Street Walking Man

Since I don’t have a car temporary now, I decided to walk around my “neighborhood” on this Saturday afternoon. The weather was okay. It was a little hot but really windy. At least I didn’t have to sweat like a pig.

I walked down Waugh Drive, as I planned to walk by Montrose then to Sound Exchange on Richmond. It has been a while since I really “walk down the streets”. Houston is so car-oriented (as in most places in the States), it is not really walker-friendly. But at least around Montrose, there are more pedestrians and shops (and sidewalks).

The sight of the neighborhood down Waugh looked very different to me today because I was walking the opposite direction of this one-way street. Besides, just the fact that I was walking instead of riding in a car made a lot of differences.

As I passed by the Chinese Consulate Office on Montrose, I saw a group of Falun Gong practitioners doing their “exercise” in front of the building. I think I saw them more than once before, but this time they even had a black dude in the group. I don’t really know what’s the deal with them. Are they really a cult? Or were they innocent yoga-like practicing people? The Chinese government’s side of the story is definitely unreliable (like 10 times more unreliable than Scott McClellan) but Falun Gong definitely looks a little “cult-ish”.

Then I walked onto Richmond and stopped at Lucky Burger. There was a car accident right across the street and the two cars involved looked quite damaged. I was sitting in the restaurant eating as I saw the traffic stalled. God, I hate traffic accidents (even though I was not involved).

Finally I arrived at Sound Exchange. I can’t find any records I want to buy. But it is always nice to flip through those piles of vinyl. I don’t have anything better to do anyway. Then I walked to Cactus Records nearby. As I walked in the door, I could feel the blaze of heat attacking me there. There wasn’t any air conditioning and there were people watching the in-store performance. Dude, I know you guys are closing but how can you be that cheap. It totally reminded me of my ex-roommate Sean Martin the fucking ass hole. That sick fuck had me endured 5 weeks of 90 degrees of heat in the apartment (which he claimed is a “condo”). I wished he would die of syphilis. Well, back to Cactus: 90% of their shelves were empty already when I got there. I tried to find the first album of Camera Obscura and the Royal Tenenbaums DVD but I came out empty-handed. Shit I could not wait to get out of that store and it felt like Heaven when I walked into the air-conditioned Book Stop.

As I tried to walked back home through Westheimer, I saw a lot of people walking in-and-out of thrive stores. I walked into one and they have pretty cool and good-priced clothes. But I was in no mood of clothing-shopping. Too bad they don’t have any records to sell. I decided to walk back to Montrose so that I could look for the Royal Tenenbaums DVD there. Coincidently, I met my friend Steve in the store (as he was visiting Nadia). That DVD costs $19.99 there and I remembered the price is like 15 bucks on the internet (www.deepdiscountdvd.com, great prices there). So I told myself to behave and save it for later.

At last, I was going home. Then I walked in to this interesting store I saw every time I drove by Waugh. They sell South American crafts and decorations there. It was one of those stores that I see all the time but never make an effort to walk inside. They have pretty cool hats (or sombreros).

Jesus fucking Christ, I spent most of my night looking for cars on the internet. It is a pain in MY ass. I am totally lost and confused. I welcome any suggestion or advice from anyone.