ALL OVER THE MAP

Dear Friends,
Blogs are about life. I live in Austin. They say Austin is full of famous musicians. They’re right.

Even though I had once been a musician and a nightlife writer, I wasn’t thinking about music when I moved to Austin. I was thinking about claustrophobia. After ten years on three acres in a mountain town, we were moving to a small house with three large dogs who specialized in endurance barking.

But my Texan neighbors had no complaints. Anyone can make noise here, it seems, as long as they do it on key. This is the land not just of live music, but of hedonism and barbecue. People want you to be happy. Over gin and tonics, they find out what you want and give it to you. My next door neighbor gave me a huge vegetable garden. We call it Mother’s Day Farm.
I hadn’t grown a large, ripe tomato in more than a decade. Either you know what I’m talking about or you don’t, but on my death bed, I’ll be happier to have grown tomatoes than to have written a word.

(Continued)