living at laura's

well i'm not homeless - laura was nice enough to extend her hospitality to genevieve, MJ and I. She has a two bedroom apartment in McAllen that is really nice - it's small but she has such good taste that it is full of nice things. Of course, she's moving at the end of July so most of her things are packed up. She hasn't got internet though - right now I'm sitting outside on her small deck stealing wireless from some hapless Texan. She told me her old roommate used to be able to get a wireless signal sometimes, but today was the first day it worked for me. Good thing too, because everyone is gone today and I wanted to work on some job applications and get them sent out. Which I did.

Lets see what's been going on. Yesterday was the big NO BORDER WALL rally and protest. It was really great - they had a forum a few weeks ago that I thought would be tough to top in terms of attendance and enthusiasm, but yesterday evening definitely took the cake. They had speakers first, in an auditorium at UT Pan-Am, who spoke about the issues everyone has heard before - immigration, environment, etc - and then Emily, the lawyer whose house Genevieve and I stayed in for a week or so, spoke about the pending lawsuits against the government right now. Specifically DHS, since they haven't been obeying their court order to consult with landowners about buying thier land, they've basically been strongarming peope into giving up property. She said she doesn't expect to win but she want to draw attention to what is going on here. Then a student group from the University spoke, and the girl in charge got everyone fired up, and a few minutes later we marched on the courthouse. Picket signs and all. It was very cool - we marched down a length of the highway that the police had blocked off for us, and the other side of the highway had people beeping and waving, and storeowners were coming out of their stores to cheer us on. I think there were something like 600 people or so. It doesn't seem like a lot if you compare it to the amount of people who have written letters to their congresspeople in support of th border wall, but most of those people don't live - have never lived and will never live - in the Rio Grande Valley, and don't really understand what a terrible impact a border wall will have. In terms of economic loss, environmental impact, human fatalities... I don't think anyone in their right mind could support the border wall if they knew what havoc it will wreak down here.

So that was a lot of fun, and Genevieve took a lot of pictures, which I'll wrangle out of her at a later date. She's at work now so I can't harass her about it at this moment.

We went up to Austin last week and stayed with Gino. It was great! I think the weather is just about as hot in Austin as down here, but there are a lot more places to swim and cool off up there than down here. The first day we were there we swam in a river, the next day in Gino's pool, and the last day we went to a place called Hamilton Pool - one of the most gorgeous natural formations i've ever seen in my life. It was absolutely incredible - for the first hour or so that we were there I din't even want to swim, I just wanted to look at it. I got more tan in those few days than I have been in the past few years of my life, I think. I really love Austin. We went to a party there on Saturday and everyone was so incredibly nice and welcoming... even to me, and I am about the most shy and boring person alive. I actually ended up just falling asleep in a hammock for something like five hours. During the party. While fireworks were being set off not 10 feet from where I was. (See, I'm boring.) Patrick was there for a bit but he headed off after a few hours, I think to try and patch things up with his boyfriend (which didn't end up working, since the next day he told me they were no longer seeing each other). And Gino of course was there, he's the one who brought us, and Genevieve, but she left early to go see another friend of hers who lives in Austin, and to watch the fireworks over the lake. Like I said, I missed most of the fireworks in my area because I was sleeping. I wish I had a hammock at home, they're really great. The last day of Austin was kind of ruined for me for stupid reasons, and I was so upset at the time that I left my phone charger up there like a moron, so now in addition to not having internet i also haven't got any battery in my phone. I've been getting a lot of reading done, basically. Anyway though, I'm pretty excited to get back up to Austin at the end of July for a week - and Nick has been saying he might be able to come down as well! (Patrick is SUPER EXCITED about that, hahaha). So it will be me, Toni, Patrick, Nick, and Gino - some of my best friends from before lawschool sucked my life away. If only my Belmar friends were coming as well, it would be like a 24-hour party.

I know there's been more stuff that's happened in the past three weeks or whatever it's been since I've updated, but I'm getting hot out here and I want to go back inside where there is no internet, but I can read more. I'm in the middle of 'Eiger Dreams' and 'Persian Fire,' two books which John mailed me because he's the best. They're both awesome.