this texian life

14 days of autumn

2009-11-11T12:53:00.000-06:00

A trip to just see how we’re all doing. In short, I think we’re going to make it.

On delays

2009-10-25T23:44:00.004-05:00

We want to believe that after delaying and putting off and being told to wait your turn, that you'll look back and realize that not only was it worth it, but that you're better off because of the wait. Certain things, the good things, don't come easily they say. Buying a house, passing the tests, finishing that project, are all necessary goals and deserve our attention, so you should go ahead and shut down for a year (and the rest of your life while you're at it), make your sacrifices, and get comfortable because that's what they do. That's life, they say, so you realize that all the other stuff was just training and eager anticipation for your first mortgage payment. Okay. Fair enough. But what happens next?

I'll let you know how it goes.

movies about architects

2009-09-02T21:54:00.001-05:00

sweating in a windowless office wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. my would-be mortgage broker sifted through a stack of new listings and old pamphlets, building up the ease of home purchase while muttering something about the the “gay Ansel Adams posters” in his newly acquired office. What I had dressed up for, what I had saved up years for, quickly filtered through a handful of standard salary and marital status questions that gauged my risk as a human being. Down the hallway, the Friday afternoon cleaning lady started vacuuming, and lines of empty cubicles sat in front of the western facing window wall, looking out at a packed freeway intersection, blasted by an early evening sun. I was low risk, he said. Actually it was more along the lines of “Dude, your credit score is bad ass.” The air system cranked back on, making me realize that it’d been off this whole time, off most of the time since the glass building had closed for the weekend.

Five minutes later it had turned back off, and we’d pulled up a hundred or so listings that matched my parameters that fit within the parameters that he’d offered me. Whatever I choose to pursue, “I’ll be a bitch, but I’ll be your bitch” which sounded exciting, as I’d never had my own real estate bitch. Someone alongside won’t wouldn’t punches. Lender and realtor all in one.

My god, what have I done?

back to the laundromat

2009-07-29T00:42:00.003-05:00

After recently learning that washing your pillows could be a good thing, but soon after realizing that my closet washer/dryer didn’t agree, I pulled out the old laundry bag and went walking. It’d now been nearly two and a half years in my current apartment and two and a half years since I’d been to the laundromat and heard the Vegasish clang of twenty quarters in unison. Where I last left it, disintegrated foam mattresses were strewn about yellow terrazzo floors and middle age men parked idled outside, whistling when I dropped a sock. Not the best of memories, but that night wasn’t the best of washaterias. In the better laundromats, I found the best of nights.

Now in the next neighborhood over, and trying to dedicate myself to pedestrian neighborhoods, I walked the walk 4 or so blocks to a brightly lit operation in the dark headwaters of Blanco road. I’d always found this whole corner of Beacon Hill interesting, stuck between the tracks, industry, and the steep incline that constitutes the Hill. The laundromat is about as clean as they come though, seen through the spotless storefront windows. Protected from the crowds of Fredericksburg Road and the sins of McCullough, a skinny abuelita manages the business with tropical colored pants and a endless bottle of Windex.

I sat down, stuffed in my pillows to a giant front loader, and watched her glide back and forth polishing the dryer glass and wood panel walls over and over. Over the sound of her and her machines, the sound of a wall mounted tv tuned to Seinfeld reruns, and over that the sounds of an old Street Fighter II console playing its once familiar automated loop. Kids played hide and seek.

Over that, I read. I’ll hold myself back from a gushing review of a Pattern Language, mainly because I’m always a fan of my latest book, so I’ll just say it’s getting at what I’ve been going after. Somewhere within these cities, buildings, window seats, and country sides I’ve been collecting, there is a reason. Beauty and function stemming from a set of patterns, that luckily then combine into an infinite array of new patterns, lending themselves all to the complexities and contradictions that make a truly great anything. Or one hopes. I can assume that by the shear number of rules that they prescribe (253) that there are countless more rules to argue for. Whether in full agreement or not, my brain is finally thinking and not studying.

The trick is to focus all this with my energy and make something of it. And at such an opportune time, as I take on all the projects I’ve been preparing for, right as she turns off the lights, and my dryer buzzer goes off.

mileage

2009-05-26T23:03:00.002-05:00

Possibly in an attempt to prolong the last few weeks of test taking, I’ve taken on the long lost hobby of car shopping. Here near the peak of a carless lifestyle, as the auto industries dismantle around us, I’m hooked into craigslist feeds and spend evenings organizing note cards and post it notes scrawled with nonsensical 4wd114k013995s and bluenewtire shorthand. It’s all in preparing the tools I need to get things done. My energy is pent up, spent sparingly on side tasks, a few new plants for the garden, one…more…bike tube, enough to keep me going for the next test, and the next, but soon enough the dam will break, and I’ll be slamming into it the flood with all the 4wdbluenewtires I can get my hands on for $5000. Or maybe more like an ark with fold down seats, gathering discarded construction debris and homeless dogs as I roam the city.

And here’s where I meet the man who I might become, trying to sell me the XJ that’ll get me there. Him, a retired military psychologist with a verdant south side river mission composed of an old stone house, a 10,000 square foot car garage designed to seal up in the event of a flood, and spare train car, 18 wheeler, and decommissioned fighter jet just hanging out on his river fed green grass lawn with the dog. Me, a young impressionable one-day-retired architect just soaking it in as the late evening sun feathers out behind layers of thirty foot tall bamboo growth, dusking to the point where his obviously red dyed grey beard starts to look naturally red, and then grey again. There was a driveway full of vehicles to choose from, each with its own story, but each connected by this one man who would collect them, clean them up, and release them back into the outside city better off and ready for 114k+ miles more of work. Talk of fuel mileage turns into stories of the one jeep caught in a tornado, to the pecan trees that try to bash in his house roof. Some drunk guys wandered into his hideaway, passing out in the caboose. Inside, I saw the extent of his projects, spiral stairs and rolls of film, all mostly finished, but probably on twenty year time lines. Half the house is a shell of nice historic looking cottage/bureaucracy loophole, merely roughed in with plywood inside, yet housing finely carved jukeboxes and pipe organs that are not yet ready to return to the world outside.

Three hours into to my fifteen minute test drive, neither was I, but we both had to get back to our projects.

Close Enough

2009-04-21T23:42:00.002-05:00

I believe this food processor will be the end of me. 15 pieces or so of cucumber cutting action and somehow I’m not convinced that it’s a step up in productivity. Honestly I spent a half hour cleaning a plastic hexagon shaped rod and I’m still not sure what it’s for…or how it got dirty in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, I chopped an onion 15 times as fast, but hanging your eyeballs over the results is going to make you tear up either way.

With each step towards simplicity, there’s another fleeting grasp towards complication. Maybe I just need a special hexagon rod brush. It’s easy to get caught up in the details.

Looking back and catching up

2009-01-11T23:20:00.000-06:00

To anyone still around or with a lonely RSS feed, welcome.

$4.00

2008-06-15T23:59:00.001-05:00

As waves come crashing inland, cars gridlock amidst a miles long din, and people plead for someone to do something, we're peddling through with a sack full of tomatoes and a wonder for what all the commotion is about.

the nights it got real hot

2008-05-22T22:07:00.001-05:00

continuum

2008-02-21T22:14:00.012-06:00

I've hit that stride. Back in school, any chance to slow down is a chance to prepare for the next semester or catch up on your sleep. Happily, my winter break just keeps plowing through the humidity and I find myself well rested with my belly full. Sure there're rumblings of the next MS150, the next garden harvest, and the next work project that will lay claim to my year, but I figure it's best not to rehash just because it worked before. That's the next semester method. The key, or as I've figured out in the blog run, is to go opposite of the default.

So this eve of the anniversary of the latest big push has me wondering where all the time has gone. I think it went a lot of places and I'm just starting to see the fruits and vegetables of my labors. In the very least, I've got the mantle full of yellow quash seedlings, tired of their daily waterings, just aching to get their roots dirty. Hold on little guys. This is just the beginning of the end of the beginning.

You didn't think we were done, did you?

both sides of the bike

2007-11-11T22:18:00.002-06:00

i posted 50 or so bike flyers and he took most down following right behind me. why sir? well i was a punk, or some sibilance of one, is what he pieced together. a grade above graffiti artist, yet dressed in relaxed fit blue jeans and a button down shirt. he, a local merchant, accused me of uglifying his street and ultimately bringing down the neighborhood. me, the guy who had attended more neighborhood planning and association meetings than anyone else in the city, this side of the private sector. no sir, i thought to myself, we're actually on the same side so stick with me. i've spent nearly the last 12 months designing and constructing a major historic chunk of your streets, complete with fancy new light posts, on the hope that a few more punk kids will come next year and cover the brushed aluminum finish with a flyer or two. just imagine it sir. at some point you won't be able to manage it all and the streets shall runneth over with people doing all of the things we didn't plan for them to do. you won't know what to do...I actually failed to say most of this and stood somewhat receptive to his own speech. he went on how the new bikers in the area were hurting business, with which i managed to inform him of the following week's transportation planning meeting. take that! in the end we were both a little thrown off though that we'd both taken the offensive arguing for the same thing. by the way, after hundreds more flyers did make their way around the city and almost all our energy expended to get it there, the second bike summit was a success.

meanwhile i'd been training and raising money for my MS bike ride to across the coastal plains. six months ago i embarked on that with the purchase of an actual road bike, and the following pedal clips and florescent paraphernalia that would go with it. i knew it'd be hard both physically and physiologically to, you know, be a cyclist instead of just a guy who bikes. i in fact had been taking it a bit too casually throughout the summer in exchange for other agendas, but the early days of fall were spent with my crotch hugging the frame coasting and climbing the hills of bexar county. and then on the big weekend, i found that yes i am comfortable in my skin tight uniform chugging pickle juice and applying butter to my shammy. 150 miles into it, as my team and i turned a corner to see a bay bridge below and the comforting corpus christi skyline backdropped by the gulf of mexico i realized that i'd be back next year and maybe at a faster pace.

but for now i'm back to just the guy who bikes.

so ironic, it isn't and so un-ironic, it is

2007-09-22T19:11:00.001-05:00

So Austin is weird. I get it. I like it, yes, but it's no longer mine. I go there, visit, eat my share of urban delicacies and I'm reminded with each neo-dive establishment that I'm not as cool as you. Even as I spend a three day weekend at a huge festival and blend in among them, I'm the explorer stumbling across the beautiful person microcosm. It's more foreign with each new high rise condo that appears and with every familiar face that leaves. I feel more like a stranger each time I come home.

So SA is lame. I understand. We passively watch pro wrestlers in for a glimmer of pasión and have generally relegated any smattering of comunidad to the chunk of year between Fiesta and NBA championships. For years, I know, the urban renaissance has been underway, but this rate of rebirth has pushed our pregnancy into a fifth trimester. As I've found myself well into el gremio, it's time to create that which we've always wanted. With each high rise hotel taking over downtown, I find another action/cultural/planning event and recruit troupes for the eventual Battle of the Alamo Gifts Shops. Community gardens, neighborhood planning meetings, bicycle coops, and the whole grab bag of cliche liberal ammunition that it takes to push back against our own momentum. It's underground, by certain measures, but the people in power are dropping phrases like farmers market in increasingly regular city meetings. This week I watched my old SA neighborhood passionately presenting for historic designation and everyone in the press room felt something we hadn't felt in a while. I think this is going to happen, my friends, but we must look to our neighbors a la norte and figure out what we're willing to do to get there. Let's not forget where we came from.

portlandia

2007-08-30T17:33:00.000-05:00

northwest is a buzzword that strongly hits the hippest of nerves. the birthplace of coffee, hacky sacks, and platonian philosophizing, they’ve had us believe. hell i think they invented the pine tree, right? it’s with such questions heavy in my heart that i bought a plane ticket just two days prior to my excursion. i’d be like a modern louis and clark cultural expedition, except i’d transfer planes in denver.

the greatest thing about last minute airfare is it forces you to spend the rest of your trip frugally. i’m talking about foraging for berries, frugal, which was the case not long into a long beautiful hike. i’m talking about walking the streets and seeing where they took me, and who would take me in. i was lucky to have three semi-random hosts willing to free up some floor space and a wealth of comfortable park benches during the day.

rachel was generous enough to pick vicki, mark, and i up from the airport, drop me off to explore, and save me from cold and starvation the first night when i hadn’t set up a home yet. my first full day in portland was spent with rachel and vicki mostly outside of portland, driving across the beautiful countryside in search of hot springs. a locked gate and closed sign only encouraged the determined women to delve deeper into a village of naked men. upon their discovery, the gay men’s retreat politely asked us to leave and call ahead next time. gladly they didn’t ask us to leave the boy. the path home afforded the rare american work of alvar aalto and a chance at sneaking into a countryside wedding.

farhad drives an orange 1978 mercedes van complete with built in kitchen/bathroom and friendly pitbull/ridgeback. living behind an old house in the newest gentrified neighborhood of the NE, he had turned a garage into an apartment, the diesel van into biodiesel, and my preconceptions about portland on its end. it’s deeper than cool graphic tees and fixed gear bikes. it’s about, if i may, people doing it yourself. sure, that leads to a sampling of clichéd urban burritos stands, but it’s all individuals deciding they want something and in turn making it. these are not your father’s lazy hippies, but the most entrepreneurial of the gen-y. there’s a certain energy in the air i felt biking through hordes of artisan market shoppers. farhad himself, was making a living my buying and selling cars month by month, and retrofitting the rest of the diesels in portland to biofuel for an ambitious fee. thusly, he has a web of former and future clients spread around the various neighborhoods all involved in their own like minded projects. that said, i’m still not convinced the entire city can keep up. for every well meaning light bulb shop, there’s yet another hip baroque children’s boutique, and yet one less black family. one more pizza place, street car stop, and displaced family. the crime has moved away, so that the white people can safely talk about darfur. somewhere between, around true genuine intention and positive outcome, i found the rebuilding center. it provided the pot belly stove to farhad and thousands of other reclaimed pieces of portland’s past. if they are going to change, grow, move at this rate, the people at least know where they’re coming from.

