st. got to love the cold...day

The situation was dire to say the least.

Lets flash back to the fact that I got a welcomed ride home this evening after having been stuck out in Northern Virginia all week doing software training. No huge vendetta against VA... but I'm just not a fan. I mean... come on... any rookie proponent of urbanization has got to have at least a tiny little pocket of hate for the vast, monotonious bowl of vanilla that is northern Virginia. It's crazy... every one of those cookie cut "cities" like Balston, Clarendon, and Rosslyn exist in this weird state of frenzied boredom... like you took the third floor of Any Mall USA...nyahmean? ... Starbukrombie & Fitch... blew it up and built a town around it.

Anyway... apologies for the digression.

So I come home and the vicious ice storm that has ravaged the east coast has also laid waste to my courtyard gutter. So I spent an hour outside on my ladder hammering the ice in the gutters to break it up and clear it out.

hmmm

I guess there's not really much to that story. The ice weighed too much for the gutter. It was cold. My fingers were like popsicles. I was a bit miserable...I grabbed my trusty hammer and did what had to be done.

my diamond snow shoes are too tight

Unbeknownst to many, there has been a silent/ unnecessary battle of wits being waged between me and my would-be gardener. Many of you might remember him from the unfortunate deforestation-shrubbery-clear-cutting-incident back on '06. Or perhaps you heard about the frequent 2:00 AM doorbell ringings on his way back from the club (cus he saw the lights on... who does that? really?). Since then, hatchets have been buried. Laughs, as well as, 5's, 10's, and 20's have been exchanged... and yard debris removal/out of town security services have been rendered. Make no mistakes... he's a good guy.

However, Jack Frost has breathed his ominous breath over the nation's capital and alas, the lawn maintenance needs for a while have been minimal at best. What this means is... no more chores... and no more chores means... no more loot from my pocket to his. (Which works out well for me, since the lush green forest of my wallet has been slowly taking the path of the traitorous follicles on my dome)

So anyway.... my friend and yours... decides that he has a new winter plan. He starts taking out my trash. An interesting move. So now every Tuesday evening when I'm pushing up the hill from the bus stop, my trash and recycle bins are already at the curb for the next day's pickup.

Convenient... grossly unnecessary... but one less thing for me to do, right? We should all be so fortunate... Plus... honestly... the third world soul in me loves the notion of contributing to a local micro economy consisting of pocket cash and small favors.

Well after a few indulgent weeks of curb side trash service followed closely by random visits for payment... I had enough. I can walk the 18 paces to the curb myself... and for free, nyahmean? So two weeks ago, I start locking my trashcans up in the courtyard and taking them out myself on Wednesday mornings.

Checkmate!! I'm back in control.

This morning, I awoke to about 2 inches of freshly fallen snow.

... and a freshly shoveled driveway

He's back in the game...

Immaculee

So I sent my brother a text last night (got no love on the reply) complaining about the work that I was currently enthralled in. I was painting the north wall of the first floor stairwell. It is a tricky maneuver that requires a balancing act on a folding ladder. Granted, it is "technically" safe because the ladder has locking mechanisms to ensure safety... but while you're painting, it takes some getting used to... you know... you have to believe in the ladder... yourself... and in your ability to take short, shallow breaths. So I decide to take a break and I watched 60 minutes.

Man... I saw this story about a woman named Immaculee Ilibagiza She and 6 other Tutsi women spent 91 days hiding in 3' X 4' bathroom during the genocide in Rwanda 12 years ago.

...that’s 12 square feet.

So here I go complaining about my back hurting from the awkward stretching of this human cantilever exhibition I'm starring in... and these women were in a bathroom for three months.... I felt whiny. I felt ... guilty... I felt...unnecessarily burdened by trite circumstances.

And then it hit me... I've experienced this guilt before.... this was it.... this was the adult manifestation of the age-old, guilt-ridden parental staple lesson...

