First off, I must give credit to
Things I Told My Cat Today for giving me this idea. After reading her recount of the various views from her various bedroom windows, I thought it would be interesting (mostly to myself) to do the same.
1. The Side Yard of My Childhood Home
(I realize this is starting off boringly similar to TITMCT, but the beginning is the beginning!) This one was pretty dull, just a view into the fence of our backyard. Later, this strip of yard would become a favorite place for my German Shepard to sleep and poop in.
2. A University Recreational Field and Track
I consider myself quite lucky to have had this as my first college view, considering what I would later experience in another dorm (See #3 below). This room was on the ground floor, however the way the building was set on a hill, my window was actually a good 40 feet up off the ground. I could look out on the amateur flag footballers and track runners aka I could creep on sweaty dudes.
3. The Perry-Casteneda Library
Downgrade city. University Dept. of Housing and Food decided it was time for me to experience the joys of a crappy dorm and moved me. Thirteen stories up out of a window the width of a lamp post, I had a lovely view of a place I mostly associated with late night cram sessions aka severe anxiety. Looking out of this window wasn't fun.
4. A Private Drive in Historic West Austin
And to reward me for not jumping out of the former thirteenth floor window, the housing gods smiled upon me. The entire front wall of this house was made of windows. Luckily, for naked purposes, the windows faced a oak tree enveloped private drive with the only traffic being us, our guests, or the elderly couple next door. Beyond the street was Pease Park, one big frisbee golf course with a creek running through it. You could actually barely see this, but you could hear the homeless people at night, doing whatever it is homeless people do in a park at night. I'm sure it was a wholesome game of paddycake.
5. An Alley Between Apartments...if I stood on my tippy toes
The rise and fall of good fortunes swung it's ugly head around and booted me from the beautiful glass box I was living in and into "La Casita". The window in my room was situated at the top of the wall near the ceiling and only allowed one to look out of it if they were standing on my bed. Not that you much wanted to do that anyway, as the view from this window looked into the alley between my apartment complex and the one next door. The far nicer, larger, newer one next door. Additionally, the only other window in the apartment faced East towards the interstate. Ok, not just
towards the interstate. It was a direct view of the upper and lower deck of I-35. I became the go-to gal for up-to-the-minute traffic reports.
6. Trees! And Greenery once again!
Ahhh for these two years I had two walls with windows. Sunlight again! Being on the second floor meant that the window over my bed looked out onto the branches of a gorgeous live oak tree. Like
TITMCT, my feline companion also enjoyed staring out this window, pretending she was a fierce hunter, and cursing the god-forsaken glass for keeping her from her true destiny of total squirrel annihilation. The other window over looked our rickety second story balcony, which the landlord was soooo proud of because he built it himself. Sorry Doug, but that thing was a death trap.
7. A Run-down Backyard and Guest House
I didn't do much looking out this window because it was mostly covered in muddy paw prints from two very annoying and uncontrolled Weimaraners. But there was a backyard out there, that I'm sure once used to have grass in it, but because of said hounds of the apocalypse, was mostly a giant dirt patch/mud pit. In the backyard was a small guest house, which was actually the coolest feature of the house and almost made up for the dogs, and more importantly the dogs' owner, one of my roommates whom I shall call Mr. Tool Douche. The guest house had an enormous TV and couches set up in a stadium-seating fashion, so that it was essentially a private movie theater. It could comfortably seat about 10-15 people.This was were I spent most of my time, as it was away from Mr. Tool Douche and his canine minions.
8. A Historical Baptist Church
Finally, my current bedroom view. My room overlooks the front entrance to my building which is very well maintained with little flower gardens and the like. Beyond this is a great big Baptist church, which normally would annoy me, but this one is very old, aesthetically pleasing, and made up of a predominately African-American congregation, and every Sunday all the ladies and gentlemen are dressed to the nines. Bright purple, orange, and green dresses with matching sun hats. Men in 3 piece suits, looking very dapper. Sometimes there are weddings there and I like to sit on my balcony and watch the wedding party outside the church, like a creeper. But then I think, hey, if I spent this much money on looking that good, I'd encourage people to watch me. But that might be because I am an attention whore. Who knows... Another thing I like about this church is that, although it has a lovely bell tower, I have never heard any tolling coming from it, thank God, no pun intended. I have my alarm and I would prefer to be able to set it to a time of my choice and not be on organized religion's sleep schedule. I've thought from time to time about going in one Sunday just to check it out, but then I remember that means I have to wake up on a Sunday morning at a reasonable hour and that being inside of churches makes me uncomfortable. And they smell funny. So it hasn't happened yet.