After spending a Saturday night with a hundred interrelated Persians in the suburbs and wishing farhad good luck with his newly purchased boat, I was back to nomading Sunday claiming park bench space for my busted backpack and weary legs. a scrap of paper and half charged cell phone held whatever chances i had for shelter. couchsurfer sarah, like an angel, pulled me into her already overbooked home by downtown. I’d be staying with three other random travelers that night so i dumped what i could and left her to what ever quiet time she had. she left me with a new scrap of paper detailing the hiking trail that would lead to the aforementioned berries and beauty. hours later and still shy of my planned return i wandered out of the woods into yet another great neighborhood and its local movie theater. for two hours, i was there, living in portland, not visiting, not urban exploring. i just sat and laughed. meanwhile sarah worried for my return and left me vibrating voicemails telling me it was safe to come home. and there was home, warmly lit with three and a half total strangers who i’d all be sharing stories with into the night. rose, dan, shir, and marc all staying with sarah on NW 18^th, fourth floor, examining the fantastic social project we’d undertaken. by the next day, i’d have critiqued rose’s vintage clothes shopping, listened to shir’s israeli military experience, and been woken up by the news of dan’s late night bike accident. we again left each to their own adventure and i headed out for one more full day of getting my fill of portland. by bike, trolly, and tramway i covered the largest areas yet and collapsed in the architectural section of the book store that had by then become my most steady address. i called sarah, she mostly asleep from the emergency room night before, didn’t really remember who i was, but simply asked “do you want to come home?”

tired, and better off because of it, i was ready to go home.

when it rained, it poured

2007-08-15T23:48:00.000-05:00

for months straight it rained and kept us inside as best it could. it deterred the dryest of plans, possibly took away my internet, and got my socks wet. within the cumulonimbus cage, we pressed on and gave it all we had until it gave up. it's done and thus with this little patch of 110 degree sun i'm making a break for it. let's head west, he said, and with that i bought a last minute ticket and packed a bag.

Summer

2007-07-04T00:11:00.001-05:00

the girl in her summer dresses

2007-06-17T12:18:00.000-05:00

it’s funny how sprawling by your closest window unit can bring up memories of san antonio summers past, each one surprisingly different in this city that never changes. then again differences are easily measured against the likenesses. the day again belongs to a development company in florida, dealing out scissor trusses by the handful. somewhere in there though i’m preparing to run meetings at city hall. the nights spent studying have simply switched from texas judicial procedures to certified wood ratings, yet are thankfully distracted by someone strumming songs on the couch. and the spurs, god bless them, win again giving way to downtown pandemonium of which this time i contribute. it’s a little less observation and a little more action.

riding around in strangers’ pickup beds through an ad hoc humid parade of late night gridlock kind of makes you feel like you’ve arrived…we’ve arrived…with decorative brooms in hand. it’s everything we’ve been working for. lying around by that humming AC let’s you wonder what’s next.

either way, let’s ignore the electric bill until october.

Architects!

2007-05-14T23:00:00.000-05:00

22,000 architects, months of preparation, a former Vice President, and a contingency of dedicated locals showed that maybe, just maybe there's hope for architecture and San Antonio over the next few years. For now, the convention is over so let's all take a breather before we get too busy.

Happy May

2007-05-01T23:10:00.000-05:00

The last throws of April showers afforded a four day eye in the storm in which us San Antonians poured out of our respective barrios to finish out Fiesta just as strong as it started. Front porch gentility meets back yard wrestling in our holiest of secular celebrations. Sushi and beer alongside strippers and renaissance art on a Thursday night give way to roof top hammock naps overlooking the city skyline. Hanging off neo-classical confetti covered cornices proved the perfect perch for pitching pastel eggs at parading sneaker clad debutantes. The same Friday followed by comped chicken,waffles, and bike rides to meat packing plants and haunted VFW halls proved to be the best paid vacation day ever. Saturday set a new standard for sedintariness as the three block stroll between a keg laden porch and a historic neighborhood fair became my only challenge. Foot long corn dogs on the other end were a worthy carrot on a stick. That mustard stained shirt should never be washed.

Then in the final hours of Sunday sunlight, the rain returned to soak every kickballer on our makeshift field. We played through the downpour to an 11 or 12th inning until the roasted corn stopped roasting. There, covered in butter, mud, and more confetti I saw that fiesta was over. Someone likened Sunday to the last day of summer where the sun sets and the credits roll under voice overs letting us know where the motley group of sandlotters would end up for the rest of their separate lives. Luckily summer hasn't yet started.

fiesta 2007

2007-04-25T00:07:00.000-05:00

sometimes when in the middle of something memorable, it's good to pay extra attention to each minute as each minute passes. that vacation, that ice cream, that city wide festival, that something will all be over soon enough so why not appreciate it as much as possible while you can. sometimes you know exactly when that thing is coming to an end you can only dedicate so much to it, or just as likely you dedicate that much more to make up for it approaching end. letting the fact that it's raining during fiesta shouldn't short change the thrill of throwing confetti eggs at your senator as she floats by on a regal barge. the zydeco band will actually make you want to tap your foot if you really want to listen. go ahead, follow the spontaneous motorcade down the street and through the big wooden doors to discover a theater full of little girls in pageantry and old women in funny hats. you're probably not going to get that chance again. the city is alive and so are we so let's live a little and worry about cleaning up cascarones later.

where does one begin? (and where does one end?)

2007-04-16T23:18:00.000-05:00

I keep busy. In this "City That Never Sleeps...unless it's after 10pm," I've at least stayed out past 11 a handful of times lately. In fact I think we've all gotten past the point where we're reverse psychologically self reinforcing our own cynical lame existence to feel ok with ourselves in the mirror. I'm ok, you're ok, and all the royale Us are actually doing great. I'd like to avoid the need for insecure comparisons to cities just north who manufacture quirkiness at an impressive rate. I'd like to avoid them, but they're just making it too easy?

This previously mentioned Royalty is dissolving from the nebulous theory that kept us going, into a full fledged chunk of a town. They're coming out of the stone work. Per happenstance you meet one person who certainly knows another whom certainly is somehow related to that guy you once went to that thing with. By the end of the weekend, you've seen one person you don't actually know 10 times and can't imagine life without them. It's grassroots monarchy at its best and most incestuous. Weird social networks aside, the city of San Antonio most defendable when at its closest. The Bike Summit pulled in upwards of 150 people, many of whom actually hadn't met before. Now they have and We are better off. Don't even get me started on the power of a kickball.

Of note though is these youth of the republic having grown up, graduated, and are increasingly getting jobs, money, and their accustomed leisure time. We're well off, creative, and We don't want to get bored. That's the root of our beginning and inevitable end to it all. That's what's bringing down the hip giant up north. Too much, too soon. Too white.

And apparently such precedents have been set before. On the eve of the greatest ironic uniting force this city shuts down for, I find this article...of course Char makes an appearance. Fiesta brings us together, but it's not all we are. It's time to refocus on what really matters - eating pounds of oysters that have been sitting in the sun for hours with my fellow Antonian acolytes. I look forward to finally getting baptized into the family.

The Motorcade Diaries, pt. 2

2007-04-01T22:39:00.000-05:00

The Motorcade Diaries, pt. 1

2007-03-25T23:13:00.003-05:00

Over 10 days in the middle of March, I traveled through coastal Mexico into the mountains of the central states visiting various cultural sites and the many bathrooms of government run gas stations. It was beautiful, surprising, tiring, and fulfilling. Led by an anthropologist Dr. B who is the definition of wise, twenty of us drove thousands of kilometres between five cars and five cb radios. Together we represented a cross section of America, or at least of South Texas. I tried journaling when possible and can't guarantee the names of towns or the accuracy of the Spanish I tended to slip into. I pick up the story having already driven deep in to country...

Mexico Day Three
The hot springs after a short drive past ravines. The pool reminds you of Barton Springs, but with more therapeutic water falls and cattle. It's all warm and sulfury. Right outside I might have been swindled for a few chile rellenos, but being taken advantage of by old Mexican women in a rain forest is that bad. Even if we never left the car I'd still be content looking through dirty car windows.
Next stop we ate lunch underneath a string of trees running along a downhill street surrounded by goats and beauty. Here we saw el haciedna de Santa Anna y mas. This was luxury back in 19th century Mexico, complete with courtyards, finely carved furniture, geese ponds, and the largest tree I've ever seen in my life. It was Myst-esque to say the least. However, it's amazing how much better people could live back them compared to how poorly most of the country lives today. Then again i prefer to concrete ram shackles to most of the current luxury homes found stateside.
Into the afternoon I saw my favorite museum yet in Xalapa. Nothing by Olmec and other native artifacts housed in an airy cascade of smooth marble galleries. Mixed in too were covered courtyards with a mixture of bird echoing through the open air building. After the long walk through I found the expansive lawn and dozed by a troupe of young Mexican string players.
Quick dodging through winding puebla calles brought us to Coatepec and our personal bedrooms. For the first time,
we ate out as a group. My cecina was cheap and somewhat outstanding, but not far from what you could get in San Antonio. Outside the restuarante, the city plaza was very much alive on this Sunday night. Against normally rational judgment, I spent the next couple of hours walking back streets with my camera. The focus was "dimly lit storefronts and what life I could find behind them." The later it got, the dimmer the streets and the stares I received. I used what Spanish I had to lighten my presence and found those first gente wondering who the hell I thought I was were muy hospitable. I'd later learn that gangs and prostitutes were just emerging during my street walk, but before long I was back at the hotel gateway with the guys discussing architecture and San Antonio.

Day Four
Between swimming in hot springs and lounging on expansive lawns, my legs became home to a couple dozen chiggers. The stop at Texolo falls easily cured me, though. After all of the little ravine and fern shots I'd taken at 70 kmh we were in the middle of Tres Cascadas near Xico early in the morning with it all basically to ourselves. El centro casacada fue un grande vista. Further in el primero cascada seemed fit for Lord of the Rings or Windows desktops. Of course i took as many fotograficos de eso as I had en la todo trip, but I promise not to blow it up for a poster over my fireplace. Even more memorable, all the paths and walls connecting everything were rough hewn stone stacked and stained by years of tropical growth. No matter how old everything was, it's hard to carbon date even the more obviously recent objects. Even a newish restaurant tucked down a trail that I almost missed was as good as old. Honestly it's not historic. It's not modern. it's just what it need to be.
The rest of this Monday was our slow trek across central Mexico away from Xalapa ad the coast. I took over driving the Jeep and learned my best to navigate a meandering network of hill towns streets and the accompanying pot holes. Past the towns up into the mountains, the quaint streets turned to cliffside inclines with larger potholes. The aroma of burning brakes overwhelmed the tropical aroma. Up and down a few thousand feet over a couple of hours put us at where we're at now. Not surprisingly Dr. B has brought us to a fascinating co-op motel Taselotzin with open verandas and more stone paths. Dinner gave us sopa de orga y quesadillas. Dessert was a hesitant group mariachi sing-a-long. It took a few dias, but I'm actually usando espanol to speak to locals and extract information. Conversaciones between otra gente speaking are somewhat understood. This trip is....good.