"Finish your dinner... there are children in the world starving."

In other words... There are people going without, so I should appreciate what I have and not waste it.

But in that recognition of the 8 yr old inside me who begot my current emotions, there was a secondary understanding that the lesson was incomplete. I realized instantaneously that should I ever embark on the mystical journey that is child rearing... I will add to the age-old wisdom.

"Finish your dinner... there are children in the world starving... and when you awake healthy and nurished in the morning, they will still be hungry...go fix it."

not for you, darling

From the desk of growahouse... A letter to the "angry" woman on the bus last Tuesday.

At first I thought that your anger filled words about the city's changing demographics were the mere rants of a mad woman... the unabridged, volatile cursing of an irritable, misaligned, urban heretic...

In retrospect, it was a protective instinct in my subconscious that kicked in and inspired that opinion. I wanted to protect the over packed bus riders from your verbal assault... to protect the school age Halloween costumed youths from a bad example of how to engage society... but ultimately to protect myself from having to acknowledge that your poor delivery, does not negate the importance of your message.

In this city's the path of change, there are casualties. Those casualties are not numbers, percentages, nor forwarding mail addresses.

They are people.

They are you.

The influx of wealth to your Washington neighborhood, will probably mean, as you stated, that you will be pushed out of your home. I don't know what form that push will take. It may be economic through property taxes, rent hikes, or physically through new construction. It might just mean that the 1.2M condos on your corner with the Harris Teeter on the first floor will attract more people that aren't like you and you will be culturally alienated. I don't know.

What I do know is that people have more potential to grow and learn in diverse environments. I believe that your neighborhood will benefit from having the full gamut of incomes and cultures represented. Granted, that may not be what happens. Your neighborhood might flip from impoverished to wealthy over night, become a high end monoculture, and miss the boat on diversity all together..... but let's just say it doesn't. Let's say it becomes a diverse social/economic Mecca for various Washingtonians, old and new.

It still might not be for you, darling.

And I think that amidst a bus ride of stingingly inappropriate epithets, that was your message. Not that any type of change was inherently bad, but that any type of change... would be your undoing.

Your pain is not necessarily about the train that's coming... it's about the fact that you don't have a ticket. That is a lot to manage and I can barely imagine how I would respond in your place.... how I would respond if I felt overlooked by everybody around me... even everybody on this bus... ....perhaps I would shout so people would pay attention.

You might have difficultly expressing yourself, but you're not crazy.

I understand that now.

nordic man

I ordered my washer/dryer yesterday from Thor Appliances. As with most things sustainable, you do the research and find that things that make sense logically are often sensible environmentally. The washer/dryer decision was no exception. I decided to go this route first because my dummy contractor saw it fit not to build the vent for the dryer that I drew on the plans and that any bargain-basement, bootleg contractor would not overlook. This led to my discovery that there are condenser dryers that do not require a vent. Instead they use the drum rotation and some other gadgets to suck all the water out of the clothes. Following that logic and perusing many consumer reports... led me to the decision to go ultra environmental with a "set it and forget it" approach to my laundry unit... a combination front loading washer/dryer.

So I make the order online and then I call the company to verify that the order was processed. I end up speaking to a man who tells me that there is a discrepancy between my payment and my order request. You see, I paid the base price, but I made note that I wanted the titanium finish.

Who doesn't?

The laundry industry has gone the way of the dyson vacuum displaying their braggadocios hubris in the repackaging of their technologically stagnant products in trendy colors... like champagne, mustard, periwinkle....etc So far be it from me to be the cat with the ordinary white laundry appliance. After all.. once I lock the laundry door, and go on with my life for another 1-2 weeks before looking at the appliance again... I can't image the disgust of open that door and seeing that ordinary white box looking back at me. What would my neighbors think?

Washing machines with vibrant colors clean better, right?

Anyway... I tell the dude he can keep the titanium finish because its not worth the extra $200 for the color... and get this...

