So, I recently applied for admission to graduate school, for art. University of Texas at Austin, the Transmedia program, focusing on time-based and computer art. I didn't get in. Alas. Obviously, I am disappointed that I didn't get in. I would have liked to go, and the path that studying there presented was one that I gladly would have liked to take. Also, of course, it stings a little bit to not be accepted, but that pain is mitigated somewhat by the fact that 246 people applied for 12 open positions in the entire Fine Arts graduate program there. You could be in the top 5% and still not get in. It's hard to feel very slighted given those odds. Not that I think I was in the top 5%, but you know what I mean. Know what? We are going to move to Austin anyway. I've been ready to move out of New York (much as I love it) for quite some time, and Erin is ready now too. We really love it here, but we want things that New York can't really offer, more than we want the things that New York offers that other places don't. We want to own a home, and we want to have a garden, and we want to live somewhere where the pace of life is somewhat more relaxed than it is here. We've thrown around a bunch of different places to move to (Providence, Rural California, Upstate NY, Portland OR, Vermont, Seattle, New Mexico, Old Mexico, Etc) and then when I applied to UT we pretty much decided we'd give the Lone Star state a try. Then I didn't get in. THEN, upon discussion, we both realized that we still wanted to go. So we are. Our lease is up in June and that's that. Fortuitously, our friends Rebecca and Ted own a house in Austin and are going cross-country-camping this summer so we get a few months of rent-free house-sitting, to get our bearings and see if we really want to stay. I suspect we will stay, at least for a while, but who really knows? Yes, I know how hot it gets in Texas. It gets just about that hot here, really. Only here it gets that hot for a day or too, there, for months. But it never gets cold there like it gets here. I am pretty tired of cold. It'll be fun to see what it is like to get pretty tired of hot. Yes, I know that Austin is maybe not the best job market in America. It looks like I'll be able to do some freelance work for my current employer from there. That would be in many ways ideal. We'll see what happens. Yes, I know that we need a car. We are buying one this weekend. Trying to, anyway. In a few months we will have a series of stoop sales, and then pack what little remaining stuff we have into our as-yet unpurchased car, and head west. I'm psyched for it. Erin lived in Austin for years, and she still has some good friends there so, although we'll miss our New York friends desperately, we'll have some social groundwork pre-laid. It is also my not-so-secret hope that when friends come to visit us they'll be taken in by Austin, and will move there too. This means you. I am typing this entry without my glasses. I've worn glasses since I was maybe 10 years old. They thought that maybe my poor eyesight was why I was such a poor student. It hadn't yet dawned on them that I was just a kid with too bad an attitude to do well, but too good natured to get into any real trouble. In college, when I was studying things that interested me, I was a good student, departmental honors, blah-blah-blah. Maybe UT looked at my records from 7th grade when I was such a bad student that they (my middle school), in desperation, decided to give me in-school-suspension (The Box) every time I neglected to do my work and I literally spent 2 or 3 days a week in solitary lockdown for the remainder of the year because I refused to, say, write each of our vocabulary words 5 times. True story. All in all I was just another brick in the wall. Anyway, apparently, the glasses didn't work. I mean, they corrected my vision, but that's all. The reason I am typing this entry without glasses is because I am wearing contact lenses. Trippy. I really like having REALLY clear vision, no reflections, no frames, no thumbprints, etc. I will like having the ability to wear drugstore sunglasses. I am not crazy about putting them in or taking them out. I am on the fence about the aesthetics of me without glasses. I tend to like glasses, on just about anyone, and I've worn them for so long that I look sort of funny without them. Like I have little tiny pig-eyes. Which I sort of do. I have a big face with small features. Glasses temper that a bit. Whatever. It'll be worth it just for the startling clarity of vision. We'll see how it goes.