Day Five
I speak Spanish. Somewhere sometime I took a few classes years ago and somehow my straight A's actually mean something. After a huevos rancheros desayuno, we were free to walk into the town of Cuetzalan. La plaza y las calles were filled with people, children and dogs. Actually, the dogs seem as busy and determined as the people, impatiently crossing la calle y passing you on the sidewalk when you're too slow. As for mi español yo coompro gifts from a couple of aggressive abuelitas. A tortillas warmer, an toy acorn top, and a scarf all for amounts cheaper than I would get in Estados Unidos. The issue is, I've been told to haggle con Los Mexicanos. However, conozco que ellos son pobre so why shouldn't I pago concuenta pesos instead of vienti cinco. They can now afford another week's tortillas and I can save a dollar off my cable bill.

Dr. David Brye, un professor de universidad san miguel arranged our five day lunch with a few local families in what would be the greatest lunch experience ever. Off the highway, through una puebla, and down some back calle were their dirt floor concrete homes filled with Catholic knick knacks and the smell of pollo de mole. Served in old plastic bowls. The single chicken leg was drenched in the smokey sauce with a side of hot corn tortillas in place of a fork. (Said tortillas also became much needed napkins.) For a while the group in our casa ate quietly trying to navigate the fatty poultry pieces that were probably freshly plucked from the chicken that morning. It took someone asking to see the kitchen for the cultural experience to commence. We saw the hanging meats, the hiding children, and scrap dogs bustling in the back. Our small familia's casa's cinder block beds were pushed to the corners of a small room lit by a single glass block skylight or dangling compact florescent.
The next casa over housing the others was home to not only the neighborhood maize grinder but also shaman/chiropractor of sorts that had been arranged to heal Robert of a slipped disk. Watching this with his table of burning candles was nearly spiritual. The silence of everyone watching amidst the bustle of children and chickens outside was a healing in itself.
Next, the man's son or daughter, both young and one being pregnant sold me a few stones and fossils I assume to help pay for burgeoning family. They were proud and young, no more than 18 either one, so the idea of haggling in my Spanish was only so successful and left me with another guilty feeling. I tried adding an American object to sweeten the tradeoff, but there was nothing in my bag I wanted to remembered by. The following few hours we blew our schedule to play with the local niños that had slowly built up on the sloping street. A couple of our women handed out balloons and historic British war plane post cards. Did you know that the famous fighter "The Pink Lady" translates as "La Mujera Rosa? Well now little six year old Alex does now.The boys were particularly fond of my camera which was further elevated by the addition of a telephoto lens. The instant preview was nearly priceless. All together, during our three hour stay I maybe spoke 20 minutos de inglés. Them being only children may have helped. I was knocked out for the remaining afternoon back at the dorms, after which a troupe of musicians played for dinner and everybody danced.

i'll miss you most of all, chicken

2007-03-07T00:31:00.000-06:00

i am now at my fifth apartment in the last 14 months. those keeping track since i started this travel log in august '04, i'm up to mailing address number eight. even sending out a mass email at this point seems ridiculous for all those who even try to keep up. if anything, that email address is home, right? what do they expect in this world of short attention spans and globalization. we're a transient generation and we're just beginning to make money. look out for us.

well here's to electric alarm clocks and a bright future at my new home just down the road.

satxvatx

2007-02-15T21:56:00.000-06:00

from the 16th floor at the corner of 6th and congress, you can see a lot of austin. honestly i'd never gotten much higher than the top level of the union in my 5 years there. that compounded with the city developing faster than google alerts can keep up with, made me feel as if i'd stumbled upon some new discovery. i knew the city was no longer the city i knew, but i wasn't fully aware that i'd be playing a role in austin's rapid decline/incline. luckily my lack of involvement in the meeting at hand allowed me to ponder such things from my designer chair in a slick white room against floor to ceiling glass eating designer coffee cake. you can't look anywhere without a crane obstructing your view. it's disgusting and exciting that i have a part in it all. minutes later we rushed the meeting over to south congress, ate hip sandwiches, and toasted the whole damn thing with fair trade coffee. i spent the day amongst the power playing architects, developers, and marketeers deciding what will be cool in austin's future. in doing so, i became the prototypical austinite seven months after escaping. forgive me father, for i'm a marketing sector.

before dark i was back at my san antonio washateria reveling in the warmth of laundered socks.

see the world

2007-01-27T19:37:00.000-06:00

I think I'm now an international movie star, with less of an emphasis on movie and star. See thewaronthem.com episode 4 to witness San Antonio's contribution to Eric and Bobby's two year trek around the world.

See couchsurfing.com learn a bit more. See the ghost tracks on the south side to reenact our Tuesday night adventure. See the deserted bridge on the east side to see a good view of downtown. there's still a whole lot out there, but i broke off a good sized chunk.

lesser known basements of san antonio

2007-01-17T20:39:00.000-06:00

I spent a portion of yesterday underneath the city. Down winding stone stairwells devoid of functioning light fixtures, the manager of an old Mexican restaurant was directing me to the expansive but mostly empty basement of his circa 1870s building. It looked as if no one had been there in a couple of years, and I'm sure I was in a privileged minority of those who'd ever been down there. You could see some streaks of light coming from street level and hear muffled traffic and frozen wind above, but for the most part it felt very foreign. He guided me around for a minute showing the building extents, vent locations, and other architecturally necessary facts, but I was ready for that arc of the covenant to be revealed behind a pile of rubble. The fact that there were random holes dug in the sub foundation didn't so much spook me as the puddle of red liquid that caught his flashlight. Red soda leaking from the restaurant above was his explination, so we'll leave it at that.

The historic civic center of Texas is the reason for all of this. I've somehow landed some amount of responsibility lately in forming its latest incarnation. Working on something historical in this city feels good, but knowing that your every new move is making the newspaper and thus angering your barber is challenging. The chance to make history is shared with the chance to screw history so let's tread lightly here and try not to sever ties between San Antonio and the Catholic church.

On the other side of the plaza, a nun was winding me through underground stacks of vacation bible school binders. According to her, there used to be a tunnel between the bookstore and cathedral that had been sealed off within the past few decades. Seeing that the church is the oldest cathedral in the county, I can pretty much say I was just feet away from the bones of Mary Magdalene. They've already got Davey Crockett down there anyway. The sister and I actually spent a majority of the time down there discussing the future of the plaza. I'd like to help her out, but she seemed to think otherwise. I went back upstairs defeated agreeing that I'd keep her updated. On my way back outside to the sleet covered plaza I was questioned again, this time by a little east European nun. I explained what I could to her, still feeling like the bad guy, after which which she mumbled an east European reply and handed me a card depicting a woman saint. I think she said something along the lines of "she always seems to help people out." I thanked her, stuffed the card in my jacket pocket, walked a couple of blocks, slipped on the icy sidewalk, and lost the card somewhere along the way.

how the west side stole new years

2007-01-01T22:33:00.000-06:00

Geographically, San Antonio sits on the south west corner what sociologists and college sociology students call "The Texas Triangle." This mega-region, as I can now call it after having learned the term last week, is one of amongst 10 or so similar areas around the world growing at a rapid pace. Everyone in Texas is for the most part found between DFW, Houston, and SA. Knowing that, and seeing that this state is the cartographic measure of how land large other countries are, there's a lot of empty space. It's in that feathery space between the high rises and dirt that one finds the south and west sides of San Antonio. In a city that never makes the national news, these neighborhoods hardly make the local news.

Friday night brought in the latest late night high life bike ride here in town, along with thousands of Alamobowlers and a huge storm system all convening in front of the Alamo around 9pm. With rough approximations of rain gear, we set off in hopes of escaping the weather and crowds. As the next few hours played out, we were half right and spent a good deal of time biking through the dark streets and drive-in theaters of the south side mostly soaking wet. The eventual stop at Jack the algebra teacher's old house brought in space heaters, Mexican hot chocolate, and a piano that no one really knew how to play to formulate one of the best things one can do in Texas on a Friday night. I have no idea where in town we exactly were at that point, and the return into the storm afterwards did little for the breadcrumbs I left, but I'm sure I'll be back at his place at some point in my life.

Last night's New Year's celebration put me on top of a rotting mansion roof, sipping champagne, and nursing my newly strengthened bronchitis. Before the Tower of the Americas even had a chance, the entire west side of San Antonio had lit up their back yards with the greatest fireworks show I swear anybody had ever seen.

thursday night lights

2006-12-16T00:08:00.000-06:00

After 8 pm, San Antonio goes to sleep. Most traces of city life shut down enough to question the idea of being the ninth largest city in the country. It can be a downer, especially when you recall the buzz of Austin kids eating breakfast at 11pm. I'm sure the roads are teeming with cars outside the loop, but I actually enjoy the vacuum of central San Antonio after dark. It's like Vanilla Sky without Tom Cruise around to crowd things. That's when I go jogging.

It's during such times that I grew attached to the city last year. You're one of the few about and suddenly you feel like you have stake in a city. Where Austin is limitless, San Antonio is finite. Accessible, calm, and finite. In all the things one can do, the greatest thing to do is nothing. And in the dark, you see the scattered others, the other content San Antonians enjoying our quiet. Open avenues become our hang out and barely an exchange is exchanged. We understand each other and tonight have the mutual goal of nothing. And when that radio booth somewhere is playing that song somehow, any attempts to find its source will leave you empty handed, tired, and ready for bed.

sleetfall on third street

2006-12-08T17:09:00.000-06:00

the weather has returned to that glorious temperature where windshields freeze, knuckles bleed, and random wintery things might happen as a result of it all. maybe it's all the sugar we're eating, but there's an extra skip in the step of san antonio. why don't you grab a cookie or four, hunker down with us, and celebrate this rare thing we call december.

let's go ride a bike.

big empty house

2006-11-29T21:31:00.000-06:00

this week i became the proud owner of a home theater. in one false swoop i said goodbye to the oversized stereo and undersized tv of the last millennium that had previously marked my ascension to early adulthood. i had really done well cramming them into whatever collegiate space i inhabited. microwave tops were media centers and all was well.

like clockwork, i graduated, got a job, got a larger apartment, and now own a big screen tv and microspeaker bose system and extended cable. in my own defense, he cable guy gave me more channels than i asked for, the tv is not that as big as most, and the speakers look a little older than the seller let on, so i can comfortably stay below the yuppy poverty line for a little bit longer. i still sit on borrowed furniture and my ceiling does leak water from the room above. i've got that landlord still balking on new paint. but it's that i have the time to worry about such things and that fixing and upgrading what i have has become one of my life goals, is where we should all be scared. this freedom from school forces us to find a new master. a slave to a new machine, no matter how rusty the machine is. why do we do this? gotta do something.

and because brokeback mountain is so much more in hi-def surround sound.

cold feet/warm socks

2006-11-19T23:19:00.000-06:00

Yeah, that's better.

I've begun to understand the stereotypes against men. For years, I could stand on the outside and wonder what we as a people had done wrong to so many women. Why do we engender slumber party rants and chocolate chip cookie dough indulgence? Give us a break, I said.

Slowly growing into the roll has shown the inherent bastardness that manhood entails. It's something innate, though not as grandiose as Sarah Jessica Parker would have us believe. It's the subtly of our short comings that causes the problems. We're not out to cause trouble. We're the puppy dogs who ate the people food and threw up. That's right, men are dogs. Puppy dogs. So why not let us learn from our mistakes, get cat scratches in the face, and grow up to be those good middle aged dogs that want to sit by you on the couch and jump around only when encouraged.