He says that I sound like a nice guy and he'll send me the titanium anyway.... for the white price.

That was very kind of you Thor Appliance Man... good looking out.

6th precinct

Made my first visit to my local police department last night. Why? You ask.

because my neighbors decided to steal my license plates over the weekend.

Here I am trying to spread the word of sustainable life choices and earth stewardship... meanwhile... some knuckleheads are using their Dewalt cordless 18V drill to remove my tags (screws too) and commit God knows what kind of vehicular crimes with my plates. They probably have their newly minted car burning in some shipyard as we speak... the fire, of course, would clean out the evidence from the robbery and foul play that ensued... the plates... my plates... the only link to the villainous tirade reaped on the nation's capital. That's when the APB will go out... and the Feds will descend, harnessed and fully armed through the skylights at my office. There will be screaming, mild tear gas, and subsequently my newsworthy arrest. Of course, I'll protest... saying that I have the receipt from the police report I filed in my wallet, but I will say that ... forgetting that I am a man of color, in America, in the company of the police... and well... it just wouldn't end well. In fact, it would end badly.

So that’s what is on my mind. I'm about to be the guy with the piece of cardboard scotch taped to the back of my car that reads:

STOLEN TAGS

It’s a good thing that I believe cars are a devilishly addictive indulgence and am such a proponent of mass transit.

It makes me ever so slightly less likely to engineer an indestructible suit of armor and take to the streets for some vigilante justice.

trabajador perdido

It just keeps getting better. I am leaving my office to go on a site visit for work and I'm cruising down in the elevator to the first floor.

ding. ding.

The doors open and who is staring me back in the eye?

My long lost contractor.

I could not have scripted it better myself. It was the quintessential... leaving Quiznos excited about your toasted sandwich and running into your ex-girlfriend in front of the Italian ice/ Twisty cone spot near the grocery store parking lot.

He was well dressed. It looked like the month plus of not working for me had been good to him. (My brother reminded me that the dummy bought those lovely clothes with my money) So I'm like...

"Hey, howyadoin?...It's been a while."

He went on about how he just finished another job and how he was ready to get started again...And how he was going to swing by on Monday.

"Interesting."

He mentioned how he had been upset about how the stucco guys didn't wait for him to fix the roof soffit before they moved their scaffolding. (They did wait, for the record) And that he was going to finish the soffit on Monday and then get ready to start the drywall.

"Hmm... I see."

So get this... Through this brief conversation, I realized that he wasn't coming up into my office to see me. He was actually coming to see a colleague of mine, who he had done some work for previously. That colleague had severed their relationship from that job I believe, because Dummy was... well... most likely being the mediocre performer that he is. He didn't even come to see me. My colleague no longer works at our office and so finding this out led to our conversation. He didn't even come to see me. He was going to waltz into MY OFFICE, speak to MY co-worker and then vanish back into the dingbat abyss that he seemingly emerged from.

"So... do you have a number at which I can reach you?"

It was all I could do to not burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. Am I supposed to be happy that you're ready to do work now? Am I supposed to feel like you are doing me a favor by finishing the job that I've paid you to do? You can't be serious. You can't possibly think that there will be no consequences to your behavior. You can't be that dense... or can you?

I kept it cool. I have nothing to gain by telling him how I feel right now. Let him come on Monday. Let him fix the soffit and the interior trim like he has been paid to do and let him work off the remaining debt. So, I took down his number and told him I would call him a bit later.

I was very proud of myself. What he deserved was a gritty whisper in his ear of..."You tryin to make a fool outta me?" But what I provided was a calm response to an unfortunate situation.

He didn't even come to see me.

it's not you, it's me

I think I might hate you. No... no... that doesn't seem right.

Is hate too strong a word? Is it too judgmental, too glass half empty, too... dare I say... emotional? Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think that the intensity is right, but the word choice is wrong.

