12 October 1997
This weekend at Austin was really super productive and super fun.
I picked up Jason F in a rental car at about 6:45pm Friday. He practically bounced out the front door, goin' "West Side Prepatory! Come Again!" The craziness had begun. He was wearing nothing but a towel around his waist, as he had just taken a shower, making the scene much funny.
We stopped by a gas station to get food. As soon as I parked the car, Jason jacked the keys out of the ignition, since I didn't let him drive. I got a a bar-b-cue sandwich, a king sized KitKat, and two 12-ounces of Surge. Jason got beef jerky and something else and a beverage. Always Surge and KitKat for me a beef jerky for Jason.
Jason ran outside so he could drive. To get the keys back, I simply told him I wouldn't get in the car, and pointed out that he didn't know how to get to Austin.
On the way to Austin, mostly Jason told me all kindsa crazy experiences he's experienced. Ask him for details.
I apparently didn't know how to get to the church in Austin, and we drove up and down most of 35 twice to find Koenig. Turns out we weren't far enough north and I had heard that Airport intersected Koenig, so I just took Airport.
Got to the church around 11:30pm and Jon D and JoEllen W were the adults still there waiting for an adult on YAC to arrive. I could not fuckin' believe it that they hadn't just given the keys to Jeremy or Tia!!!!
As soon as I got they keys and they left, I gave them to Jeremy. I didn't want to be in charge of the keys!
We drove to Taco Cabana to get some food and then munched and talked back at the church until Arlene D and Aaron I arrived.
We played and played the first night. Jason and Jeremy walked to the Blockbuster about 3 blocks away to get a movie (it was closed since it was 1am) so we just stayed up playin' hackey sack and I don't even remember what else, except the funniest thing I remember from that night was when Jason, Austin, Jeremy, Tia all dog piled onto Aaron, shouting "crush Aaron's dude!" "Crush his dude!" That was hilarious.
I think we just hung out and talked and played all night until I went to bed about 3am and the boys were all still playing roudily until like 4am. Crazy fun.
8am we woke up at the insistence of my beeper alarm and cleaned up the room we had trashed and got prepared for the meeting. Tia had woken up at 7am to take a shower and get bagels, Jason, Aaron and I played hackey sack, and next thing we know the meeting is ready to start.
The meeting lasted from 9 to 4. (we did have a couple breaks)
Basically we redesigned District YAC: 8 youth serving 1 year terms; 2 youth-elected advisors to serve 2-year terms, staggered by a year to help continuity; 1 board appointed adult and 1 RE board appointed adult, each to serve 2 year staggered terms.
Then we went through the bylaws and fixed some of the wording and redesigned some portions of them.
We plan to present the new bylaws to the YRUU at San Antonio Rally, October 31 weekend, then the board will vote on them at their meeting in November, and then it should be all good and we'll have new bylaws that put YAC on the district map. YAC will be fully recognized by the adult congregation and so youth empowerment will not be empowerment in a vacuum, as Jon D described the present state of the District YAC.
The meeting was all good.
At about 5 or 5:30 in the pm, several of us decided to go shopping in Austin. The first place we went was a leather, latex and bondage shop; I don't remember the name. I got a blindfold, and the youth were all like, Woah, Rob.. and I said, It's for a haunted house. They were all Suurrre.. good story Rob. I said Thanks!
The we went to a place called Bohemian Boutique (I think). They sold a bunch of old-ass clothing and vinyl and masks and furniture and eye glasses and everything. I got a groovy round pillow with circles quilted onto one side of it. I'll use it for meditation and other sitting activities.
Then to the strip we went to shop for CDs. (Oh- did I tell you it was raining all day? It was raining all day. Always more than just a sprinkle, and sometimes fairly hard.) We finally found a parking space and went first to Technophilia, a small CD shop crowded with discs and people. I spent a great deal of time talking with the owner about various CD stuff, and told him my CD purchases were at an all time low as I am getting ready for my trip in August. We talked about the importance of exploration during life and following one's dream. Pretty cool guy; I got his email and URL www.technophilia.com
Then to Tower Records, huge two story ceiling, rows and rows of popular CDs and then some oldies and techno and imports. I just failed to be impressed with the commercialism of the whole thing so I went back to Technophilia for several minutes. Then back to Tower, where the youth were pretty much ready to move on to the next store, although they were busily checkin' out the magazines and when I approached, were all, "Rob! check out this book!" and handed me _Naked in New York_, hundreds of pictures of people simply standing fully dressed, and then standing fully naked in the next picture. Hmmm. They explained, "that way when you see someone, you can guess what they look like without clothes on." Makes sense to me.
Back to the front desk I went and (holy shit!) there's Mike O from back in my old YRUU days 10 years ago! He went to my church and we've been simply encountering one another off and on forever since. Crazy!
By that time, I was pretty much CDed out, (the truth is I was having a harder and harder time not purchasing (good thing I didn't have cash on me (it's not entirely good form (I assume) to borrow excessive cash from your youth))) so when Jason and I walked to one last store (remember it was still raining (I was happily barefoot)), I just kinda poked around a tiny bit and contemplated each poster for its artistic merit and statement it tried to make, while he browsed through the crusty punk selections and made another purchase.