I have reached phase two-medium sized dog in my Purina growth chart.

the city

2006-11-05T22:05:00.000-06:00

new york city is exactly what i expected. only more. more people, buildings, food, people, dirt, clothes, streets, and people than i've ever seen. semi worldliness and architectural know-how did little to prevent me from emerging from the subway wide-eyed and camera happy. norman, frank, ludwig, frederick, and renzo were all there to lead the way, but it's the general cityness that really got me. that is architecture. it's not neat or necessarily high end. it's everything.

by day three i returned to stern faced urbanisto while quietly overloading on ambiance. silence is found on quiet snl sets, in back hallway hair bleachings, and amidst queens area housing projects. by the end, i'm in a half limp running-fall, down escalators across the city until the notepad sonnet of a transient pirate taught me the beauty of this great nation and its great cities. five strangers in five minutes said hello, exchanged stories of our destinations, realized none were from new york and were thus all transient, listened awkwardly, then intently to the pirates tale, then waved bye at terminal six while filtering back into the other transients.

now i'm home in san antonio to heal me blisters, sort my pictures, and make sense of it all.

san antonians on parade

2006-10-22T16:40:00.000-05:00

I've found that my observations of San Antonio aren't that unique. In the grand encyclopedia of it all, I'd be lucky to write something unique about East Ashby Avenue without treading on a Trinity professor's tome regarding half way houses and the socio-economic implications of gentroficative relocation. This house is over a hundred years old, so the foundation was more than likely always askew, and some San Antonio College literature minor probably at some point was driven to write corollaries between subfloor stray cats and beating tell tale hearts.

I continue because the ice cream man is still spreading the good word of Tim Duncan over the wandering riffs of The Entertainer. Everyone needs a muse. Mine just happens to be selling Frito pies out of the back of his blue painted short bus to ex-cons across the street.

watched ice cube trays never freeze

2006-10-14T13:15:00.000-05:00

I'd like to believe that the greatest times in our lives are not known until after they're over. you're not conscious of it, and if you're trying for the kodagraphic memory you'll probably be disappointed. the greatest thing on a grocery list is that tub of cookies and cream that never makes this list in the first place.

it's when you get in that routine of buying chocolate milk half gallon for half gallon of the plain white milk, that that chocolate doesn't taste so great. you know that flavor. that's not chocolate at all. it's some kind of chemically lactosey powder, more than likely, but that doesn't matter when you take that first sip after being three months sober. it's grand and naive and simple. at one point we grow up and buy that milk just to fill some sort of nostalgic craving, or worse to feel guilt and pleasure at the same time just for the sake of feeling something. i say let's appreciate ice cream and chocolate milk by the frosty bowl and glassful when you really want it, and it's easier to not take it for granted.

i think the same applies to entire sour straws packages, though there might be people who recognize the importance of every last grain of sugar.

everyone knows now that every night now will be marc's last night in town

2006-07-27T15:31:00.000-05:00

i'm on the move again, and hopefully not again for quite a while. our american roots as wandering buffalo chasers will lead me to a mixed agricultural society reaping the crops of my mid twenties in the semi-arid architectural terrain of south texas. my last week has me eager to settle down and build a wigwam, maybe have a few papooses around, smoking the peace pipe of my later days. yeah it's hard to leave austin. it's apparently the town to be in now, but i'm jumping ship, or kayak as it were. it's in good hands, though one could argue austin is in a fast rising coke-induced thrill ride of an evening that will leave skeletons of skyscrapers and remnants of half finished murals as creased dog ears on the rambling memoir that is my college home. it was always an on again off again address, as it may continue to be. that's such a town that will always welcome you back because my grand total of under five years has me considered an old local to the new comers. i recommend the ducks tours, yet i can't say from first hand experience. there's a lot left to do.

Day 5-6: The Desert Spirit Journey is Complete

2006-07-25T22:06:00.000-05:00

The stretch of continent between the eastern end of the Grand Canyon and the north central side of Austin is marked by nothing. Miles and miles of sand, some rocks, and shrubs. And of course it's here that we learn the true meaning behind the trip.

My dad and I are both the same person and very different at the same time. Stubborn, easy going, anxious, thorough, sensitive, stoic, adventurous, and cautious simultaneously in different directions so that we've learned to just be silent to let the other one take this one when differences may arise. We know that before long, we'll be in that moment of perfect agreement and nothing else will matter. At one point it took an old Hopi wise man to show us the way. Even though, he looked to be in mid thirties and was born in Riverside, California, his informal tour of the old village he lived in now interested us both greatly. History and architecture, Yes! The oldest existing continually inhabited settlement in America, to be exact, and now just a collection of crumbling stone huts with old residents not far removed from the original inhabitants. No pictures or brochures, and barely a stop, but amazing.

One of the few other stops took us to Loving, New Mexico, again in the middle of the desert. My grandmother, my dad's-mother-in-law, was married here at this church back around the late-nineties to her high school sweetheart, Sonny. It was an amazing happy time in her life, and in a time when I was just beginning to get to know her better. Anyway, within the next few years Sonny died and Nanny passed away in 2002. We never had much time to learn that much about him and technically I would have family around Loving, but all we knew to look for was a small Catholic church on the edge of the town. We found it, stopped, took a picture, and went on our way back to Texas.

Day 3-4: The Grand Canyon

2006-07-25T00:53:00.000-05:00

We woke up Sunday morning stuck with the sun rising to reveal the mountains and trees of north central Arizona. Oh and our prositute neighbor at the shanty motel seems to have broken a window and poored alcohol on the Honda. Any fears of Black Canyon City were quickly dispelled/transferred upon our service station meeting with Merle and Gene and Hoss, two old prospectors and a dog that hung around decked out in six shooters and belt bandoliers. My dad of course asked them to take a picture with his unknowing son and thus we have the first appearance of me on the blog. It's worth it.

The rest of day was spent realizing that we could see the canyon by sundown. Doing so required my dad leadfooting it past most of the towns I was told to see, but when he's making time, there's nothing you can do. To be fair, we did stop by another architecture commune, known as Arcosanti, but our pre-tourtime visit made the stop quick.

If you've never seen it and have not had someone tell you before, the Grand Canyon is big. And it's hard to express in pictures the idea of a basically flat area in the middle of the woods opening up to a mile deep. We spent a majority of our time in the park staring at the infinite abyss from above, but tried the hike Monday to find a thousand more photogenic places and thousand more reasons why we should be in better shape. Ultimately, the 3 mile trail got us below most of the campers, so we trudged back up to complete the seven hour walk. I'm not saying I couldn't have done it faster without my dad, but I might have really hurt the next day if I'd run while carrying a mule as I'd originally planned.

The thing about the grand canyon that you get there through isolated roads and out of cell phone range, only to arrive in campgrounds filled with an outdoorsy league of nations. Frenchies, Swedes, Germans and other types of rich North Europeans. And Darien too right as we were leaving the park, with my amazing abilty to run into classmates on family vacations. He too was on a desert spirit journey before starting work, so I wished him luck and away we went.

Day 1-2: West by Southwest

2006-07-23T18:24:00.000-05:00

The hard core shortened summer of Austin '06 is quickly coming to close so my dad and I once again jumped in the Accord and hit the ground driving. Without a specific plan or a map from the last 15 years it took nearly two hours to even enter the hill country. However, into the 80 mph speed havens of west Texas, the Grand Canyon became a goal, grail, and brass ring of our desert spirit journey. In the race against time and raising gas prices, we arrived somewhere on the other side of Phoenix by day two. Places to note: The Tucson area Furr's Family Dining and their undercooked fried chicken and underrated overhead speaker version of Sting's Desert Rose. And then there's Taliesin West, the winter home and hemiannual campus of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. It was my first Wright building to see, and I can say it's all true. He was a short Welshman, he invented everything, and damnit he was an amazing architect. Here I'll thank Benjamin Lloyd Lynn for his own adventures that partly inspired my desire for dry heat.

all that glitters is not fools gold

2006-07-14T09:35:00.000-05:00

i'm returning to san antonio for all of the reasons i always knew i'd return for. and in spite of all the reasons i told myself no. after a series of minirevalations leading me towards a multitude of paths, i simply realized we're young and there's a million things left to happen. we can't microplan every step we take in pursuit of perfection. it doesn't exist. when you realize that, my friend, it all becomes a lot easier. we're got a chance, as the children of the boom, to do great things before time runs up. after that, who knows? nobody. so strap on your sandals and fire up the tortilla machine, i'm coming home.

but not before i head west for a bit.

it's time for something biblical

2006-07-06T00:18:00.000-05:00

that's enough. i've been delaying the decision of what-do-i-want-to-do-with-my-life for a bit too long and holding out for any longer is not helping anyone. for the past few months i've called on the loyal council of friends and family hoping to defer the responsibility, but i imagine they're ready to update their rolodexes with ink for a change. i envisioned every possible career path until i realized that i can't do that. every single great thing over the last couple of years came through some combination of short sighted opportunism and blind optimism.

so the time has come for me to make a phone call, but not right now. because it's 1am. there's time to sleep on it and room for some other sort of revelation. the problem is i've already decided.

a link to the past

2006-07-03T17:38:00.000-05:00

i just got off the phone with nini and jayjay, the old couple who babysat me and a few generations of kids. with graduation, an announcement was sent out that preceded a cross-state forwarding marathon of congratulations and thank you cards that finally ended today. "At this special time in your life may your dreams guide you to a wonderful future filled with success and happiness." The card itself seems as old as me, out of a stock drawer of theirs, that depicts flowers, a diploma, and a globe clearly showing the great stretch of the mighty USSR. most of my earliest memories were from staying with them for the better part of my four year old days. sleeping mats. canned spinach. getting my tooth knocked out in the great wheel barrow massacre of '87. the pattern on their white ceiling fan in the white room in the back of their house that i laid under after a firm spanking. considering how many toddlers they'd had under that roof, they still recall stories of me watching chilly willy and questioning the concept of perspective.

right before that i held a conversation with my newly seven year old nephew about his birthday gamecube. i at 23 have equally been enjoying the vices of video game immersion lately along with the near sighted problem solving of saving zelda for the fifteenth time. of course, the light arrows! i clearly remember my sister telling me how she'd beaten the nes original when i was away. i couldn't ever master that maze, but i guess i've showed her.

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

la vida simple

2006-06-23T02:30:00.000-05:00

at the same fateful intersection of last tuesday's traffic violation, i found myself welcomely exhausted. a late night deadline, early morning soccer defeat, back to back interviews, and a barage of public transportation and walkable citying had left me stranded there staring at a cross signal with one eye and the lowering sun on the other.

i like this setup of a drafting board, lamp light, and playlist shuffle taking me into the wee hours, forcing the hand to actually design something that will actually be built. weak signaled univision play-by-play adds just enough spice to keep from the cabin fever symptoms of last week. not to say starting an official job will end the honeymoon, but let us not forget bigg's prophecy of mo' money mo' problems.

and i spilled a bunch of milk

2006-06-20T23:18:00.000-05:00

if anyone wants tips on simultaneously breaking your car's window while defending your illegal right turn in front of the motorcycle cop you just cut off, i'm giving lectures all this week. though despite the best efforts of both myself and mother nature, i came out of the day mostly unscathed and slightly more employed than the day before. yet i'm not making it easy.

just want to be a better man

2006-06-16T09:29:00.000-05:00

right before the point of self flagellation became an entertaining alternative, things have gotten interesting again. pouring out my heart, soul, and resume to the electronic world has reaped a couple of job opportunities that see marc fulfilling two destinies. i can do contract work for an engineer out of my apartment at a low hourly rate which involves trudging through flee infested ram shackles and shortchanging father's day weekends. OR, i can sit in air conditioned comfort, getting my registration credits, whilst earning a great salary with good security and great BENEFITS.

and he seems to have chosen the former. why? well actually i always forget which is former and which is latter, but i can say the design/build engineering gig seems to be a bit more of a risk and thus a challenge to myself. i still feel the need to prove things to the world before i get free health insurance. and i wonder if health insurance covers the soul.

and i feel fine

2006-06-06T23:50:00.000-05:00

We seem to have made it through the demonic day of hell spawn unscathed. Lava and lightening filled tornadoes wouldn’t sound that complicated though when compared to the act of God called adulthood. For some reason having placed yourself in a quality position doesn’t make the decision making any easier. I recall an English IV AP paper I wrote that compared the comparative happiness of the educated versus uneducated based upon Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Sadly I don’t remember my conclusion and I got a virus here freshman year that wiped out my hard drive.

Now I sit here a graduate, clinging on to rentable laptops and free wifi on the south mall at midnight checking to see if anyone wants to offer me a job. I have achieved the slacker stereotype.