I loathe you

Yes... much better...

I haven't heard from you. It has been 13 days and 12 nights. You don't call... you don't respond to my messages. I ask your friends about you and they pretend nothing is wrong. I wonder if you even told them about us. I wonder if you are shutting them out as well or if they just knew you had someone else all along. Is that it? Did they know? Did they see me and smile and pretend that I'm your number one? Do they drive away in their trucks laughing, knowing that I'm just a fling for you?

I thought I deserved more. I thought that somewhere in the recesses of your large, albeit dimly lit mind, that you had a special place for me... for us.

Not so much.

I stand here now, beaten, but not broken... wounded, but not weary... disappointed, but not dismantled. I will do that which I must. I will, with a heavy heart and a light wallet, walk proudly into Lowes (Improving Home Improvement) and purchase two new door locks. I will then replace the locks on the house and bid you a not so fond farewell. You have disappointed me for the last time.

Mr. Framing Contractor/ Would-Be Drywall Man, Our time, however rollercoasterish, has been interesting and educational. I will not forget you, the work you did on the lion's share of the house construction, nor will I forget how you tried to play me and made me want to go to your house at 5 in the morning and curse you out in front of your children and neighbors alike (luckily I was dissuaded from such action... it could have gotten ugly)

Adieu

fix your cell phone, dummy

So today I was over at the house trying to work on the stairs to make them a bit more stable and start building the base support for them that sits on the ground and... I hear a knock on the door.

Now would be the time that I would like to tell you the story about how my framing contractor stopped by, not to do work, but just to "check on things" and he was like... "Wow you've been busy!! You look like you're enjoying it."....and knowing at that precise moment that I haven't been able to reach him for the past week because his cell phone is broken and knowing if that knucklehead would show up and do the work I pay him to, I wouldn't have to be up all hours living this semi-nomadic, not-quite-managerial, quazi-day laborer lifestyle.... and I just lost it and proceeded to read him his rights about how I was completely fed up with his sometimesy attitude towards this project and it is important that he understand that I will finish this house, with or without his help... and some other choice explicative that really drove the point home that I can take it to the streets if necessary. Ya Heard!!

However... that did not happen.

He stopped by. He mumbled some inaudible comments about the weather and the insulation and then he left. I kept working on the stairs. For a series of pivotal and deep rooted reasons, all of which I am clueless about, somewhere in the back of my mind I keep wanting to see the good in people often to my own detriment...

I find it difficult to use past behavior as an indicator of future performance.

He has been a dingbat from the beginning and will probably be a dingbat after...

So do I accept that and replace him?, or do I hold on to the hope that not just some people... but everyone can grow as a result of this house.

Maybe I'm just using the wrong fertilizer.

silly me

Of course my unnaturally heavy, gigantanormous, high school basement flashback, eclectic, turn of the century, seemingly one-of-a-kind, forged in the fires of Mordor... front doors ... would need hinges that were seemingly impossible to find. Silly me. Why would they be held up with commonly found "earthly" metals? Why would they measure in sizes that do not require a slide rule and/or an abacus to determine? Silly me.

I needed 6 hinges and I thought the hinges were about 5" inches tall and so I spent my lunch break in the dungeon of a local hardware store laboring through a tumultuous experience that could only be described as... the search for the holy grail of hinges. And then, as if by Divine Intervention, we happened upon a few dusty boxes of these blessed connectors and just as I was about to be emotionally overjoyed at a job well done... I noticed the finely printed pencil-etched price for the box of three hinges... it said in a quiet and unassumingly devilish voice... $60.00

What? How do you get that to make sense?... Sixty? Come on... honestly.... Sixty?[Two boxes: $120.00 plus tax]

So regardless of the fact that I got them to cut the price in half and regardless of the fact that the hinges I needed would turn out to be in the neighborhood of a half an inch larger... lets just pause for a minute and question this whole process.

