“he remembers those vanished years…”

thursday i took a vacation day from work and made a trip to brenham with the potts. they were going to take some family pictures for easter. they had a full mini-van with them plus sarah, and they were planning on leaving earlier than i wanted to, so i ended up taking my motorcycle. i had no sunscreen and got a bit more sun than i’d thought i would, but that’s what is supposed to happen on the first spring road trip i suppose. we met at der weiner haus and biergarten in downtown brenham for lunch. i had a brat with sauerkraut, some german potato salad, and a couple of shiner bocks. after that we headed to the blue bell creamery for their tour. it was interesting, but i didn’t think it was awesome or anything. from there we headed out 105 to the franciscan poor clares monastery. the nuns who live there raise miniature horses. i got very little sleep the night before, so i actually ended up opening the sliding door on the potts’ mini-van and getting in a seat and sleeping for an hour or two while everyone else looked around. we left there and headed down 105 to the washington-on-the-brazos state park. sarah and sue had been trading riding with me on my motorcycle, so on the way there sarah took some pictures of sue with me riding down the highway. when we left the park, jack took a few pictures of me, and me and sarah, on my bike in front of an old metal shed building. hopefully i’ll be able to get copies of all of these pictures, and maybe i’ll put some up. the plan was to eat at some buffet place, but we we ran long at the park so they were going to be closed. instead, we headed toward navasota and ended up finding a mexican food restaurant near where 6 and business 6 meet. it was pretty good. the ride back to houston was kind of chilly, but fortunately i’d taken my leather jacket and a knit beanie so it wasn’t too bad.
friday when i was on my way to lunch in my pickup, i came up to a red light on montrose. a car pulled up next to me and the guy wearing a fedora driving the car looked over at me and said “bob wills is still the king.” that was nice.
friday evening chris had invited me to hang out with him and some of his friends. they were celebrating a couple of their birthdays. i know most of that circle, but not real well. so normally i would have politely passed, but the place they were going seemed too possibly cool to skip. the place is called joystix, and is in downtown houston on franklin near minute maid park. the guy buys, repairs, and sales arcade games and pinball machines. the showroom probably has 100+ arcade games and 50+ pinball machines. the first and last friday of every month, they open up the showroom and for a $15 flat fee you can play all of the games between 9pm – 2am. they have a cash bar, and even have staff that will let you order at the games and bring your drink to you. pretty slick. i played frogger, asteroids deluxe, tempest, donkey kong, donkey kong jr., joust, centipede, tron, deer hunter ii, mortal kombat, simpsons pinball, and family guy pinball. but the best thing of all was an original stand up version of wizard of wor. i pumped so many quarters into one of those back in 1982 or so. it was awesome to see the game and play it again. i recommend checking it out.
saturday afternoon i headed to the potts and had supper there, then we all watched winged migration. it’s a very impressive film following various types of birds in their migratory patterns. the cinematography is incredible. it said they spent four years collecting the footage for the movie. a lot of the shots were of birds taking off, landing, and in flight. they had to have used gliders or drones or something to get the shots they did. (i haven’t watched the extras yet, they probably go into that.) there are a lot of really beautiful shots, along with a bunch of amazing sequences of birds in flight.
sunday i slept in late, then in the evening i headed to the potts because they were grilling and asked me to come over. i brought beer brats, jalapeño hot links, and some andouille sausage. i had some of each of those and a couple of big reds while we sat outside and talked.
this evening i watched kar wai wong’s in the mood for love. a beautifully shot movie, but jeez how sad. it’s set in hong kong in the early to mid 60’s. two married couples move in next to each other. the husband in one couple is gone a lot, as is the wife in the other. the two left behind eventually discover their spouses are having an affair with each other. they end up spending a lot of time together and become close, but they don’t want to be like their spouses. i don’t really want to lay out the whole storyline. but i will say i think it was a really cool decision to never really show the faces of the spouses who start off having an affair with each other. and d4mn, it’s a sad story of possibly prevailing morality leading to utterly heart-breaking missed moments in a fscked up situation. okay, i guess i couldn’t help but mention that.
that era has passed.
nothing that belonged to it exists any more.
he remembers those vanished years.
as though looking through a dusty window pane,
the past is something he could see, but not touch.
and everything he sees is blurred and indistinct.
(texts used in in the mood for love, from “intersection” by liu yi-chang)