Ice cream social

I had an Adventure today.

I made good on my promise: I wrote a poem in Sharpie marker on a piece of paper that went, I am a stump / It's sad to see / At the very least / Please sit on me? and put it one my across-the-street neighbors' stump. I held it in place with a dandelion and a stone. It made me smile—it was Guerilla Poetry.

Fun things happen when you carry a ukulele around. I walked through my neighborhood down to Zilker Park, and on the trail next to the blue-green water under the bridge sat an Australian. His name was Simon. I said Hi and he said Hi and I asked what he was doing and he said reading and writing, and I said Hey I write too. And we got to talking.

Simon is visiting the United States until the end of May. Simon plays guitar some. He got to play at Antone's last night somehow with the house band, and he said he played just Okay but that the experience was much better than his playing. He said he got to play on the same stage as Stevie Ray Vaughn and I said That's true and then I offered him my ukulele and he played some blues. I wish I could play blues.

I forgot to mention that I've been practicing saying Hi and/or smiling at every person I see whether they look friendly or not. This means I often get rejected—this also means I am often surprised. Those surprises are to die for.

I got to Zilker Park and sat out on the big rock in the middle and the whole city was out playing in the grass. There were two soccer games going on—most of the players were a little overweight, but their feet were still light and they looked graceful with the ball at their laces. There were women sunbathing and I couldn't see their faces but skin is skin and I appreciated it. I played ukulele for a while and made up a new song based off C.W.'s chord progression—Am, C, G, F, and I was mostly picking and it sounded nice. Then I read the last 80 or so pages of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which E.M. gave me for my birthday, and every time I came across her yellow underlining I felt like I knew her better. And I started underlining with blue. And sometimes our underlinings overlapped and it made green and that made me Happy.

I walked around Barton Springs road with half a mind for coffee and writing, but was sidetracked by an airstream trailer called Ice Cream Social. They were barely open because no one was out. I knocked on the glass and a woman I later learned was named Meredith slid the window open. I asked if they were open and she said they were, and I asked what her favorite thing was and she said salty caramel ice cream, and that she had just made fresh waffle cones, and I said, Yes.

Meredith was very friendly. She said her friend in the next-door Cajun food truck just got breast cancer, and that on Sunday they were going to have a big benefit brunch with old-timey Country Music and that the money would help pay for her friend's treatment. She invited me to come but I would be out of town by then, so I promised I would come for Sunday brunch when I got back to Austin. Incidentally, it was the best ice cream I'd ever had in my life—no kidding.

Walking back I saw a cool house that was three stories tall and red brick and looked out of place like there might be magic in it, and nearby a woman walked her tea-kettle-sized dog while jingling a bell she held between her fingers.

I walked under the shade of elm and live oak trees on the way back to the house. Boys played little league and their dads yelled and their moms cheered with every ping of those aluminum bats. Two chubby boys, one bigger than the other, played catch outside the fence by themselves. They were wearing outfits. The bigger one said, Remember when he hit that pop fly out in midfield? And he threw the ball to the other boy, who said, Uh-huh, and threw it back. The big kid continued, And I ran out to catch it and I was like I'll never make it and then I did and everyone was saying things? The smaller one caught the ball and said, That was nothing.

I walked home eating the ice cream. When I got back there were three people hanging out on the front porch of the across-the-street house, and one of them, a woman in her late twenties with long brown hair and a nose piercing, was sitting cross legged on the stump.