So in the meanwhile why not have that Austin summer you always dreamt of. Swim, run, and fetch to your heart’s desire. Stroll around the capitol at night and look at fountains. Build a sand“castle” and get a sunburn before the clock runs out. These are the days of our lives.

don't want to be a richer man

2006-05-25T09:44:00.000-05:00

a "crossroads" of sorts has come up. within one week i've graduated, found out that the firm i thought i was starting was gone, will be moving out of my house, and more. again everything "intersects" all at once. i wish i had a "sign" to "guide" the "way."

so here's a farewell to the mercat palace and to blackland architects. here's to moving into beehives and moving on to more secure jobs. i hear the sirens calling. a mercat is half cat/half fish.

dear nina,

2006-05-22T13:17:00.000-05:00

thank you. it's been kind of a rush of everything over the past five months and i feel like i haven't given credit to you enough. amidst the moves, weddings, papers, projects, graduation, and jack rabbit navigation you've been right there or at least a long winded phone call away. i'm proud of where you've put yourself and can't wait to be your loyal cheerleader in the coming months.

thanks to everyone else for the past five years, though i don't think we're entering some kind of bookend. or maybe it's one of the intermediate bookends that holds the middle of a volume of encyclopedias. they're usually not fancy or gilded, but they serve the same function of holding stuff up. yeah, that's what y'all've done, supporting volumes H-K while definitely touching on the hearty LMNOP of our next stage. and now i'm mixing my metaphors. hey, who wants to go swimming?

how i wonder what you are. -marc

the final review

2006-05-16T16:52:00.000-05:00

i'm a few days removed from the big presentation, but i'm not exactly sure how long. outside of school and finals, all i have to schedule by are major holidays and graduations. and i can't even seem to pull that one off. the point is that i'm done with this semester and all school indefinitely.

in celebration, i will allow myself to stretch. no papers or exams or design focus forums to cramp my spine. just me going about the months, setting my own schedules, and being responsible to myself and that which i really care about. i'm laying down, standing up, or doing whatever possible to avoid what this wicked wooden chair has done to my vertebrae over the past year. the world is a big place, but even more than that it's infinitely large when you look closer. so we'll start there, sitting in the middle of a field. outstretched. rolling around in the freakin grass.

roll on.

texan rain storm

2006-05-04T23:52:00.000-05:00

to say i'm writing by candlelight wouldn't be not true, but the warmth of a seventeen inch monitor seems to lessen the effect. nonetheless, a huge storm rolled in tonight and knocked out power for a few good hours. so in the midst of tomorrow being my last day of school ever and me spending these past couple nights entrenched in my new job, it was nice for austin to just shut down for a while and chat with kate amidst candles. everyone's plans seem to be falling into place, despite the fact that no one knows what the hell we're doing.

get your children out of the muddy muddy. children of the lord.

the other ryan

2006-04-29T12:31:00.000-05:00

just now when typing out my final paper for japanese architecture, my mind wandered through a series of images and word associations until landing on the memory of this friend i had as a child. i don't remember his whole name, only ryan. and not my other friend ryan, who i haven't really talked to in a long time anyway. no this ryan was the kid who always had to wear sunglasses and me and my mom bought him a basketball for his sixth birthday. all of a sudden, he moved away to somewhere on the other side of houston. i hadn't thought about him in a few years and being so young, it's hard to recall anything more than the glasses and basketball. so if you're that kid, let me know. there's only one week of classes left.

i'm all about duality

2006-04-25T21:48:00.000-05:00

within five minutes, i received two bits of earth shaking information today. all that i had come to understand about this world would be turned upside down. you, me, and everything on this plane of existence would slip between hyperbolic paraboloids of yin and yang and the continents would shift just a tad bit. ready? i know you're not, but i'm afraid you never will be. and we don't have time to waste.

my girlfriend got accepted into the university of texas school of architecture. after a long, arduous, setback filled few months, she got a call that completely reversed the rejection letter received earlier in the week. there's nothing more to say than i'm proud of her.

ah hem. i'll try not to be gushy as i move on to the following very tragic topic. today, at some point between 8am and 2pm, one blue schwinn suburban bicycle was ripped from her hastily locked rack in broad day light by evil forces. i guess i had it coming to me, not giving her the proper attention lately. at a time when the city of san antonio was big and foreign, she was a recognizable face that showed me around. we fought against a few trucks, jumped a lot of curbs, and had our spats involving me flying over the handle bars three times, but i guess now i just have our memories. that and the front tire with the u-lock still ironically steadfast. in memoriam...her birth...and her most recent photo. we ask that you make donations in lieu of flowers.

the lesson today is to appreciate your blessings and hold on to your dreams, because one day the unexpected could happen.

the soil is rich

2006-04-19T22:07:00.000-05:00

as an architect, you're expected to live in the middle land between extremes of creativity and rationale, public good and financial gain, big and small. as an architecture student, you can usually lop off half those expectations and create your idealized little paper project that finds its half life before completion. any frustrations are covered in three cheese pizza and revenge of the sith bonus material. snap, end of story.

the reality, as i have learned in the past few months, is much closer to those other requirements. architecture becomes the big complex pool full of ping pong balls that all need submergence. how do you invest that life and time in something that might not happen, or will at least come into the hands of someone else who is determined to make it happen differently.

in both my studio and my new job, i'm attempting to stick to the guns i've been given, while seeing a whole other set of new challenges. actual things are happening in austin and i'm fortunate enough to play a part in it. this is where architecture gets exciting. where things are on the line and obi wan can't really help.

i really enjoy making my bed.

2006-04-12T09:09:00.000-05:00

i really enjoy making my bed. when all the world is giving you deadlines, birthday morning parking tickets, and endless stacks of paper work, there's no better way to land your plaid patterned flag on a twin sized rectangular stake of land and claim, "I see what you offer world, but be aware. I have conquered my bed, and you are next!"

i really enjoy making my bed.

a tale of five cities

2006-04-06T09:33:00.000-05:00

dallas, as many of you know has always been the other city. houston is the city, and thus dallas is the other one. that's what it's like growing up in the greater h-town metropolitan. there are the astros, rockets, and oilers and any other claims at representing texan identity might as well be coming from gay yankees. that said, there are a lot of career week firms in DFW and handful who have emailed me lately. apparently they don't know where i'm from, but apparently the mavericks are actually a good team now. you might find me in dallas next year if mark cuban himself shows up at my front door grinning with a five million dollar giant check like signing bonus.

seattle apparently has a good football team now, but who the hell cares. the firms are good and the opportunity is everywhere. people care about building, and when those people are named bill gates and mr. boeing, they care about big buildings. which i have started to find myself caring about too. through the strangest phone call ever in the midst of career week, a job has appeared which makes the fantasy as possibilty. do i want to live in a flannel covered fantasy, or do i want to live in..

austin. wait, i live here now and i kinda like it. take seattle and add texan reserve and badassness and here you have my most times home for the past five years. in a cryptic email at the tail end of career week, a chance of a lifetime has arisen in which i apprentice under a local architect and we double handedly start our own firm with a loft project downtown. there's facades to be developed and money to be determined, but in the meanwhile we should figure out a firm name. this is exciting, folks (and somewhat dangerous).

san antonio is not just a city. it's an idea. an idealized dream that at times doesn't match up with the city itself. it's a texas-great job-good money combo that's everything i want and my father demands. i made a good friend of the office and would be a fool to pass on it being a friend with benefits. i'll be back, i say, but when? anthony asks.

terlingua. want to go back to the desert and build a theater for our local troupe of actors, all the while undertaking a daily spirit journey with a side of hallucinogens? possibly. do you know how to build a theater? no. i'm only 22.

everybody loves architecture

2006-03-31T01:05:00.000-06:00

or at least i hope they do. and i hope they love me. twenty interviews down and i did my best to woo them all, but there comes a point where you try to be everything to everybody and you barely get anywhere in the first place. i was compromising before i even got a second interview.

sitting there learning about the wonders of health care design and trying to remember what a 401k actually is gave me a good bit of time to think. i was in a different world where i'm jet setting around, meeting interesting people, unveiling sky scraper renderings, wearing expensive blazers, and reordering business cards. then i was a master welder, sweating away in some rural enclave working to finish up enough before night fall and hoping my fellow craftsmen had caught enough salmon for the night's supper. in yet another world, i'm entrenched in the lamp lit hollows of a late night studio, mulling away at the world's greatest detail. i'd be at the forefront of architecture, i'd be changing the world. designer. builder. doer. jack.

what does it take to do in that which you're not sure in what you want. huh.

the intersection of everything

2006-03-26T22:57:00.000-06:00

it all comes together in a far reaching, deep, cavernous hell of a fortnight where we now find ourselves in the midst of. school. work. life. it's all happening kids, and it's now too late to jump off the bike. the pedals are spinning and all you've got are a pair of squeaky brakes and some sense of wits.

somehow i've managed to arrange upwards of twenty job interviews this week without any passionate interest in any. sure i'll fetch the suit out the closet and bring some semblance of shininess to my shoes, but i won't like it. it's not that i want to stay in school forever and have some detached logic that i'm too good for work, i just fear compromise. and i know lots of these people are selling compromise at an amazing low discount.

brace yourself or brace yourself against someone because adulthood is coming whether you're ready or not.

Big Bend

2006-03-16T19:12:00.000-06:00

I think I can recount this past week seeing as I'm now well cleaned, well rested, and well adjusted. Life in the desert...is a good thing. Not that we can say much as a pack full of gringos decked out in our Whole Earth gear and a sack full of tuna, but we were rougher than most city girls and boys are during spring break. Unless you call passing out on the beach in South Padre roughing it.

Am I a city boy though? No, though the low clearance Japanese sports car may prove otherwise. My dad has done his best to instill small town/country upbringing into me and I have to say it’s a part of me. I can ride a horse and shoot a gun. I feel just as much at home in a dirty meat market as a glitzy restaurant. Growing up in the suburbs though tends to cancel out both sides. That’s the point, it’s a comfort from the extremes.

My point is that comfort is misleading. Get your diploma, find your job, and voila: the Friday special at Applebee’s. Just follow the pattern and everything will be ok. As much as my family has blessed me with traveling and higher education, they ultimately want me to move back home and share childcare responsibilities. Be careful, they say. And then there’s Terlingua.

Terlingua, TX is a little smudge of a town right outside of Big Bend that’s managed to stay a few light years behind. And probably on purpose too, seeing as the majority of its inhabitants and wait staff look worldly. They’ve just decided to take there knowledge and possessions to a smudge town and pass the time on a big porch, playing Freebird of course.

Maybe that’s all crap and the hunter gatherer wanderer movement died out for a reason. I got tired of eating tuna and I don’t think I’d like to eat tuna again for a while. But I would like to keep stepping back from it all.