Why is everything so freekin expensive and WHY do I feel like this house is becoming a giant sieve that shakes me daily for loose coins, bills, pay checks, and pocket change?

In fact, the only thing it doesn't shake loose, are my creative ideas and longings for a thoughtful existence... both of which coincidently secure my return to the sieve tomorrow.

hmmmm...

as good as it gets

I want to believe that there is going to be a magical moment when my thoughts about how beautiful the symmetry and synergy between architect and contractor can be, comes to fruition. Designer and Implementer.... Imagineer and Manifester....

It could be beautiful.

But instead... it is this.

The this that I speak of is the maylaisse that has me wondering why I'm the only one who wants to finish building this house. I mean... when I go to work, they pay me and I design buildings. Pretty straight forward. But some how, in this C+ student- constant excuse- vortex of residential building "professionals," normal 21st century supply and demand conventions do not apply.

I'm going to try going in to work tomorrow and ... no... actually... I'm going to NOT go in to work tomorrow and when my office calls me and asks me why I'm not there, I'll tell them that I'm waiting for yesterday's paycheck to clear. We'll see how that goes over.

Perhaps the union of which I yearn is an urban myth... a clandestine unicorn... just wishful thinking.

I wish... I wish....

I wish I had the free time, skill, and resources to build this house with friends, family and mid-day cocktails. I wish my house had windows. I wish I hadn't slept through my mechanical systems classes.(All of them) I wish that somebody involved in this project, who is not a loved one or relative, would surprise me with an unprompted, kind gesture.

Who am I kidding... I don't want kindness.... I want accountability.

We've ventured down this path before... so stop acting smug, nephew.

begging for bean pies

I don't get it. I really don't. Why do these kids have to be out at the traffic light begging for money? Every day I drive to the site and I pass by this big intersection and without fail there are a bevy of young boys and girls with signs and cups begging for donations to their after school program or sports team or something. I don't really care what it is.

STOP!!

I get that there isn't adequate funding for programs that can keep young boys and girls in the neighborhood occupied and engaged. I get that. I get that it requires diligence and a lot of work to find capital to keep youth outreach centers open and keep them filled with qualified and involved staff. I even get that sports are positive ways to keep the seemingly boundless energy of children/young adults, focused and health oriented.

But here's the other perspective...

Day in a day out you are teaching these young black soon-to-be men and women that they can and should depend on the handouts or pity-cloaked generosity of passersby. I think that lesson has the potential to be as detrimental as the ills of society your program is trying to overcome.

My initial thought was... go across the street to one of the three or four gas stations and set up a car wash.

Earn operating capital for your program and subsequently teach lessons about work ethic, entrepreneurship, and determination. Maybe I'm out of touch and you can't do a gas station car wash anymore? Seriously, I'm not sure if this is just me being annoyed with the adults that stand in the grassy intersection median while their minions dash in-between captive audience vehicles and bean pie adorned Final Call vendors. It just irritates me. The other day, this girl, who couldn't have been a day over 12, leaned waist deep into my open passenger side window to ask me for a donation. She was way too comfortable relying on me to financially resolve her agenda.

First of all, shouldn't you be reading a book somewhere?... doing some homework?... helping your parents with dinner?... watching your little brother?.... How do you have time to work this intersection? Second, and more pressing to me...how can she not grow up and expect the same handout from her adult environment?

I think she deserves better.

One thing I've learned, however, is that every dummy with a blog and a mild tempered audience thinks that he or she is the be-all end-all of sound reasoning and socio-political thought. So lest I forget my place and become a panderer of finger pointing, I offer another approach.

Maybe they need help setting up the car wash?

We can't get anywhere as a people if those of us ideologues in the so called creative class are not willing to get our hands dirty and address real social issues in real time.

