THERE ARE ANIMALS.” And I said, “Give me more coffee!”]) and silly string and good conversation and here is the best part: in Austin, there are houses. With yards. And screen doors. That aren’t locked. And when you have birthday parties, your friends come in the house without knocking, carrying cakes or six-packs or whatever, and everyone yells, “HEEY!” ‘cause they are so happy to see each other and it’s really nice—after Chicago’s intercoms and locks and gates—to have that kind of ease. Makes me wonder if I’ll be in the city forever. This whole trip makes me wonder—moving slowly, laughing more, relaxing … it’s just easier. Which doesn’t mean better by any means, just … different.

Probably it just means we need to go on vacation more than once every two years.