I always want to write about a "typical" day here in Austin, but it seems like no day is actually normal enough for me to write about, so it ends up not happening. So, since I have a few minutes in my RV before it's time to head to late night dinner, I'll just write about today. I always wonder what people do with their days, so maybe my regular day will be interesting to you.

((Note: I'm aware that this is a bit like those rambly livejournal entries that no one actually ever wants to read. ))

I woke up at around 10am, which is pretty early for me. The sun comes in through the RV window at just the right angle to hit me in the face at 9:45. This happens every morning. Sometimes I wake up then and sometimes I roll over and sleep until 11am when it finally gets too hot to keep sleeping.

The shower doesn't work in my RV since the guy I bought it from kind of screwed me, so I went down the street to my friends house (Todd, Ben, and Anderson) to use their shower.

It was the first time I used it and the thing is rocket powered. It would have peeled a layer of skin off if I left it on high.

Newly clean, I went to Casa de Luz for lunch / breakfast. For those who don't know, it's a macrobiotic restaurant that I love like a child and eat at every single day.

The staff eats half an hour before the dining room opens at 11, so I sat with Anderson, who works there, and we talked about the Westfalia camper van he's going to buy and live in.

Maybe you can guess why we became fast friends.

At 11 he went to work the front desk and Jinji walked in. She's basically the first lady of Casa de Luz and is really into Japan, even though she's never visited. Our conversations usually revolve around me trying to convince her to go to Japan. Today was pretty exciting because she talked about her future plans, including a trip to Japan soon! That paragraph doesn't really convey how cool she is - I really like talking with her.

She had to leave quickly to pick up her son, but by then our table had filled up with other casa regulars. I ate and chatted with them for an hour as I ate until they left, one by one.

Then I wrote two long overdue newsletters for the people on my Make Her Chase You mailing list from my usual perch in the back table of casa, right near the power outlet.

Near the end of the two and a half hour period of time that Casa serves lunch a new group of Casa regulars sat with me, including Alexa who works there.

The day before Alexa had asked for my birthday for an astrology thing she's into, but I didn't give it to her because I don't tell anyone my birthday. Despite the birthday thing I really liked her because she had spent six weeks in Japan and had some interesting stories about it. I feel an instant bond with anyone who has been to that magical country of yore.

I told her that I was extremely skeptical, so I would give her six birthdays, one of which was mine and five of which were fake. She could then write down the six "profiles" of the people without the birthday attached and I would read them and tell her which one was most like me.

We spent a lot of time orchestrating this experiment and to my surprise the profile that I picked as being the most accurate was indeed the one attached to my birthday. Weird and interesting. Hopefully she'll double down and we can repeat this experiment with my friend Todd.

I chatted with her for an hour or two until she had to start working the second shift. Our personalities are pretty similar, which she attributes to the fact that we have the exact same set of astrology numbers (out of 1000 I think?), so I enjoyed getting to know her. Also I have to say nice things about her because she reads my site now.

After that I would normally work, but I just didn't feel like it. Instead I compromised with myself and decide to go to the post office. I had to shipsomething for my mom and my packet of forms to get insurance to get frozen when I die.

Of course, it had now been hours since I had eaten, so I got a smoothie to drink while I drove to the Post Office. To get it cut through the parking lot of an office building next to casa, through the parking lot of a restaurant called Shady Grove, through the restaurant, and across a street. It's a nice five minute walk.

The place is called Daily Juice, and it is the best smoothie / juice bar in the whole world (really). I'm friends with all the people there, so I joked around with Ivy, Nick, and another guy whose name I ALWAYS forget for a few minutes while they made my smoothie.

Todd invented an amazing smoothie there that I always get. Here's what's in it:

• Watermelon Juice
• Peanut Butter
• Hemp Seeds
• Hemp Oil
• Hemp Protein (it's based off a smoothie called The Chronic)
• Banana
• Coconut Oil

It is pure heaven, plain and simple. I get one of these almost every day.

After drinking my smoothie and going to the post office it wasn't quite time for dinner. Ben was painting his room in his new apartment and had asked if I wanted to help. I didn't, really, but I figured I'd drop by because I knew he and another friend would be there.

I ended up getting suckered into helping paint some trim, and it wasn't all that bad. Ben's the kind of guy who would always help you if you needed it, anyway. My friend Hoku and Ben's friend Jacob were there helping and being a lot more useful than I was. Jacob's girlfriend met us there and we went back to Casa for taco night.

Four tacos, beans, rice, greens, and soup later, we headed out to an Austin tradition called "First Thursday". The cool and weird of Austin mingle on South Congress street where stores stay open really late for that one night, bands play outside, and crafty people sell their wares in bazaars set up in parking lots. It's not really my scene, but it was still fun.

My sister was working at a boutique grocery store there so I stopped by to say hi. She makes AMAZING MaxDiet cookies and we discussed when she was going to make a new batch. I still have one in a zip lock bag that I'm saving for the owner of Mother's Cafe, which is one of three other restaurants I go to frequently. She loves cookies and I have a hunch she may want to sell these at her restaurant.

We watched Capoeira dancers on the street, which was horribly annoying. There is probably nothing on this earth that I think is stupider than Capoeira dancing. It's that Brazilian thing where they play fight and dance at the same time. There's something very pompous about it that really annoys me.

Finally pulling away from that train wreck we went to a little Mexican place where I had a second smoothie for the day. Fresh squeezed orange juice, fresh strawberries, and banana. It was way better than I expected and was only $3 for a big glass.

Our whole group of friends and some new friends they'd met up with along the way were going to a bar on South Congress, but I pretty much hate bars. Luckily we ran into Anderson, who agreed to give me a ride back on the back of his new 50cc moped. It was a pretty hilarious experience that reminded me of being in Thailand. The seat was so small, though, that I had to sit on the little luggage rack.

Now I'm relaxing in the RV writing this post and waiting to digest a bit so that Todd and I can go to Magnolia Cafe for late night dinner. Todd stopped by the RV to catch up on his way back from Houston about half an hour ago. The food at Magnolia is good, but we mainly go to hang out and say hi to our waitress friends Cindy and Kara who work the only shift we ever show up for:10pm - 6am.

Anyway, that's about on par for how I spend my days in Austin. Not necessarily the most exciting day in the world, but definitely one full of great people and great food.