The best thing about the trip was the silence and the complete unnecessity to fill it up with noise. Let the mind do the wandering and there’s no need to even leave the front door. Share the silence with someone and talking seems like busy work. Forget the past and worry about the future when it comes, because the present can be a gift. What a smart girl.

it's friggin' spring

2006-03-08T09:58:00.000-06:00

i will stop short of photographing the first buds, for it has been done. instead i shall write a haiku with the help of my magnetic poetry calendar i got for february christmas.

hot the blooming sky
season flower spring winter while
shiver beach always

but really, i think these new leaves are literally, literally pushing out the old ones so that we're getting this fallback/springforward brown/green pollack of a week that smells a little like compost. before we know it beaches will be made of snow and hats will wear people! or college students will get jobs. yes, the recruiters have come a courtin and i am constantly forced to question what i'm doing in the next year. and then i force the question on others and we then all grow another gray hair. not that i have a gray hair, but i might. i have a lot of hair and that's gonna go. can't have a proper spring break send off without cutting it all off. can't have a proper spring break if you don't actually do anything. so quit talking about it and just shove off into the grand sea of west texas. it'll be grand, she said, and i tend to like what she says.

the seven syllable second line has always been restructive.

ash wednesday night

2006-03-01T21:36:00.000-06:00

the mercat palace is as empty as it gets on a weekday night. my team mates are out on midweek dates, some normal, some with old french sugar mommas. usually by now we're cooking something with some kind of root based vegetable and dicussing dinner parties past and future. not that there's not a huge one coming up friday, but let's say it's the calm before. i am somewhat tired of running around, but that seems to be a condition of keeping busy. don't let yourself breath too much or else that resume will never finish. this is the difference between work and school, yet i know i'll miss it as soon as it's gone. so we should appreciate it now and not get caught up in the details. come on lent, let's rumble.

christmas in februaryand the swedish meatball shaped stocking

2006-02-20T10:35:00.000-06:00

in between ginger ale departure and cranberry juice arrival, i hopped over to frigid dallas this weekend for the family's much delayed christmas gathering. say what? uh huh!

we did our best to trick the rest of the world that their calendars were indeed off, requesting christmas themed pies from local bakeries and asking for the holiday specials at ikea. alas though it failed to catch on so we took revenge on any free samples carts we came across. otherwise we rooted ourselves in for wide screen high definition winter olympic glory.

in the midst of it all we did find a determined snow flake wandering down to the pavement.

blankings of a blankety blank

2006-02-13T23:37:00.000-06:00

don't fool yourself. nobody is what they seem. and that, of course, is a good thing. in a world of television characters, we like to make generalizations of character in order to rationalize things a bit more. are you the nutty next door neighbor or the gritty ex-ctu agent that can never forget where you came from? it's so much easier to process when we're one dimensional. even the fact that i try to sum up an entire week's worth of amazing bicycle-centric events with the old "short sentence-short sentence-short sentence-in a world of..." opener goes to show that we even try and generalize ourselves. i'm gonna be the insightful reporter of the collective twenty something super ego.

or i'm gonna be the caring boyfriend. and the self centered jackass. or all three. in a world of those six point something billion people, we're going to have a wide range of friends. because no person in that six point something is alike, we're going to have to adapt constantly to suit our surroundings. we don't do it consciously. it's just part of our id. (anyone who has any passing knowledge of freudian psychology, please disregard any use of any words i use.)

so when we find ourselves surrounded by people that bring about qualities in ourselves that we find pleasing, have we found our ideal situation or are we just avoiding some facets of our true nature? what about the forgotten sides of your ideal pals. what if they showed all of their complexities and contradictions all at once? would you still like them and would you yourself still isolate your favorite facets? what if you combined all of your friends and made them hang out and thus had to be everything to everyone.

if we all were truly everything would we all be the same? all six point something billion. brain dead robots and will smith won't be around to save us. i don't know, try it out.

the only thing anybody ever really cares about

2006-02-05T23:09:00.000-06:00

is love. despite everything else you spend your life doing or working on, it's all details comparatively. we all just secretly want our own piece of the pie, and knowing that the six point something billion people of the world basically divvy up half and half, it all seems easy. same goes for you ten percenters. find yourself someone who kind of looks like you and does what you do and there you go. love. as obi wan kenobi once said, all you need is love.

but it's far from that simple. it's a many complicated thing. it's a lust/trust/comfort thing. it's time and distance. it's two random people crossing the stars and hoping to collide or at least have enough gravitational pull to orbit for a bit. the more stars you pass the more you learn how infinitely complex our universe is.

and suddenly going from curious astronomer to wandering astronaut shows that outhere is not exactly what i'd expected, yet again nothing i had necessarily planned for. ask any astronauts you know and they'll tell you the same. wait i think i'm about to make a point. i'll share all my otherworldly knowledge with you kids.

it's not easy and that's what makes it worth it. i wish i could say more, but it's as simple as that. i think. oh, you'll understand when you're older. what? yes, i know. okay, well goodnight.

lost in east austin

2006-01-30T09:18:00.000-06:00

and north, south, and west for that matter. i've been on this urge to explore and see all corners of this world of mini mansions and medium sized cottages. i spent the first few years here camping out in dorms and apartments. what there's another side of west campus? but ironically seeing the sites of tuscany, london, the tallahassee metroplex, etc has made me a bit of a obsessive explorer in my own backyards. i want to uncover every stone and cut myself on every piece of contaminated trash in midnight-dark abondoned lots in east austin. just get in your car/bike/cross training athletic shoes and head off in a direction. oh you'll get lost, but usually there's a cluster of radio towers compassing you back.

don't call it a comeback

2006-01-22T22:51:00.000-06:00

being in your last semester of your second year seniority could lend oneself to a bad case of i'm-too-old-for-this-itis, but for various reasons i'm set on putting more into this than before. incubating in san antonio has got me geared up to do great things, or stumble greatly along the way. i've got good friends, an awesome house, wicked classes, and a totally tubular girl riding sidecar along the way. this is what we've been doing the drills for kids.

on the other hand i might explode.

The City of Pulsing Red Spires

2006-01-17T00:16:00.000-06:00

I wrote a thesis around those damned red lights in the west. Wherever I go they're there welcoming me back to this town in the hills. Austin, TX for one last time. Let it be known that I'll finally make it out there in the next few months, climb one (ala kindergarten cop), and tell you all about it.

But I won't tell you about her. Too much.

exit st. mary's

2006-01-14T08:26:00.000-06:00

i moved in last june with a bible sitting on my doorstop. while a bit more frayed from the elements, it's still there where i found it. as some things change it's nice to see things stay the same.

they drained the river

2006-01-07T12:06:00.001-06:00

at some point san antonio became family. and with every new employee being inducted, i try to ingrain the idea into them. what you've been living in seattle where the city is a virtual petri dish for any cotton swab of architecture? wait, you've been to a place where the coffee is great and the chicken fried steak doesn't need to be as big as your face? well which six flags theme park do you have? the great thing about family though, is that you don't get to pick them. you have to learn to live with them, cause like it or not they're more like you than anyone else. if you constantly plan your escape, you'll miss out on the beautiful meanwhile.

some say san antonio is the 9th largest city in america-bigger than miami, denver, and boston. and seattle. but i still find this hard to believe. it never makes the national news. its celebrities are limited to ex spurs players and tommy lee jones. maybe it's because i never drive outside the loop, but everyone seems to know each other. we barricade ourselves in with a ring of churches like some kind of inverted medieval wall, allowing only a few thousands of tourists every year to run around in their rental cars filled with tortilla chips and cheap mexican exports, respectively. ha, i said we.

i say all of this as an argument for and against my return. the offer has been put on the table, and i too have found a wonderful little local souvenir for myself, but it all goes against everything i've learned in the past year. when an opportunity arises, you take it. when an opportunity isn't there, you look for it. don't settle. don't settle down. there's a whole lot of land and days ahead. so goodbye lf. goodbye interns. goodbye utsa crew. goodbye low brow thursdays. goodbye mission drive in. goodbye helotes. goodbye exchange building. goodbye twins. goodbye laundromat. goodbye southtown. goodbye brackenridge. goodbye earl abels. goodbye trinity. goodbye olmos park and alamo heights bourgeois. goodbye goodbye liberty bar. goodbye beethovens. goodbye bluestar. goodbye o'neil ford. goodbye herman and charles butt and your outstanding grocery stores. goodbye mrs moneypenny. goodbye sunday morning beatles. goodbye monday night hip hop. goodbye third coast. goodbye ice cream man. goodbye perfume kiosk kevin. goodbye manicure kiosk nita. goodbye crack cocaine peter, descendant of san pedro himself. goodbye tobin hill and myrtle street.

now replace goodbye with maybei'llseeyousoon? and you'll know where i'm at. i'll at least be back to visit, but visitor is just another word for tourist. it's time for austin.

English 325 - Lesson Twelve

2006-01-02T00:20:00.000-06:00

The color red had finally arrived in San Arturo, blanketing its streets and driveways with last year’s leaves. Fall had come and gone with a spell of cold fronts stretched thin but the majority of the foliage had stayed suspended in a green brown weave until now blocking out the slowly lowering sun. Windshield wiper blades that once ushered off hurricane rains and layers of ice within weeks of each other now simply tossed the dry scraps from side to side in a lazy Sunday manner. Above the red blanket and through the now bare trees a new sun showed barely through a morning haze. The blue that did show was vibrant. The whole range of color that peeked through the clouds for the rest of the day remained muffled though in comparison to the leaves.

Autumn had been happening all along, however. It took this day off after New Years celebrations for the people to realize it. Their cars were parked outside of treeless garages and their drivers too were taking the day off. In groups they walked outside to church or up from hangovers and together breathed in the late blooming fall air. Like most of the world they were filled with resolutions, but no one knew the reality. San Arturo would never really change.

persons of the year

2005-12-30T23:48:00.000-06:00

i never took pictures of people. i think i was scared of people. i mean, they're strange and threatening creatures what with their talking and hugging and other societal idiosyncrasies. then you realize, oh they're pretty photogenic and entertaining in their own right.

that's all it boils down to. people. love em or hate, we're all in this together so make the best of it. and if you try a bit more, you get a lot more. so thanks, you people. you're number one on my nonexistent year end list.

mixed blessings

2005-12-23T15:07:00.000-06:00

so that ascent? check. i'm there. we're there, i mean. we can sit back on a rock under the moon and the stars and just bask in the radiance. luckily there was one last christmas/holiday/solstice party to wrap up the year before i've come back home. now we play the waiting game, but what better way to kill time for a week other than christmas. and it'll be that magically strange week between december 25th and january 1st where the calendar just hangs in the cosmic purgatory. how enchanting.

my dad was diagnosed with cancer. and it took everything in both of us to even bring it up today. this dates back to the mid summer nights phone call concerning his blood clots. in the scope of things, i guess it's relatively worry free, being lance armstrong cancer and all. my dad even went bicycling on his old italian speeder this week, i guess in preparation for the tour. but there's a few more tests and a range of treatment ahead of him so i should get used to talking about it with him. and maybe get used to talking about women. we aren't much for such sharing but there comes a time when you have to fight against your instincts.

happy holy days

2005-12-18T23:28:00.000-06:00

on the other side of the year, time in san antonio is wrapping up. in the grand wish list of it all, i'm getting some closure, but wishes aren't so great if you always get what you asked for. it leaves something to be desired. each week is more interesting than the previous and it's good to have this constant momentum towards something but at the end of the day you want to reach a plateau and look back at the ascent in a breathless well deserved daze. at the end of the year. at the end of the fuse a bomb goes off or a fuse just goes out. fireworks also apply. you know, on account of the new year.

and cruelly enough, the days get shorter. and the nights get longer. and the druids dress as fairies in celebration of it all.

up the mountain

2005-12-11T19:39:00.000-06:00

and one year ago i watched that gradual sunset over the atlantic. unspoken plans of matching the experiences i had in europe with life in america have been a success. fall 2005 might even trump 2004 in its own slow and methodical way. another round of college students heads out into the real world and i'll just bide my time here a bit longer.

winter jitters

2005-12-09T20:19:00.000-06:00

there comes a time when you have to fight your instincts and climb a giant rock in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night in the mid to low twenties. that time is now.

generation i

2005-12-03T02:13:00.000-06:00

i don't have an ipod. and i'd be fine for the rest of my life if i never owned one, but there is some inner child pulling at my pant leg saying, "i want." i am entranced by apple hardware. but i feel like i'm winning some great cultural battle by not having one thus far. those little white ear buds might as well be yellow stars singling out the youth of the nation. listen to deathcab, watch laguna beach, and wear over sized jLo glasses. maybe it's me taking this 7 month career-in-a-box vacation, but i feel disconnected from the kids.

more of it is that the kids listen to their ipods 24/7. do you really need music piped in at all times? has the world become that boring? there's so much entertainment/information available on demand whenever we want it, that's there's little time left to walk down the street and enjoy it for its own sake. i guess my eureka moment was losing my tv remote. sure i tried to find it and had the couch turned upside down, but i gave up and have been all the better ever since. who is america's next top model? and why do we care?

somehow i had also managed to sidestep the whole text messaging movement. who is sending these to whom? can my phone even receive them? these are the questions i asked my mom two weeks ago, and then the telephonic gods stepped up and i've since received six different messages from various sources. it's fate.

maybe i've led my mother to believe i might possibly want a 30 gig music/photo/video player while claiming that i "was not an ipod person." i mean come on, i'm adding to the information ether with this little blog so i might as well cast off my old fashioned chains and plug into the white plastic grid. i can still avoid dvr and satellite radio...for now. i'm no simple farm boy. the elephant in the room we're all avoiding is that i lost a remote control in a twelve foot square space and i plan to take a $300 remote with a screen out into the world on a daily basis. if my conflicted christmas wish does come true, the fates will ultimately decide if i was to be one of the youth of the nation. cast the ivory walkman into the wind. we're all gonna be old one day so i might as well start now.

