  Good weekend of Padres baseball and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. We beat the game, killing the turncoat Lance and slaughtering hundreds of police officers along the way. While I am honestly not a great video gamer, I love the style of a game like GTA: Vice City, because it allows for game play well after the story line ends...creative play is encouraged by the set-up of the city and its surrounding areas. Granted, your creativity is confined to ways of killing cops and others, but it is a functioning resource...its splendor is meant to last indefinitely. My textbook shopping spree this semester was an exodus of joy, as I found $321 of books as priced at the UT Co-op for less than $150. However, the greatest book buy of my life occured on Saturday at a Half-Price books in Houston.
As many on this board know, I am an avid supporter of Totem Press' INTRODUCING series. To briefly explain, the INTRODUCING books (no link because Totem lacks a web presence) are graphic novels that deal with the basics of political movements, philosophies, philosophers, contemporary scientific boundaries, and questions of life. urlLink Dr. Hendricks introduced me to the books several years ago, and at the time I was awestruck by his collection of 12 books. At Half-Price, I bought six books, bringing my total to 18. Best yet, five of the books were $4.98, and one was $2.98! Considering market value on these books is $12, I ran away with six books for less than three would cost me at B&N.
I've become the consummate bibliophile. The barista at JP's Java could be the greatest jackass I've known. Frazzled as I entered today, I asked for a Grande Mint Mocha. He looked at me inquisitively. Excuse me? he asked.
I clarified...a decaf grande mint mocha. He then looked through me. What is that? What is "grande"? Realizing I was not at Starbucks, I quickly changed my order to a 16 ounce. He acquiesed.
And I understand that he is proud of his small coffee shop, and that I am in a way insulting it because I am importing commercialized lingo upon his Keep Austin Weird establishment. And I felt bad, because this isn't Starbucks, and much of the reason I sit here drinking coffee is because it isn't Starbucks. So he rings me up. The total is $3.99. I give him my credit card. He eyes it contemptuously.
There is a minimum charge of $4 for a credit purchase. That's fine, I think, because I planned on tipping, and the tip will bump me that cent to $4, and much over. Then he continues. I'll do it this time, but I want you to know that the minimum charge is $4. In Rogers, I was viewed as alternative. I didn't dress to fit a role, nor did I associate myself with the preferred alternative media types (namely the music of Everclear), but I was one of the more alternative individuals, and this showed, as many in the alternative clique embraced me as friend.
Today, living in Austin, I am still alternative. I dress the same, and while my musical tastes are much more open and, dare I say, better in taste, I don't display my choice of Sunny Day Real Estate and Yo La Tengo to the world. I figure if you think I'm worth knowing, you'll figure it out. Yet I remain bothered when I am treated like a simpleton preppie by the alternative establishment that I do my best to embrace, and stick up for on numerous occasions. The last thing our movement needs is the elitist hierarchy that we are supposed to be fighting against. So I called the drink a grande.
I didn't mean to. Usually I am able to consciously stop myself from doing it, in fear of what happened earlier. Why I live in fear of becoming passe at a local coffee joint is a problem in itself. I stay at JP's because the coffee is great, a few workers here are really nice, and, more to the point, my office hours are here and it would be confusing to change them now. The world embraces those who look similar. Austin, a city whose history promotes its diversity, is worse about its discrimination than most cities I know, mainly because it presents itself as the emancipating Canaan, a place where all freaks can find refuge and feel comfortable in their uniqueness.
I've felt comfortable in Austin, but only in spots and moments. Maybe I'm pining for a Slacker Austin, or the Austin where Robert Earl Keen and Lyle Lovett used to sit on the porch and play guitar in their underwear. Or maybe I'm pining for the Rogers and Shreveport of memory, where there were so few of us that we were forced to get along out of companion necessity, and it created some of the richest, most meaningful relationships of my life. 
