Yesterday evening I was cleaning my desk and files of stray scraps of paper in preparation for the likely-impending Big Evernote Migration and among the odds and ends turned up were both of my “getting a raise” letters from UT. One (the first) was hardly worth the paper it was printed on but the other… well, you remember that. Won’t be getting any letter at all this time around. I’d be sad about that if I wasn’t just too damn glad to have a job, period.
The neighborhood is changing a lot more than I expect my job to: people moving out, people moving in and this time I’m not talking about students. The house across the street, the one that stood vacant of even renters for a year and a half, has been under dog-slow refurbishment by a young couple and evidently it’s now complete enough they can move in - earlier this week real curtains replaced the bedsheets behind the front windows. (There’s barely room in the driveway for their Yukon, and I don’t care if it does sport a KUT sticker as its sole adornment. It’s still a Yukon.) I haven’t met them yet but doubt I will while the weather keeps us all indoors.
The property at 44 and G is suddenly up for sale. When I moved to Hyde Park it wasn’t a house, just two unconnected oblongs of roofless cinder blocks. Someone’s made it a pretty sweet little dwelling-place, peaked roofs and all; a lot of the walls are glass and the particular style of wall around the perimeter doesn’t assure much privacy but some people don’t need that. All told it’s a very unique place, Hyde Park funk taken modern. Now the builders are getting out and I hope they’re not losing their skin on the sale, presuming they make one at all in a reasonable period.
Around the corner on H one of the older, two-story houses is being vacated too and I can’t help but wonder if it’s going to stand empty long. Early this morning there was a pile of end-of-tenancy giveaway crap on the front lawn and I scavenged a couple of wall-mounted wire racks like I’ve been thinking of buying to open up some cupboard space in my kitchen. The racks are a little bent here and there and need painting but otherwise look quite serviceable and once again I see the benefits of being up before everyone else.
The house itself is a beauty by Austin standards and I hope it’s going to someone who’ll take care of it. I think it’s the same one where the resident used to protect his BMW from hail by just throwing a blanket over it, but I can’t be sure.
You’ve got to wonder who’s going to buy these houses in this market and how, since the cost per square foot in this neighborhood even in bad times can’t help but make a faceless suburb comparatively attractive. Oh sure, burbs as a viable lifestyle are on their way out or will be as soon as gas hits $5/gallon the first time, but that doesn’t seem to mean much to most just yet. If it did there wouldn’t be the present high vacancy and/or turnover rates for non-student housing in this most locationwise-plum of neighborhoods I live in.
My friend Sharene lives in San Antonio and went to work for a Big 5 accounting firm there a few years ago when she graduated UT. I was chatting with her yesterday and she said her job starting to get weird for her, very Stepford with droves of her colleagues getting married and buying houses. I don’t think she realized until now what an established path this is: get an education to get a stable job/career so you can mate, acquire property and reproduce. 1-2-3-4-5 in easy steps for the middle class. Shudder. Sharene says she’s planning on putting off growing up and buying property for a good long time and it’s my fondest hope it’ll only take her another few years to see she’ll never feel fulfilled in corporate accounting.
Could happen: she and her boyfriend have already founded their own nonprofit dedicated to an underserved niche of low-impact travelers. Best of all would be if they amassed enough money to move north and buy one of those houses in my hood. Sharene was one of my favorite people on the Lilith board and I miss her since she moved away. And she’s non-cookie-cutter enough to be someone who would fit in well Hyde Park and maybe – someday – raise her own kids here. But I didn’t say anything about this to her. Every time someone I know moves a step further along The Path, I figure I’ll be losing them as a friend soon.
Sometimes I’m even right.
I’ve got an education. I’ve got a job (can't call it a career - yet) and I don’t need a lot more money, though it would of course be nice. I don’t need a house. I’d like a mate someday but I definitely don’t need kids, especially at my age. Things may be changing around the neighborhood but I don’t see how any of that’s going to directly translate to my own little world.
Comments