On the road again: Austin, day 1

By my previous numbering system, this entry should be day 2, because we arrived in Austin last night, but there you have it: inconsistency running amuck.

We're here on company business, so I'll stay away from the work day because, well, it's company business.

I suppose I should have volunteered to sign books at a few bookstores while I was in town, because writers are supposed to do that sort of thing, but I never got around to it. Perhaps my next assistant--yes, I'm looking again--will make that sort of thing happen. That would be lovely.

Dinner last night was late and thus at a nearby Kerbey Lane, a 24-hour Austin institution that I very much like. The food is diner-style but better than you would expect and always tasty, the staff members are funky and friendly, cool art from local artists adorns the walls, and it's generally the sort of place I could hang out happily for hours and hours. If you're ever in Austin, check it out.

As is my practice on multi-day trips when I have a car, I stopped by a grocery store to pick up a few bottles of water, some soda, and a snack (a bag of salad) should the late-night munchies hit. I went through the express line. We had the best line ever. The woman in front of me had a bottle of water, two pieces of chocolate cake, six Zabar candy bars, and some gum. I'm thinking drowning sorrows in chocolate, though I could be wrong. The woman behind me had a whole roasted chicken and three deli-cut cheese selections, each precisely a quarter pound. I could never decide how or if she planned to combine the cheese and the chicken. I contributed to the cause with a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke with Lime (you can't even buy it in our area in that size), a bag of salad, and three different bottles of water: Evian, Tynant, and Fiji. The cashier stared at me as if I had wandered from the home for the terminally indecisive, because clearly one brand of water should be enough for any man. I decided to further the feeling by staring back at her, then looking down, shuffling my feet, and saying, "They all looked so good that I couldn't decide." I have no excuse for doing that; I just did.

Dinner tonight was late, though not as late as last night, and quite expensive: the tasting menu at the Driskill Hotel Grill. I'd thoroughly enjoyed the same experience a few years ago, so I sat down expecting great service and a great meal. Instead, we received a little better than average but definitely flawed service and a meal that never quite hit the right notes. Don't get me wrong: the food was tasty, and I enjoyed the dishes. They simply didn't reach as high as the price or my previous meal suggested they should.

I continue to plug ahead on Overthrowing Heaven. The words pile up slowly, because my work schedule and life have been so intense lately, but they do pile up.