I'll let you know how it goes.

an open conversation

I was able to have a lengthy conversation with my neighbor across the street this morning. Nice guy. As usual, when I have conversations with my neighbors, I am exposed to the unedited reality of my block... a more and more frequent occurence that I am growing quite fond of. I often wonder who the person is that I project to people. I have found my neighbors to be, on average, very open and engaging. Is that a result of them, or me? Do I project an honest non-threatening persona? Or have I just stumbled into an honest and non-threatening community? What about the demographics of this possible pleasantville? For the most part, my neighbors are older and elderly black folks, many having southern roots. What does that say about the neighborhood's lifespan? Is it approaching a crescendo? Mr. Johnson, the man that sowed the structural seeds for this site, was elderly and relatively sickly when he passed. Was he a reflection of his environment? If so, what does it say about the new blood that the growahouse site could pump into this microcosim? I'm not sure. Apparently, when most of these neighbors moved into the area twenty or thirty years ago, it was largely comprised of white residents. Not so much anymore. But what role will history play in the near future?

My studies have helped me to appreciate the nature of how most communities develop as they react to the pressures of time, diversity, amenities, economics, and politics. Often the demographics of an area shift in cycles. Washington, DC, however has a slightly unique and somewhat civic workforce, which skews the easy reading of a pattern. On the Federal side, the population changes with administrations and this transient, but wealthy, group brings continual capital into the city's infrastructure. On the DC Government side... its mostly black folks... mostly middle to lower economic brackets...mostly life long DC residents.

This is an interesting mix in the current light of an unprecedented building boom. A mix that leads to two things, respectively:

Gentrification

Migration

But what if you're older?

What if you live in one of the few remaining enclaves characterized as a stable black neighborhood with good stable people, like yourselves? How do you ensure that the neighborhood will live on?

Or should you?

Should you take advantage of the real estate market, sell, and move out to PG County? Do you contribute to your community by having a well earned equity payout that you can pass on to your family... you know ... build some generational wealth? I'm not sure.

many questions remain...

How do you pump blood into the tangible fabric of a community that is fading without replacing it? How do you say that the buildings are important, as well as, the bodies that inhabit them?

"Its all happening"

Friday evening, I re-watched a not so old favorite movie... Almost Famous. While there are an overabundance of coming-of-age trials to speak of when referencing this particular film, there was one overriding theme that I found to be engaging as I breathed in the film once again.

The death of a musical genre, and the subsequent birth of "an industry of cool."

Although I may have some rock star aspirations (learning the play the guitar for example), I find that is more engaging a theme if I relate it to design.

There are so many things that I want to do with this house. Yesterday, I stretched myself out across the newly laid joists for the third floor. I looked towards downtown and found myself staring at the Washington Monument. I recalled that one of the incredible things I rememebered about being on the roof of the original house was being able to see downtown, focusing particular attention on the Washington Monument and the Capital Building. My current design doesn't capitalize on the view as much as I had originally wanted to. Because the site is on a hill, I knew that looking downtown would be pretty cool. How cool would it be to be able to show folks my view? How cool would it be to look at the city from across the river and then walk, ride or drive into it?

A few weeks back, I told the seventy-year old black man that poured my concrete that it was going to be cool cus I could see the city from the top of the house.

He said, "What do you want to see the city for? It's not for us."

His view, however dismal, speaks to a larger truth. Being excited about this house cannot and must not destroy the original agenda. The truth in his statement comes from feeling like a forgotten people. The truth in his words comes from the downside of gentrification, which originates from the latin gentrificus, which loosely translates into: Making poor or underrepresented people someone else's concern.

The city, not unlike an eight minute guitar solo of the mid 70's, is dying and giving birth to an "environment of cool."

This new environment is paved with camera phones in place of conversation, designer dogs in place of watching your neighbor's children until their parents get home, overpriced natural grocery foods in place of window sill herb gardens, ipod nanos in place of street performers, and ultimately... placing more value on your view of the city, than on the people in those buildings... or better still... the people that used to live in those buildings.

on the streets

Be it pride or an overwhelming sense of purpose, I have accepted that the growahouse mantra is bigger than myself. In fact, its bigger than all of us. Why do I say this?

