up the river

considering that one year ago today i stepped off a bus in tuscany, i'm just fine with south texas. this weekend at ted's land was good. good in the way you actually watch the sun rise and fall two days in a row. good in hearing roosters crow and rain falling on the metal roof where you sleep. good in really getting to know your coworkers, bosses, and friends.

out in the middle of nowhere it's very quiet and you can get a lot of thinking done. that's both good and bad. ultimately you reach a higher state of being and a good tan, and you can't trade that for the world.

best week ever?

lying in a hospital bed, covered in cardiogram electrodes, and being surrounded by comatose stroke victims wasn't in my plans for today. but beggers can't be choosers and life is just one bitch of a level scale.

for most of this week i was either moving on up to the third floor or schmoozing with the clients from florida. by schoozing i mean i stayed quiet and watched everyone who wasn't paid by the hour talk architecture. yesterday our team got back together to plan out the rest of this project. i now with my new found knowledge of bigwig talk, chimed in a couple times to earn that $9.50. in between there was plenty of company catered food, an hour long presentation on linoleum, and i got to meet the mayor of san antonio at a genuine ribbon cutting.

today i woke up and was immediately on the floor in back pain. i figured i just slept wrong so i stretched it out, headed to work, and chalked it up to being a man of my age. in fact at the office i was called out on walking like an old man a couple times. soon after i was struggling to breath and really hurting. soon after that there i was in the emergency room.

i was diagnosed with severely pulled parasternal intercostals (i slept severely wrong) so now i'm chalk full of high grade narcotics with a carton of epsom salts primed for a morning bath. sadly, a planned trip to austin tomorrow might be in jeopardy with my inability to operate heavy machinery.

my facester

somehow i broke down and signed back on to facebook right as the summer started. half as a way to pass the time on a quiet night and half to stalk people. well that quiet night has lasted all summer and i'm sure i have a few restraining orders by now. as much as i indulge, i'm still 100% against the likes of facebook, friendster, and my space (the only one i've managed to steer clear of) on the sole basis of acquaintanship. that's all we are nowadays it seems, casual friends who you can too easily read blogs and away messages of or see their naked pictures of (i'm not allowed to tell) from across the country without having to actually talk face to face. know the deepest darkest secrets of someone and then merely give a hello nod when passing on the street. though i'd shake zach braff's hand.

in following suit, i looked up everyone with my last name, and now they're my virtual friends. i'd always felt lonely in the world having never met another, but now i "have" and that makes me feel "good." i even furthered the non-necessity of future high school reunion small talk by linking to this blog and giving out my screenname on facebook. read away semistrangers, even you unknown person in san angelo. my favorite though is big "breasted italian women" searcher who found this thing by searching for big breasted italian women. if my knowledge of yahoo search engine code is right and this thing has been hit before, this blog should be the future search engine champion for big breasted italian women.

if any of y'all are ever actually in san antonio, let's grab a margarita on the riverwalk. i'll even shake your hand.

the most worthless blog entry ever

it's funny the things you occupy your time with when living alone. the things you do that for your own pure amusement, that have no effect on anyone else in the world but yourself. no one to impress, to entertain, compromise for. it makes you understand where your actual interests lie.

take for instance my pile of change. i first started using cash at the age of 7 or 8, but you know just a school lunch here or an arcade marathon there. it all added up to a lot in my mind, and in fact i added it all up every few months to determine my wealth. i actually stored five dollar birthday bills in my old half of an encyclopedia set, in the m-volume, under money. i was a veritable bruce wayne. as time went on, i had 3 or 4 jobs then which for the most part went into savings. any one dollar bills or pocket change i did have was funneled into my then 16 year old gasoline fund. remember back in 1998, gas was cheap and driving out to church seemed like a grand adventure.

since then, i've had 5 or 6 more jobs, all non-cash, yet i'm still carrying around that same pile of change in my little red train tin i got from some junior high band candy fundraiser. now the debit card is king and though my famous frank lloyd wright checks i got right before college are almost all gone, i'm sure i'll find something equally as dorky/pretentious to take me into the next 5 years. so i've made it my personal goal here in san antonio to use those nickels whenever possible (i love parking meters) and simplify my life enough to where i can count it all up, organized by demonination on my bedspread. long story short...er, yesterday when making an impromptu bread run at HEB, i grabbed what i'd stashed in the honda coinscoop and discovered a worn souvenir pressed penny that i'd gotten at fisherman's wharf in san francisco, a family trip back from when i was 10 or 11.

i was content to stand in the humbling nostalgia of the moment and just leave it at that, but no it was too precious so i decided to share it with you.

five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundredpieces of basswood

how do you measure, measure a month? in headaches? in bandades? in runs to hobby lobby?

it should have been about a month, but it kept going and now i'm afraid to figure out how long it took. let's just agree that for all of july 2005 my sole purpose was to create this model of a florida beach club. it was my existence.

outside of that, i'd have to say july 2005 was quite a good month in terms of living in san antonio and dealing with those responsibilities and feeling the passing of time a little bit more than i'm used to. august means it gets even hotter and i have to contend with back to school sales/tax free weekends at the mall, like i did yesterday. carry on children as i go tie shopping and get my car inspected.

and make my little doll houses. tomorrow i unveil this thing that i finished on this sunday night and hopefully start anew on a few drawings and definitely wear my new shirt.

you actually measure in 32nds of an inch and eyeball anything smaller. and on a similar note, this month i remembered to pay my RENT.