Thanksgiven

2005-11-27T22:29:00.000-06:00

i was awakened thanksgiving morning to a call from my brother-law to look in the trunk of the car. after an early morning hunting trip between him and my father, what would one expect to find in the trunk of a honda accord? a deer. and what good is a freshly killed deer just sitting in the trunk of a honda accord? no good. and what y-chromosome call to order did i fulfill in order to rectify the situation? i helped hoist the carcass up from my childhood basketball goal for the following skinning and gutting, of course.

let's all backtrack and note that my immediate family is far removed from white trash, especially when compared to the whole of east texas. we only have garage sales every other year and have never owned a truck (as can be proved by the hunting vehicle of choice). my father even has this running joke about how my uncles have spent the entirety of thanksgivings past telling deer stories. and there he was pouring intestines into an old tin washtub where i used to practice my lay-ups. they shoved a freakin deer into a midsize sedan. this is a deer story that will live on through my children's children, forever stained crimson red into my concrete surfaced memory.

then i return to san antone to find a gaggle of flies having their own thanksgiving get together on every previously sanitized surface in my apartment. i did my best billy crystal impression to round them up out the door through an intricate series of desk lamp light lochs that lead out the door to the front porch/pacific ocean/colorado plains. pick your metaphor.

if having your apartment infested with flies is cool, consider me miles davis.

her name was nita

2005-11-22T18:54:00.000-06:00

over the years i've managed to become selfless, cold, and composed in the face of women. one dare not let down one's defenses when females make the advance, or else one might fall for them and we all know how long a drop that is.

that being said, today i got a manicure. i'd run to the rivercenter mall during lunch to buy enough socks to get me to thanksgiving at home, where a cornucopia of whites would be bleached back to their rightful aryan superiority...so yeah, i was at the mall. and i was headed back when the most beautiful "excuse me, sir" did cross my ears. she was about 5'7", no older than me, dressed in a slim black sweater and knee length black skirt, with a matching head of jet black hair hanging around a porcelain white face which were in turn pierced by deep brown eyes and traces of freckles upon further inspection. i can qualify such inspections cause the next thing i knew this girl had grabbed my right hand and pulled me in (literally and figuratively) to a closeness i hadn't experienced in a while. she was working a nail care mall kiosk.

the next moments played out with me being pulled further and further in, as she dug deeper and deeper into my cuticles with a nail buffer. she'd bat her eyes, i'd blink, and next thing i knew i was saying "my thumbnail has never looked nicer." it was even better with the side-by-side comparison where she held both my hands together, close to my chest, close to her. i managed to say that it really wasn't my kind of product but maybe something more for my mom, which gave her an in into the need for caring for all things female. did i mention she had a gorgeous eastern european accent? she WAS offering me half price off $50 for today only, but i thought of the fantastic lie that i could only afford $10 for mom. and then things got grim as she lowered her voice and put her delicate finger to her now noticeably red lips, saying "shhhh, i can offer you a deal but you have to promise not to tell anyone..."

and that's when the old brain jumped in and told every other part of my body that this was my last chance to bail. "i really have to get back to work. i'm sorry." i hope i let her down gently enough. the look on her face as i backed away either said "i'll never again meet a man like that" or "damn, i almost made that sale."

and that's how i roll. i can block off any innate male tendencies to love and propagate when actually given the opportunity. everything in me said buy the nail buffer and sweep her off her feet, but i didn't. i live on the line between gentleman and loner. there's a chance i could go back there tomorrow, but it wouldn't be the same. when the moment is passed, it's passed. she'll find other impressionable young men with disposable incomes, and i'll at least for the next few days have my shiny and slightly bleeding thumbnail.

the night it got real cold

2005-11-17T23:44:00.000-06:00

i would run out and do it all in a second if the clock stopped ticking.

oh, i'm one of thooose people

2005-11-14T23:39:00.000-06:00

that's it. i'm here. i'm writing from the ivory tower. fight it i did, but i've now inducted myself into the culturally elite as a result of my actions. tonight i spent a hundred dollars on a week's worth of central market groceries.

it's not that i need goat cheese, but it's a nice alternative to a prepackaged processed cheese appetizer. i mean, what else am i supposed to garnish fresh baked ciabatta with? sun dried tomatoes and freshly minced basil alone aren't gonna cut it.

no, it doesn't stop at being a snobbish grocery whore. i buy those fancy five dollar greetings cards, ride my bike to work, and listen to college radio. what the hell? is free form jazz good? how would i know. aren't you just supposed to listen to it so as to feel special in a town that loves pro wrestling and hummers. that's why i like san antonio. in seattle, i'd have been guaranteed all the drum circles and and organic coffee a little boy could ever hope for, but here being bohemian is a bit harder. and this is coming from someone of actual bohemian blood. it's my destiny to wear tight jeans.

and that brings us to arrested development. a show so witty and subtle that we knew it couldn't last. it happened. they're taking it away from us as punishment for all the obscure literary references we tried passing over the heads of the masses for years. before they take our wes anderson box sets, we must run further underground my blogging brethren and warm ourselves only by the heat of a mocha latte and feed off the proverbial loaf of ciabatta. we will transmit communications via npr. godspeed.

noviembre

2005-11-06T16:20:00.000-06:00

is always my favorite month. or at least top five. good movies come out, texas settles into being cold, and the word wreath reenters our collective lexicon. i know i'm wearing shorts and t shirt right now with the windows open, but pretend with me and tend to the yard with my imaginary rake.

further checking off my list of unique things to do in san antonio, this week i bought an old whiskey bottle from the o'neil ford estate, drank shiner as i watched willy nelson sing under the hill country stars, and did the first friday art walk which ends in an argyle sea of 16 year old hipsters with crooked haircuts. all along the way i learned about the incapability of social awkwardness and how it's the one thing that ties us all together as a twenty something populace.

now with the moving out of another semi house mate this week, casa myrtle is feelin extra empty. an emptiness that can only be filled with the sweet smell of brownies and hot wassle. come a wassle with me.

the day of deadline

2005-11-01T12:02:00.000-06:00

at one point during the summer i had heard november 1st would be the grand ending deadline to it all. beach club detailed to a T and on to bigger and better things. like new york. i spent one night in july requesting tickets to anything entertaining that was recording live during that first week of november. i was gonna go to the big city, wear autumn clothes, and see some of them movie stars.

i slowly learned that thanksgiving would be the new deadline and anytime between then and then would have to be dedicated to work. ok, fine. i want to see this thing to the end and an extended thanksgiving holiday that includes seeing friends in ny, ny sounds great.

christmas. it'll go til then now and and hopes of visiting people when there are still people to see are pretty much gone. i'll still be working here in san antonio as those around the country head back home to texas. i'm loving my job here but I hate i haven't really gotten to get away from SA that much. one day i'm just gonna jump in my car and fly away. just you wait.

and damnit, i've got a bowl full of candy kids. why won't you come and eat my candy?

the unbearable lightness of being single

2005-10-28T23:06:00.000-05:00

i usually get away with avoiding the topic of love. or even like for that matter. maybe that stems from the fact that san antonio has almost entirely avoided offering either up. and i love it.

and herein lies the problem. i am at times fiercely independent. not necessarily in the way of playing by my own rules, skateboarding on top of people's cars, and paying my utilities bill late, but i often like to be alone. independent of others. the freedom to unhook from the grid every once in a while.

i'm also not a fan of compromise. making important life decisions such as finding-a-job-and-moving-somewhere is a decision loaded with enough factors besides "where does she want to go in life?" i am a a big fan of being considerate so i'd probably outweigh my own wants/needs with hers and compromise myself in the end.

this all sounds like the talk of someone without a whole lot of experience in relationships. that's right. but i have observed a lot of relationships in the last year rise and fall on the basis independence and thinking-about-the-future. i'm even asked to offer my advice, and that's like me critiquing the astros. sure i've played a little baseball in my day, but do you see any world series/wedding rings on my finger? do i want one? more than craig biggio would ever know.

this all stems from be right now reading, Superstud by Paul Feig. he created freaks and geeks and directed some arrested developments and pretty much wrote my own autobiography with this book. it's him being a hopeless romantic without having much luck at romance. it's hilarious and eye opening in that same feeling i got from watching wedding crashers. in the end owen wilson gets the girl.

so then maybe i'm getting most of my knowledge of love from pop culture and that means i simply need to step outside a little more often. it is quite beautiful out there. enjoy the weather.

run home, jack

2005-10-22T13:37:00.000-05:00

i just got back from my nephew's football game in the montgomery area 4-6 year old league. if you look past the the fact that it's just wrong to stick a kid who can't tie his shoes in pads and a helmet, it's fun to watch your lineage score three of the game's 5 touchdowns. i didn't have that much time to watch the game though as i was designated my 2 year old nephew's caretaker. i gave him my camera as i held on to the reigns and answered his "what is that?" questions as he pointed at everything from a chain link fence to a perplexed one year old. garrison is way too intelligent for his age so tomorrow, for his third birthday i'm getting him books. were my uncles this lame? tomorrow being his birthday party also means being surrounded by thirty-somethings, their yukon-xls, and a myriad of other kids named evan, tyler, and madison.

to top it all off, i'll be watching the astros hit the world series from my native environment with nick on parentally-provided and freshly aquired hdtv. you can literally see each tear falling from jeff bagwell's DLed face. in his memory, i made a run at a full fall classic beard, but commited a sleep deprived trimmer error yesterday and landed myself with a spring training goat.

jinx, buy me a coke.

coley the racist steam engine

2005-10-14T22:01:00.000-05:00

once again the internet becomes an anonymous forum for grossly insensitive chit chat. once again, the conversation has been slightly altered to protect the innocent, though mainly to make us not look like total racists. once again we join this conversation in progress…

Cram Leppot: i'll follow up for you
Cornbread is Gr8: thanks pal
Cram Leppot: anytime chum
Cram Leppot: shark food
Cornbread is Gr8: fish heads
Cornbread is Gr8: I wish I was a shark so I could eat chum
Cram Leppot: ha
Cornbread is Gr8: Or Chinese, they eat it too
Cornbread is Gr8: they love chum
Cram Leppot: i'm sure some restaurant in LA serves chum
Cornbread is Gr8: I'm gonna start a chum factory and export all our unused chum into china
Cram Leppot: it's the new thing
Cornbread is Gr8: haha. they eat chum. that's sick
Cram Leppot: well it's their culture
Cram Leppot: don't laugh at their habits
Cornbread is Gr8: i'm high
Cram Leppot: oh goodie
Cornbread is Gr8: i'm just kidding!
Cornbread is Gr8: it sounded like i was
Cram Leppot: well i just had a beer so watch out!
Cram Leppot: i'm loopy lou
Cornbread is Gr8: you're a beer drinker! you're so adult
Cram Leppot: yeah, and after work with the coworkers
Cornbread is Gr8: no one wants to go out for drinks in my job. wah.
Cram Leppot: that's like having an architect hang out at a construction site after work
Cram Leppot: oh wait, we did that too
Cornbread is Gr8: ha
Cram Leppot: now i'm hungry so i'm getting cranky
Cornbread is Gr8: you sound like a mom
Cram Leppot: a mom unto my self
Cornbread is Gr8: exactly
Cram Leppot: that's deep
Cram Leppot: i'm deep
Cram Leppot: deep like a shark
Cornbread is Gr8: that eats chinese people
Cram Leppot: deep like your MOM
Cornbread is Gr8:You're gross! i'm telling her you said that
Cram Leppot: so is your chinese shark mom
Cornbread is Gr8: please don't sleep with my mom
Cram Leppot: “nicowr, come eat your chum dinner and fowtune cookies”
Cram Leppot: that's your chinese shark mom talking
Cornbread is Gr8: is nicowr my chinese name?
Cram Leppot: yes, sound it out
Cornbread is Gr8: that's hard to say
Cram Leppot: i know, try thinking how to spell it
Cornbread is Gr8: yes i see
Cram Leppot: i'm glad we're both smart and can have such conversations
Cornbread is Gr8: don't get boring. let's talk some more about chum
Cornbread is Gr8: Just think of all the chum americans waste
Cornbread is Gr8: we could make so much money shipping out our chum
Cram Leppot: i thought i got to go eat now
Cram Leppot: though you're taking away my appetite
Cornbread is Gr8: NO
Cornbread is Gr8: c'mon, chum. hahahaha.
Cram Leppot: if only we knew someone who specialized in food and drink distribution
Cornbread is Gr8: drink? hmmmm
Cornbread is Gr8: good idea, like clamato
Cram Leppot: chum soda
Cram Leppot: sangria del tiburon!
Cornbread is Gr8: hey that sounds delish
Cram Leppot: it'll kill you
Cornbread is Gr8: only if i eat the eyes
Cram Leppot: a tasty death, like choking on a mcgriddle
Cornbread is Gr8: the chinese say eating the eyes is like eating their SOUL
Cornbread is Gr8: and you can only have so many fish souls
Cram Leppot: i think that's when you take a shark's picture
Cornbread is Gr8: oh yeah and then you eat the picture right?
Cram Leppot: shamu must be very sad
Cornbread is Gr8: he has negative souls
Cram Leppot: i'll go visit him tonight
Cornbread is Gr8: hey i have a sea world too, the real one
Cornbread is Gr8: i will visit shamu. stay home with your beer
Cornbread is Gr8: in my apartment complex I threw some koi in the pool
Cornbread is Gr8: i feed them bread

texas my texas?

