Happy Kwanza. Austin has been a hectic mess this weekend. People are ready to travel in droves and they all want to come to Austin. I don’t blame them. It’s awesome here.
I spent the majority of the weekend driving them around in the all new Subaru Crosstrek with four wheel suspension. On Friday I wanted to scoop my eyes out with a spoon by the time I was finished at the end of the night. Friday afternoon traffic is always the worst because people are so excited to not have to work a job they hate for two consecutive days that they briefly lose all fine motor skills and swing their stupid suburban into your lane. As a human being I try not to hate any single group of people, but if I had to pick one to despise, it would definitely be people who drive suburbans. It’s either some stressed-out mom who had too many kids for her own good or the husband who hates the fact that the only alone time he gets is in his 2014 Denali and feels the need to project his anger through aggressive driving tactics.
Driving for Uber and Lyft is generally a pretty good time. I honestly love it as a job. But like any job, you have those days that really make your nipples bleed. Sometimes there are days when nobody wants to show up for their ride, and you spend a lot of time wondering if you should turn your car off, cancel the ride, or just go home and kill yourself.
That’s a joke. Don’t email me. Instead, next time you order a ride from Uber or Lyft, just try and be ready when it gets there. And for the love of god, request your pick up from a spot where the driver can actually pick you up. Don’t stand on the corner of a busy intersection and go “okay I wait for car to come to me right here now.” I can’t stop in an intersection. That’s not a thing you can do. Find a side street. Eat a pineapple. Use your legs if you have to. Whatever it takes.
I think the most disturbing thing is how many people exist that simply don’t want to move their bodies, ever. It’s like when you see someone doing circles in a parking lot for ten minutes to try and get a space that’s 30 feet closer only to walk out of their car with fully functioning legs. It’s like dude, just use the legs.
Anyway, that’s my rant. Use your stupid legs. Saturday and Sunday were quite nice for driving. It was stupid busy. The traffic was insane. It was like weekday rush hour traffic all day both days, but when you’re making money for sitting in it your perspective on it changes. Driving has been an incredible social development and marketing tool for me, on top of making good money. It’s really nice to be able to sit and talk to strangers again, and I’m learning how to improve my communication and conversation skills. They’ve always been pretty lacking to be honest. I communicate best through writing. It will probably always be that way, but I’m continuing to improve my social skills every day.
I often get stuck when I ask someone what they do for a living, and they say something boring and gross, like “I’m in sales.” I want to have an interesting and engaging conversation, but I’d be lying if I said I actually had any interest in their profession. I’m not going to fake interest, because that’s annoying. It’s probably best to try and steer the conversation into what their hobbies are or something, without awkwardly asking, “so… what do you like to do for fun?” Like I said, still a work in progress. We’ll get there.
Speaking of interesting, I went to this kind of coffee speakeasy event on Saturday. I went to a similar event a couple weeks ago at the same house, but this was the last one they were putting on. It’s basically a gathering of a bunch of young, interesting, smart, and attractive people who do really cool things. Yeah, pretty damn sweet. I know. I got there and introduced myself to a few people. Then I helped Daddy Nat, the performing musician at the event, unload ice from his truck and into the ice baths that we could choose to take if we felt so brave. I’ve always wanted to try it, so I popped my shirt off and hopped in. I was very calm about it and simply sat in the ice with not much of an expression on my face. Someone looked at me and said, “you do this a lot, don’t you?” I said it was my first time, because it was, but he didn’t believe me. I explained to him that this is just my personality. “It’s very cold and uncomfortable,” I said, deadpan. I continued to sit and feel the sensation. I wouldn’t say it was painful, just uncomfortable. Like I talked about earlier, though, I’ve been trying to seek more discomfort in my life; so viewing it as something beneficial to me rather than something painful was very helpful.
I also played ping pong. We played doubles and I was on the same team as an Asian girl, so of course we won. It was actually kind of an epic battle. We kept going back and forth on game point, having to play past 21 to get the victory. I had a really interesting conversation with a group of girls about combining science and spirituality to enhance your overall wellness as a human being. If you’re curious what that might look like, check out Dr. Joe Dispenza. He’s a neuroscientist but also very conscious of the spiritual world. Really interesting stuff.
Cool. Bye.
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