Then we walked across the street to Dobie Mall (I did a cartwheel across the street) and found another CD store! We couldn't resist and quickly went in to look through a bit; I asked the guy if he had any CDs by Thorn. He did, but I had the album he had and didn't really want a single off that album. Jason and I looked through all the posters. I almost got one of two different Tori Amos posters (I had almost purchased _Somewhere Over the Rainbow_, a Tori Amos concert recording CD) but was able to resist again. I wondered at the oddity of people collecting posters. Why do we like them?
Jason and I found the rest of the group finishing their food. They had gone to eat while we had gone to what turned out to be the second to last CD store. Tia had some great cookies, so I went over and purchased a couple. I can resist CDs, but apparently not sugar.
By that time it was gettin' to be like 9:30 so we headed back toward the vehicles. We splashed through the rain and puddles silly talkin' and playful banter back toward the cars. Melissa Jeremy and I went to the rental car and Melissa really wanted ice cream (the ice cream she had gotten at the food court place was grainy and gross) so we went to Amy's! The guys behind the counter were really funny, especially when one guy tossed two scoops of ice cream behind his back and missed, so the other guy started to juggle them with one hand and he was like, C'mon one more! Let me juggle them!
So crackin' up silly fun! I didn't want to get anything until I saw they had Surge as a beverage choice. So I got a "frosted" which is like an ice cream float except it's blended. I got Blueberry Crunch ice cream and Surge. It wasn't super amazing delightfully tasteful, but I enjoyed it for the next couple of hours. We got back to the church super soaked and deliriously happy.
We played Silent Football, with me as dictator. Jeremy and Aaron both asked to use the restroom, so I let them leave the sacred circle, on the condition that they could not return until the sacred football goes back into play. It turns out they were lying and went to goof around. So I gave their ghosts 4.5 penance points each and said, when they returned, the points would be given to Jeremy and Aaron respectively. Jeremy came back to the circle not to play, but to harass the players, who are not allowed to notice anything outside the sacred circle, and Jeremy sat in Austin's lap!!
Austin was all Mr Dictator I can't see. So I said How many fingers am I holding up? and held none up and he said Mr Dictator, I can't see any. I said Mr Austin is correct, therefore Mr. Dictator declares that Mr. Austin can see just fine.
It was so funny and so difficult not to laugh that wow it was just hysterical to watch Jeremy's face right in front of Austin tryin' to talk. funny funny funny!!
I put the football back into play and Bryan immediately raised his hand "Mr Dictator, Mr Dictator said that Mr Jeremy could not return to the sacred circle until the sacred football goes back into play. Now that the sacred football has gone back into play, I see that Jeremy has appeared in Austin's lap!" I gave Jeremy a warning, citing that he couldn't have controlled where in the universe he appeared and he lost soon thereafter anyway. so so funny.
Then we cleaned up the table and finished the last bit of bylaws stuff.
Jason and Jeremy went to Blockbuster to get Liar Liar while we were finishing everything. They came back all, "we couldn't get the movie because Jason's mom has to use her card at the store first before anyone else can!" and we were all, "awww mann! blah blah blah" and the were like, "Wait! that's not all! On the way back we walked down the wrong street to get back and found a garage party with people drinking beer and smoking bud and we thought- hey the church changed!"
At this point it was 10 minutes to midnight so I was all "I have a card" and we drove (actually Jason drove. (shhhh)) and got the movie and I had to fill out a new form and get a new card!
We watched the movie; I hadn't seen it before, and it was better than I expected. Afterward, there were sudden shouts of "Crush Jeremy's Dude!" and everyone dogpiled Jeremy and then "Crush Tia's Dude!" and everyone dogpiled Tia and then "Crush Rob's Dude!" and everyone dogpiled me.. We were much laffing and much hysterical from lack of sleep.
But it was only 2AM.. Time for another round of Silent Football! This time with Aaron as dictator and Jason even played!
Aaron was fun as dictator. Almost every time someone would try to explain their way out of a penance point he would be all, "wait! wait! wait!" and interrupt them, "what was Mr So-n-so thinking when Mr So-n-so did that?"
Each time he'd start a round, "customary tip of the hat"
We'd properly respond "tip of the hat"
"Customary shrooop"
We'd respond "shrrrrooooooooooooooee!!"
Because for the past two conferences, Aaron got us all started saying
"truuuuuuee!" when something is correct. It's just so silly!!!!
Nevermind.
Great game and all that. Especially since I didn't get a penance point for saying "False" without being invited to speak.
Then we all crashed to sleep at around 4 in the am and I was highly groggy in the morning when Jason and I left around 8am.
We had engaging conversation about something (I don't remember what, but it kept me awake)
and drove to my church in Houston and got here just about on time despite the rain and an enormous traffic jam around an enormous church a couple miles from mine.
Near the end of the group meeting, Jason and I started talking about Houston Rally stuff and Jon W agreed to be co-dean of the Houston Rally 1998. Awesome.