I get more creative at night. I say this because I had to leave to drive my parents to the airport at 4:20 this morning. So I didn’t go to sleep. I’m much worse off with a little sleep than I am with no sleep. My grandma is dying. That’s why I had to take them to the airport. I’ll miss my grandma, but most of all I’ll miss my grandma and grandpa’s house. Located in Flint, MI it was the Thomas Family hub. I remember summer spent days down in the bowels of its basement, or playing in the sprinkler in the back yard, or doing gymnastics on the front lawn. But there weren’t many of them.

Days in Flint that is. Not Thomases. There’s are plenty of Thomases.

No need to get maudlin though. If Flint’s real estate market stays the same I expect that the house could be in the family for generations.

Just remember. If you’re feeling priced out of Austin you can always move to Flint. Houses on my Grandparent’s street average around $32k. 2 story. 2000+ ft2 4 bedroom houses. I believe my Grandparent’s is 2 bedroom. 3 if you count the converted basement.

So I wrote last night. And then I took them to the airport, and then I tooled around Austin.

First stop I wound around east riverside. There’s a lot of cool stuff over there. And it’s gentrified a lot since I lived over there. There are some amazingly large expensive houses across the street from some of the skeezy places on Montopolis. There are entire suburbs over there. Tons of stuff off the Golf Course. It really looks like people have realized that there’s a bunch of property over there that’s on a lake or a golf course.

Then I drove by our new house. Yeah, I’m buzzing neighbourhoods at 4:30am. So what? Does that make me a stalker?

Then I was bored so I drove through our old new neighbourhood. The house is still looking very unfinished. They haven’t painted it, and they had every light in the place blazing. At 4:30am. Green building it is not.

Then still being bored I drove by our old old house. That one is still up for lease. Some of my plants might eat the neighbors soon. The Thai Basil looks like it’s 4 feet tall.

But the house is still up for lease. It’s been 4 months. Hopefully our Californian investor will sell it at a loss and a nice family will snatch it up.

So I’m back at home waiting for Stella to wake up any minute now. Then off to work, and another night of write, write, write!

We’re going to Evant on Saturday and Sunday so hopefully that will afford me even more opportunities to write.

WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! Dah, dah, dah, da, da, da, da…

oh, and go read the Austin Contrarian’s explanation of what a VMU is and how they work. Everyone should be edumacated. I can’t wait until the redo riverside. I’d post a link, but I’m lazy, and sleepy, so use the Google.