Live To The Beat Of The City

A block over from my house, theres a big sign for these townhomes they're building where there once stood beautiful homes, and on the sign it says "Live To The Beat Of The City" as a selling point for said townhomes. And while I always lament the destruction of cool old houses, I must admit that all things considered, they're pretty cool townhomes. Three stories, roof decks, visually appealing....they're really not bad. What always stood out to me about them though, was the price.....each one is in the range of $300,000 which to you non-Texans doesnt seem that high, but bare with me. You see, these townhomes are literally a block away from a stretch of loud bars-which is a big part of why I live where I do, but I also rent-I can't fathom investing that much cash to buy a bad-ass townhome thats a block away from bars for 20-somethings, to say nothing of being two blocks from Ross Avenue. I write all that to say this, last night I had a bit of an encounter that made me chuckle at the idea of "living to the beat of the city."

It had been a long week, so I did a bit of a bar crawl (Barcadia, then Libertine, and then Capitol Pub) which resulted in not getting home 'til about 2:30am (thank you again Selene for the ride home!). So I get dropped off, light a cigarette and decide to sit on the stoop in front of my house for a bit before going inside. Sit there for a couple minutes enjoying the breeze, watching the drunks stumble back to their cars, listening to the police sirens....you know, 2:30am on a friday night on Lower Greenville, when a short Asian guy (really looked like a boy, couldn't have been over 22) dressed almost like a Mormon (black pants, white shirt, black tie) walks up to me and asks if he can bum a cigarette. I say sure, hand him one, he lights it and stands there for a second before motioning for me to scoot over and asking if he can sit next to me.

Ok, so guy asking to bum a cigarette off a random stranger at 2:30am? Not that weird. Guy asking to sit next to you on a dark stoop? Now that, that is kind of weird.

So I tell him that I'd prefer to sit alone and just enjoy the evening, and wish him a good evening. He just stands there for a bit looking at me in an odd way (my guess is he was on X, he didnt smell or look drunk, but he didnt look sober), and then he reaches his hand out and tries to grab my crotch. I deftly manage to parry his advance with my arm (I had no idea drunk parrying was a skill I possessed), and then he just stands there for about ten seconds staring at me sitting there looking at him with some mix of surprise and disgust on my face. He then shouts, "I just wanted to feel it!" and quickly walks away down the street.

I walk inside unable to do anything but giggle at the situation, and then ponder to myself, is that what they mean by living "to the beat of the city?"