There is an undeniable mist of energy that is slowly creeping about. Whispers in the hallways of office buildings... murmers beneath cupped hands of collegiate scholars... and even hearsay of tight fisted street philosophers passionately proselytizing on how the pulse of a people can and will be poised on a single idea.

grow a house. grow a village. grow a city

So that was my epistlary response to the news of this website starting to hit the streets. From lips to ears across the metropolitan area. I'm sure, by day's end, the entire eastern seaboard will have hit the site at least once.

good.

david banner in the mirror

I am not a violent man. Furthermore, I have not reached my boiling point. I do, however,offer this warning: If you make me angry, I will make an example out of you.

Why... at 9 in the morning on a rainy Friday in the brisk autumn of 2005, do I have to elevate my heart rate and, dare I say, my temper? I understand weather. I understand buildings. I understand setbacks. I understand the rules of project management. What I don't understand, is why in the H, E, Double Hockey Sticks, do I have to hold your hand and coax you into making me feel comfortable with your ability to get my freekin' wood beams to the house on time??? come on, black people. We have got to do better than that. Exceed my expectations. Show up early. Call me before i call you and tell me that the supplier is acting up, but these are the things that you are doing to keep the project going. Make me say... Damn!!, You're great at what you do!!! I was fool to ever consider someone else for this project. But instead... I got wet in the rain helping some guy drop off the joists in front of the house, cus you weren't there to meet your delivery man. Luckily I stopped at Home Depot at 7am this morning and bought that extra tarp, cus if it were up to you... My wet TJI joists would be sitting in a puddle, moist and forsaken... awaiting their untimely removal by the same neighbors that broke into my car.

efforts towards consistency

I find myself in an all too familiar situation. I am midthought, midweek, and midafternoon. Where did the day go? Tomorrow I will ask myself where did the week go? Friday, I undoubtedly will try to salvage the 5-day sequence by powering up on something tangibly inspiring... something not unlike cleaning my workspace. Something like diving into a graphic frenzy of images and interlacing of visual textures that will temporarily tickle my fancy, but will neither sustain my interest, nor generate any revenue. This process will ultimately leave me feeling unchallanged and will subsequently lead my to the abrupt shaving of my head, and vibrant displays of couture. (not quite sure why my clothes get more colorful... but it is what it is) SO... I offer for your dissection and discussion... the following reasons why I feel like taking L. Robinson's advice and moving to Fiji:

I have been running every day this week for at least 2mi and I feel like the Muscle & Skeletal Local 438 has mobilized its workers and are threatening a WALK OUT.

The rainy week has slowed the process of getting the concrete blocks laid out at the house. I think it is the first time that I have felt a bit powerless about proceeding forward. A feeling that I am now deciding... is an unacceptable one... nevertheless... I still have a stack of Concrete Blocks and no mason to start ... uh...masoning?

I have a project deadline for Monday that will undoubtedly have me in the office over the weekend.

My new shoes from sketchers( not my preferred brand, but these shoes are really hot) are a little tight around the velcro strap. It something that will be fine once I wear them a few more times, but in the interim... I got tight velcro.

Did I mention that I'm driving my Uncle's car around cus my new neighbors decided to welcome me to the area by trying to break into my car? When I went down to the Peace Protest, I parked at the house site and rode my bike downtown. Some passerby jambed a screwdriver in my lock and tried to make something happen. Thanks, guys!! I'm on the steps of the White House talking about peace in the middle east and you're in my passenger seat listening to my Best of R&B Soul Collection. Thanks again!!

So take your pick. Personally, I'm going to go with number 1 on the list because after you finish reading this, my body will still feel like a bag of crushed cashews and like a dummy... I'm gonna run again tonight.