2005-10-09T20:52:00.000-05:00

i'm past that imaginary half way point here in san antonio and that's got me looking beyond. everything that i stressed about in applying for this residency now gets multiplied by a billion or so. in the past week i've been finding out how the recent grads went about finding their jobs and what cities and firms that looked at. sounds like it's 90% timing and good luck. the remaining 20% could be my portfolio, which i've been staying up late working on so as to prevent spring time stress fests. oh yeah, it's gonna be a 110% effort.

then as kind of a grand escape from all that, i ran up to wimberly, tx this weekend to hang out with kate and the gang. sitting quietly for three hours before everyone woke up, looking at hill country magazines and 2003 central texas christmas lighting schedules, then strolling around on the chilly wood deck overlooking the blanco river makes you wonder why you'd want to leave texas. let it be said here that zoe suggested that i move to phoenix. what and leave this weather?

oh yeah, ut beat ou and the astros beat the braves. all other states suck.

i bet i think this song is about me

2005-10-01T15:38:00.000-05:00

though the model may be long gone, i did have some of the final pics i wanted to show off. i present to you the project whose name i shall not mention for fear of curious googlers researching as of yet non-existent beach clubs for as of yet non-existent cities in coastal florida. somewhere along the line, kids will be swimming here and you don't want my deep dark NC-17 secrets traveling across the web to them now do you?

so this is our little jewel in the sand, and going back to the last post i believe this to be good architecture. yet the client payed us upwards of $10,000 to just build this model. the months of detailing cost many thousands more, so this obviously isn't architecture for the masses. could architecture be more than just for the 2% who can aford it? yet, isn't there something liberating about sheet rock and 2 by 4 paradises that can be done in a weekend? yes and yes.

designing homes that fit your lifestyle!

2005-09-27T19:19:00.000-05:00

this one has been a long time coming but my conversation with my sister just now makes it urgent. upon finding herself and family with a good chunk of wealth, she is now looking to buy lakeside land and build a new house. i am of course not to the point where i could detail out her dream home so she's taken up the task of browsing southern living floor plans and passing along "architects" names that i should advise her on. the latest is Gary Keith Jackson and hopefully he's not the last. at what point did the extruded street facade become architecture? does wrapping everything in marble make for fine living? what color would you like: golden desert wheat or beigy beige beige? i partially blame you, creator of MTV cribs.

and then of course the same people who live in these mansions fund the creation of cheap soul sucking strip centers that are meant to stand for about 20 years then they all fall down. i can't even name whatever material that is being caked on every new commercial building around. fake stucco? it lacks relation to anything real and tangible so they paint and cornice it to death until it slightly resembles some other type of material. it's architectural tofu.

what's got me most scared is how we rebuild after the hurricanes. first off do you? and secondly if you do, do you write a blank check to contractors and have them throw up placeless floor plans. southern louisiana and mississippi still held traces of thoughtful architecture. a lot of that may be gone because of things beyond our control, but do you just give up and forget all about the shotgun houses?

why do you think americans find europe so enchanting and name our mansions mediterranean? there's a fascination with places that stand the test of time. let's build some of those. if they get destroyed, then learn your lesson and build smarter (not just better). rant complete.

the timeless days of summer

2005-09-18T21:45:00.000-05:00

oh how me and the neighborhood boys would play stick ball neath the power lines. we'd fetch tadpoles from the nearby creek. and nothing says summer like an afternoon escape to the local shake n' fries.

for those of us not on the public school seasonal schedule, summer ends this week. i ended up spending the end right where it started with my dad down along the gulf coast. in between i've tossed aside the aqua socks of summers past and donned a pair of wingtips. ok, i am allowed to wear flip flops at work, but i've been told i'm handling this adulthood thing really well either way. then again today i was likened to a 40 year old virgin, trapped between man and boyhood.

earlier on in july during a cliff diving excursion, i misplaced my watch and had been going tan line free ever since. it was borderline liberating for my buttoned down lifestyle. my dad urged me to retrieve the watch in order to be a man, or something, so lo and behold, thank you david for getting it back for me.

so cue the cicadas and fire up the conroe high school fighting tiger marching tiger band, as summer 2005 slowly rumbles to an end. i'm gonna stop short of quoting sappy green day lyrics. it's fall.

day 2

2005-09-15T12:54:00.000-05:00

my dad and i tried relating what we'd seen in mississippi to jerry, the developer at st. joe i'm working with. how can you actually justify building an entire city along the gulf coast of florida when it could just as easily be gone in half a day? and building from scratch seams inane when there's so much that needs to be repaired elsewhere. building material costs rise. labor is impossible to come by. makes you think where priorities lie. jerry was in between shook and depressed.

i guess i don't have to wax on such complexities of architecture as i'm just an intern. for the rest of the day my dad and i were running around the deep south trying to make our way back to texas. tip: remember to set your watch to eastern time so you don't your overnight bus. i was slightly better off and had my discount flight that took me back through miami. shaq, will smith, and david caruso send their best.

journey complete.

day 1

2005-09-14T21:45:00.000-05:00

my dad ended up jumping on for the trip east. and coming from the man who originally told me to stay far north of any of the hurricane damage, i found it surprising that we took a two hour detour south into mississippi. along the way we met a man who swept sand from the driveway of his house that was no longer there. we met fema workers and national guardsmen. we met a woman who'd stayed for 4 days in new orleans to care for her nursing home patients. we met another who'd watched people die in the convention center. most of these photos are from waveland, mississippi where cars were on top of cars and entire houses were missing save for the foundation and front steps.

amidst all of that, it was nice to see the gulfport applebee's back open and serving hot plates of whatever it is they serve at an applebee's.

$2.89

2005-09-06T23:58:00.000-05:00

with things how they are, this might be the last great american road trip. in the next few days i'll drive by the astrodome, up to conroe, head out early monday morning along I-10 as far as that will get me into louisiana, through the backroads of mississippi and alabama and everything else katrina, and into tallahassee simply to deliver a model without risk of destruction. after that, it's a whirlwind flight tuesday down to miami and back up to houston/conroe for the night only to make it back here to work around lunchtime wednesday.

i wasn't kidding in my last post about the delta being hit hard. it wasn't until today though that it made the news. click on the video there too, if you feel like you haven't seen enough footage for the past week and a half.

on a lighter note, while sorting to find some donations i discovered a shirt i haven't actually worn since high school. it's somehow been following me around through all my college closets until now. it might have even made it to italy. anyway, i hope there's some new orleanian going through a big fat plaid phase.

worry some

2005-09-01T21:18:00.000-05:00

next week i'll be in new orleans. or i was supposed to be. the thing is me and my model still have to make our way to tallahassee before september 15th, but that now requires a detour and a new pitstop city. either way i'm crossing the path of katrina and taking my camera.

as scary as things are in new orleans right now, i know everything i saw along the mississippi delta back at the beginning of summer is destroyed. the town at the end, ironically named venice, was nothing but mobil homes, shanty baptist churches, and oil refineries butting up against levees. seems like none of that is left.

some of our structural consulatants are headed over there before long to...well consult structure and see if they can save any of the surviving buildings. in our office we're raising money for the new orleans AIA. as stupid as that sounds, architecture is a big part of what makes new orleans new orleans and not just a third world war zone.

oh, and the saints will be playing football here in the alamodome this season. bored spurs fan nonchalantly rejoice.

up the river

2005-08-28T20:34:00.000-05:00

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?

2005-08-20T01:15:00.000-05:00

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

2005-08-15T21:28:00.000-05:00

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

2005-08-11T22:34:00.000-05:00

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

2005-08-07T23:38:00.000-05:00

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.

"have you met my ex-wife?"

2005-07-29T21:09:00.000-05:00

that's the line my dad has used countless times in the past to make in-laws laugh and relative strangers feel uncomfortable. that's the line he used today when his nurse came in to check on him. that's the same nurse we would later learn is the mother of a girl i once dated which led to me making akward conversation and feeling relatively uncomfortable.

chalk it up to our famed y-chromosone and our unwillingness to treat serious stuff too seriously. for the first time today i heard the story about how my dad (and his friend john (who was my junior high principal)) arrived back from their long trip to india in the early seventies. keeping in mind that he hadn't seen his wife (my mother (not his nurse) in six weeks, and could have possibly gone through a beattles-esque rebirth during that time, donned the traditional indian robe and head piece he'd bought there, in the airport bathroom. my mom failed to recognize the skinnier, tanner indian man who looked like her husband. But of course her mother (my grandmother (his in-law)) picked him out of the crowd i'm sure with relative bewilderment.

another revelation by dad concerned the previously mentioned post-op yard trenching therapy session. why he didn't dislocate his new shoulder, he did cut up a few sprinkler system pipes which he had to fix and relocate. doing so required hours of crouching which led to his knee surgery a year later and made his legs constantly fall asleep. now he believes that that same poor circulation caused the current clots.

again, he is feeling fine but is still confined to his hospital room. furthermore, today he discovered room service and with it their nice selection of ice cream. i promise i'll tell his donkey delivery story soon.

m.a.t.

2005-07-27T18:58:00.000-05:00

my dad went into the hospital late last night because of a blood clot in his leg. a CAT scan revealed that he had further clotting in his lungs. considering all this, he's not in pain and is more annoyed by the fact that he has to sleep on his back until it clears up. hell he can't be anywhere but his back for the next few days. at first i was quick to point out his poor diet of red meat and ice cream, but it's more likely hereditary or caused by cancer. the tests haven't come back yet.

because of this, he's having to back out saturday of his first wedding in thirty whatever years of photographing weddings. possibly the saturday after that too. he had asked me to shoot this weekend's, but he found a replacement. an old coworker of his back from when he first started off.

it's nice to see that he's confident enough in me to take over one wedding. however i definitely don't feel ready to take over the family part time business and hopefully he's not ready to give it up. after all, this is the same man who two days after having replacement shoulder surgery, rented a gasoline powered trencher and tore up the back yard.

turn and face the strain

2005-07-22T17:56:00.000-05:00

once again, it all changes. my life got flip turned upsidedown. three times this week i step outside of casa myrtle and actually make friends here and now it's time for them to leave. it's in between sad and annoying. soon enough too, the fall semester starts up and i lose any of the few casual summer visits that i've had anyway. in adulthood there is no summer, just hotter workdays.

even if i don't see any human faces outside of the cast of everybody loves raymond, there's always my love for correspondence. within the last few days i've gotten letters/emails/postcards/phone calls from austin, malibu, boston, vancouver, san fransisco, tehran, london, barcelona, paris, and seabrook, texas of all places. actually i think it's easier to be friends if you never have to meet face to face, which is why the upcoming weeks scare the hell out of me.

christmas in july and the porkchop shaped stocking

2005-07-17T16:48:00.000-05:00

a cool front came through and my family was in town bearing random gifts of cranberry juice, tortilla chips, and porkchops. honestly i love porkchops as much as anyone else who eats porkchops, but now i have enough to make anyone who eats porkchops very sick of eating porkchops very soon. and this is right as i'm starting to eat less meat anyway so i'll have to put that on hold for a while.

i introduced them to all things lf including my office and us "accidentally" coming across 5 or 6 buildings across downtown. it's great when we're just walking along and my mom points out jokingly "is that yours too?" and i say yes. oh and my dad elaborated on his donkey at the strip club story for the inlaws. one day i'll tell you.

if you'll excuse me it's a blistery 81 degrees outside and my mittens are primed for sledding and snowball skirmishes. ta ta.