Yesterday was my partner Scott’s 35th birthday. I listen to RuPaul’s podcast (the last one with Leah Remini was great) and Ru always says that 35 is a hugely transformational year. I’ve been reminding Scott about this whenever he feels “over the hill.” When your worries about aging come from a place of desiring more out of life and ambition, knowing that transformation is on its way can be very comforting, even if you don’t buy into stuff like that normally. But if RuPaul says something we are much more likely to get on board, henny.
We had a record-breakingly fun time celebrating Scott’s birthday, which conveniently landed on his only real day off (Sundays). I cleared my schedule for the day, too, and did my best to make every minute as fun as possible. We ate at Taco Deli for breakfast (which we are completely obsessed with), getting the short rib special. My go-to lately is the Migas Royale plate, which comes with their homemade mashed potatoes, refried beans, tortillas, pico, and of course, migas. The cashier even gave us free breakfast taco coupons for his bday! This reminded us of one of the BIGGEST regrets of my life, which was when my mom somehow scored us a stack of free Taco Deli taco coupons… but we had never been there before and didn’t know what to think (Austin is chock full of taco places, and I’m not a big fan of the famous joint Torchy’s, so I thought Taco Deli would be the same or worse) so Scott and I only thought to go on the day they expired. We used exactly two from the stack that had been floating around in my wallet and purse and nightstand drawer for MONTHS and were treated to the BEST tacos of life. It haunted me for a long time afterwards. I could have been eating delicious FREE tacos for so long, and I waited too long and wasted so many coupons. What an idiot! I guess I’m still not over it.
After going to one of the best places in Austin for breakfast, we went to one of the best places in Austin for COFFEE. We’ve been kind of broke all month, but I’d set money aside for Scott’s birthday, and that included $4 lattes from Summer Moon Coffee shop. There is a location of this cafe down on South First that I HATE- so hipster-y, the way so much of South First can be. I hate some of South Austin, I’m sorry. I’ll just admit that I’m a north Austin snob. The Summer Moon on South First had a dirt parking lot filled with old pickup trucks and pristine Audis, and the layout urged you to claim one of the few tiny tables or GTFO. It was the kind of place where everyone is alone at a table on their MacBook and they glare at you when you glance over at them. Jeez. I’ll stick with my North Burnet Summer Moon, which is yuppie heaven. It has exposed brick walls, a fancy counter, leather couches, and it’s next to one of Austin’s Asian-fusion restaurants best known for inventing Kimchi fries. I always find it funny how the South Austin location of this coffee shop is basically like a different entity entirely from the North Austin one. Summer Moon wood fires their beans and created something called Moon Milk, which is heavenly. I got a Summer Moon latte and Scott got his wood-fired coffee, and we split a pumpkin bread (yay for out of season pumpkin stuff!).
We headed to the Walnut Creek Pump Track, delighted that the rain had held off and the weather was beautiful. I was wearing my favorite black dress, black tights, black lace-up ankle boots, and a brown sweater that almost looks like the perfect one I accidentally left in the writing center of Southwestern University years ago (another thing that I’m not over!). I sat on a log with my coffee and book (Graduates in Wonderland) and enjoyed being out in the woods. I’ve spent so much of my life with Scott hanging out and reading while he rides, and it was actually weird to not do that in the year or so since he injured his knee. I took pictures of him riding and they got so many likes on Instagram I got jealous.
After wandering around World Market, we rounded the day out with a road trip to South Austin to head to one of the city’s three Guitar Centers. Another thing they don’t tell you about being in a relationship where you love spending time together is you’re going to have to go places that guys think are awesome and girls do not… but at least it gives us twenty minutes to scroll through Reddit while guitar pedals are tested/bikes are jumped/identical looking black dress shoes are tried on. Not to say that girls don’t like these things too, but statistically it’s dude city at these places. Anyway, we ventured down to my hated part of town to see if they have different used amps than the Guitar Center in central Austin or the Guitar Center in Round Rock, both of which we also checked out at some point this week. And boy, did we luck out. They had a cool $1,500 Orange Rockerverb 50 amp (not to be confused with the Rockerverb MKii or MKiii. You can play the $2,000 MKiii in person if you’re insane like us and want to drive to the SAN ANTONIO Guitar Center) and Scott was a happy camper, testing it out until they basically kicked us out. Now he’s obsessed and wants to buy one.
We ate dinner at the new Tarka in the Rock Rose district of the Domain. The Domain just blew UP in the last year (not literally) with dozens and dozens of new, cool places that I actually REALLY want to go to and check out and just look incredible. From the Northside to Rock Rose, there are bars, restaurants, non-sketchy nightclubs, chic little shops like an Alex & Ani standalone store, a new Sephora, brick and mortar candy stores, on and on!! The Rock Rose district was BUMPING on a Sunday night around 7, with people milling around outside of pubs and bass-heavy music shaking the walls of the Indian place where we were eating. It was crazy and our young-people senses were telling us to get in the mix, enjoying sights and sounds that are manufactured and designed by expensive marketing teams to draw exactly our demographic in. It was like a clean, baby-sized utopia version of Brooklyn, full of different ethnicities and super trendy clothes and Italian tapas bars. North Austin wins again!!!
And of course, we finished the night with a stop at Sprinkles Cupcakes. If you follow me on Instagram, you know I’m obsessed with the world-famous Beverly Hills cupcake shop (they’re at Disney parks too!) that recently opened in the Domain. We have our own 24 hour cupcake ATM now, y’all. Scott got a dark chocolate cupcake, and I got vanilla with sprinkles. I heard from the source it was his best birthday ever (aww), and it was one perfect Sunday in Austin!
More soon!
-Taylor
TAYLOR DOROTHY 
Loved your outfit!
Happy Birthday to Scott!