I call bullshit. These don't taste at ALL like booze and regret. I want my money back.

International Incident

Some random day a few summers ago, D and I had woken up and declared it a Beach Day. We called up our beach-goingest friend, Rivera, because A) we knew he'd be down for it, B) we knew he'd probably drive us, and C) he always knew of some beach party in the works.

The day was largely uneventful. Drinks, sand, meatheads, the usual, so we got bored with it pretty quickly. We decided to head back to our neck of the woods, and grab some tacos on the way back to Rivera's house. We were sitting in a booth waiting for our food when I noticed the guy in the booth behind us staring in our general direction. I was the only one facing him, D and Rivera had their backs to him. Then the guy started muttering under his breath in Spanish. At this point I kicked Rivera under the table and gave him the extreme-raised-eyebrow glare, which, as everyone knows, is the international symbol for "holy shit this dude behind us is fucking nuts."

Rivera turned around and looked at the guy, who at this point was straight-up talking shit en Espanol. Rivera, being fluent in Spanish, and also being a notorious hothead, started talking shit right back. Then they both stood up. Then they were standing chest to chest. Then D and I scurried back out to Rivera's truck and locked the doors.

The guys both came outside, still in each other's faces, still yelling in Spanish. Then they both started to back down, and eventually bro-hugged it out. Rivera went back in to grab our food, and we left.

D and I immediately started in with the "what the fuck was THAT about" questions. Rivera explained that the guy was Puerto Rican, and could tell that Rivera was Mexican. Apparently there's a lot of bad blood between the Mexicans and the Ricans. To paraphrase Don Cheadle's character in Crash, it's amazing that somebody could take all those diverse Latin American cultures and teach them all to park on the lawn.* Anyway, Rivera also explained that this gentleman took issue with the fact that Rivera was accompanied by two white girls. D and I didn't know what to make of that.

When we asked him what finally caused this guy to back down, Rivera said he gave him some mumbo jumbo about stopping Latino-on-Latino violence. Then he gave us a sly grin and said "I also told him that I had to go because I'm trying to get both of you home for a threesome."**

*I'm not racist at all, but you have to admit that's damn funny.
**DIDN'T HAPPEN

One In A Million

Much like regret and emergency contraception, tacos also make a great morning-after treat. This story is about one of those mornings.



When I was 19, my older cousin Jen came to stay at my apartment in Ft Worth for a few days. I had recently broken up with my first serious boyfriend, so I welcomed the distraction. She knew a guy from her high school in Oklahoma who had moved to Austin, and it was decided that we should road trip down there on Valentines weekend.



We got to his apartment and set about making plans for the evening, and most importantly to my underage self, acquiring alcohol. As the evening wore on, it was decided that we'd head to the downtown/6th Street area and meet up with some of this guy's friends. I felt like a bit of a hindrance, being the only underage member of the group, and being sans fake ID. Everyone assured me that we could find bars that would accomodate, and they promised not to ditch me.



At some point, we went to the now-defunct Liberty Lunch Cafe to meet up with additional friends whose band was playing that night. We missed the friend's band, but did catch part of Dexter Freebish, a band that I was quite disappointed to learn went on to become mainstream Top 40-radio mom rock.



Once everybody was assembled, we hit 6th Street. I was having a blast hanging out with the cool older kids. Unfortunately, the bars that would let me in were few and far between. We ended up at a blacklit cavern of a club called Planet Austin. I was sneaking sips of beer between passes by the bouncer, and my cousin, who was becoming quite tipsy, had started flirting in earnest with her high school friend. Aha. So THAT was the purpose of this trip. The majority of the goup had no interest in visiting anyplace with the word "club" in the name of it (and who can blame them), so there was only one other guy with us at this point. He was one of the band guys, the drummer I believe, and whether he was simply playing wing man or genuinely wanted to hang out, I'll never know. Either way, he was extremely nice to me, introduced me to Killians (not necessarily a redeeming quality, but it was the first time I had tried it, and we discussed it at length.) And he also got on the dance floor and did The Lawnmower at one point, which inexplicably impressed me to no end. (Even then my standards were shockingly low.)



Eventually the night was over, and we all went our separate ways, with plans to meet for breakfast in the morning. My cousin stayed in this guy's room, which, even at that point, took me by surprise. (I was also shockingly naive, apparently.) I slept on the couch with his spaztastic dog. Once everybody was up and around the next day, we left for breakfast. My cousin's friend was raving about this place the entire way there, with good reason. I have since seen it featured on the Food Channel, Travel Channel and the like. Juan In A Million. Check it out if you're ever in Austin.



At the time though, I was far less concerned with the food than I was with my hangover, and more than that, working up the courage to ask Drummer Boy for his phone number. In fact, I barely remember what I ate. Huevos rancheros, I believe. My cousin and I were headed back to Ft Worth directly from the restaurant, so time was of the essence. It also didn't help that 6 of this guy's closest friends were there. So I pulled out all the stops, looked him straight in the eye, and said: "I'm thinking about moving to Austin. Any suggestions?"



This wasn't a total fabrication. Every teenager in Texas, ever, has thought about moving to Austin at some point. To my surprise, rather than responding with a simple "Sure, here's my info, give me a call sometime", he started asking what kinds of places I'd be interested in. I had to think fast. So I described my apartment at the time. Small, cheap, not that nice. He said, "That sounds a lot like my place. You guys should come check it out on your way out of town and maybe visit the leasing office."



So we did. It wasn't a shithole, but it was definitely in a sketchier neighborhood than even I lived in at the time. And we still had three other people in tow. He showed us around, and showed us some of his artwork. I desperately wanted even 30 seconds alone with him just so I wouldn't make an ass of myself publicly. I never got the chance. He walked us out to the parking lot and looked right at me as we all said our goodbyes. I went home with an apartment complex brochure and no phone number. When I got there though, my ex-boyfriend was waiting for me. We got back together that night.

Also, a note

Yes, my URL is A) misspelled, an B) not even proper Spanish. There's a reason for this. This blog was actually started with a far different concept over a year ago. Don't want to get into it, just wanted to acknowledge that yes, I know.

Of Flipcharts and Poor Decisions

It was a standard Saturday night. And by that I mean it was probably Wednesday or Thursday. I know that I was still living around the corner from Scolari's at the time. I'm going to go ahead and take a minute to tell you about Scolari's.

It was the first bar I ever visited upon moving to San Diego. The full name was Scolari's Office. And it. Was. A. Dive. Not a dive in the hipster sense either (though it did get plenty of hipster traffic); this place was truly sketchy and frequently populated by transients who had scraped together enough spare change to buy a beer. It has since been gentrified, as all good things must come to an end, or at least have fancy lighting fixtures and DJ booths installed.

Anyhow, as I recall, it was the usual crew, which, at the time, consisted of me, Ward, D, and whatever guy she was tagging along with those days. I guess I had arrived separately from the rest of them, because I had my skateboard in tow. As the night wore on, a band started setting up. I use "band" in the absolute loosest sense of the word. There were two guys, a guitar, and inexplicably, a flipchart. This could only end badly.

What ensued can't even be described as music. It was sort of a modern-day minstrel show, except really crappy. The "guitarist" proceeded to play completely random and non-melodic chords, the "singer" was really just screeching/chanting/rambling, while simultaneously drawing what I guess were supposed to corresponding illustrations on the flipchart. He was also wearing spandex tights. It was bad, and I was annoyed.

At some point, I had started talking to a guy standing near our end of the bar. We discussed the godawfulness on display before us, I whined about the lameness of my friends (D had already started arguing with whatever guy she was with, as was her custom), and it was decided that he and I should go down the street to the taco shop (Saguaro's, which I'll talk about in more detail later on, as it has figured prominently into my 3+ years in SD.)

I remember that I initially took notice of this guy because he was vaguely attractive, at least in the extremely poor bar lighting, and of course, with the beer goggles on. He was tall, older than me, and most importantly, had really good hair. I'm a sucker for a guy with good hair. However, I wasn't so enamored with him that I felt it necessary to actually walk WITH him to the taco shop. I hopped on my board and told him I'd meet him there. Yes, gentlemen, I'm a catch.

By the time he showed up, I had already ordered (again, classy dame.) As I recall, he didn't eat anything. What he did do was proceed to tell me his life story, unprompted. He had just moved to SD from Michigan. And he was living in a halfway house. And he was a recovering heroin addict who had been clean for a whopping three months. What's the proper response in that situation? "Congrats!"? He did also volunteer that he had passed his most recent HIV test with flying colors, because I guess he still thought that he had even the slightest chance of sleeping with me.

By this time, I was finished with my burrito, throughly creeped out, ready to leave, and wondering if my friends were still around. Which brings us to one of my biggest character flaws: I will freely give my phone number out to even the sketchiest motherfuckers, because, and this is truly how my brain works, "Well, I don't want to date him necessarily, but he doesn't seem like he'd be so bad to hang out with." I could probably find redeeming qualities in Charles Manson if I looked hard enough. (I'm not ALWAYS a jaded cynic. Just most of the time.) And so, as I was excusing myself for the evening, when he asked for my number, I gave it to him. Even though I was looking over my shoulder the entire time I skated home to make sure he wasn't following me.

I figured that was the last I'd hear of him, but not so. About a week later, he texted me around 10AM on a Saturday. He wanted to know if I wanted to meet around 2AM that night/morning to "hook up". That's the phrase he used. I guess when you're an unemployed recovering smack addict halfway house resident, you kinda just throw it all against the wall and see what sticks.

That didn't. I never replied. I did however see him about 4 months later, at Scolari's again. There was a flicker of recognition on his face, but I quickly looked the other way.

The Reason Is This

When 2AM rolls around, some people go to after-parties. Some people go to the diner. Some people do the wise thing and simply go home. I go to the taco shop. Often times, what transpires over a plate of carne asada is inifnitely more noteworthy than anything that happened during the previous 4 hours. Plus, I really really love Mexican food.

This is a chronicle of the conversations I've had, events that have transpired, and sometimes just plain wacky shit that has occurred in, around and near any given taqueria. Maybe with a few unsolicited opinions/restaurant reviews thrown in for good measure.

This may work, it may not, it may get way off-topic, I may get bored with the whole thing three posts in (the smart money is on the latter.) But in the meantime, vamanos amigos!