The city under my feet

The laptop now allows me to do something that I've dreamed of since the long ago days of reading Transmet in the girls dorm that I was living in at the time (long story).

I can now take to the streets, and write the stories I find there.

Of course, I've yet to use it that way.

I should.

There's something about austin, the way I feel in the pulsing crowds of 6th street, the sounds of buskers and beggars and drunken children staggering through the night, the sights, garish and gritty and hopeful and sad.

There's the relative calm of the porch of my dive bar on Airport Blvd, where people of all walks of life can share a drink, as long as you don't make trouble and don't ask too many questions.

The resteraunts, the homegrown buisness. The hilariously named mayoral candidates. The life that finds a way.

Every building has a history. Every person has a story to tell.

I think it might be fun to find them out.

But maybe everyone feels that way about their home, the life it breathes into them, the desire to seek out it's nooks and crannies.

Maybe not.

It's getting late, and I've written a lot tonight. Time to stop musing about life and start living it.

Peace

It is hard to write creatively with the joined cacophony of music that is not mine, the ladies talking in the kitchen over the pops and hisses of Indian food sizzling in the pan, and with a stomach that is full of freshly grilled steak. (Yes, heathen that I am, I ate before coming over. But come on, the steaks would go bad if I waited too much longer)

I want to write something poetic, or, at the very least, something that means something, but the words are not flowing, and it looks like tonight might be a series of short blogs about the moment.

I've come to the realization that unless you are somewhat famous, or a very good writer, or both, most people are not interested in reading about your day. So then comes the choice, the decision if I'm writing for myself, or for my as yet non-existent audience, or simply for the sake of writing.

One way, I don't think I'll ever be happy with what I produce, and another, I'll be held to the whims of others, so I think I'll just let the words flow organically, and become what they will.

Besides, this free-flowing ramble is all that I can come up with if I'm typing on the computer. It seems that most of my creativity flows from ink pens onto wrinkled pages of notebooks.

and I've been interupted, accosted by a kitty, one that seems a little camera shy:


Yes, that's my side being raked with Missile's claws. She's a feisty lady.

One in the process of hacking up a hairball. Fortunately, she's on the other side of the room now.

Cats are gross.

The spices from the food being cooked are making my eyes water.

I declare this post officially rudderless and adrift somewhere off the coast of finland.

This is why I want to be a writer (short)

Writers are, for the most part, know for their way with words.

Except apparently when winning awards.

Though that now means, any time I win something, I should start my acceptance speech with "Fuck, I won a __(insert name of award)___"

Short post tonight, maybe more later.

The sounds of home

I'm writing now to the whoosh-bang of nail-guns, the gentle hum of an air compressor, the scraping and slurping of the dog at her food bowl, and nearly inaudible conversations in Spanish coming from the roof.

The buzz of mosquitoes is conspicuously absent, unlike the mosquitoes themselves.

Now the hiss of the air compressor dying, sounding so much like the steam whistle in the Flintstones opening, signaling the end of the workday.

Since the mosquitoes either don't like the taste of the blood of the workers or are simply too numerous to be sated on anything but my flesh, and the dog has finished her business with the outdoors, I am moving this inside.

The roofers are hammering now, a much more intrusive noise inside than out, and the sound of my roommate and his girlfriend can be sporadically heard above the pounding, speaking of video games and love.

The sounds of exodus continue, truck engines grumbling to life, the clatter of ladders being withdrawn from the roof, the back gate scraping shut.

The final car door slams shut, and the engine sounds fade into the distance.

The house is relatively silent, only the hum of the air conditioner, the creak and whirl of the fan, the scrape of the dogs claws against the sliding class door, and the clicking of the keys of my laptop fill the air.

Cinco de Mustache

Some of you are asking, what, pray tell, is Cinco de Mustache?

No, we are not gringos simply mispronouncing everyone in Texas's favorite reason to drink in the early part of May. There is a method and a madness to Cinco de Mustache.

The first thing you do is shave.

Completely.


Well, all of your face, at least.

This happens on April 1st.

You end up looking something like this:




Then you let your facial hair grow. Weeks pass. First, you realize you can use your chin as sand paper, then the itching sets in, and sometime in there your fiancee refuses to kiss you anymore because of the scruff on your face.


At that point, you look vaguely like this:



More time passes. There is a noticeable lack of comment from your co-workers. The end of April looms. Something to your right distracts you:





Before you know it, it's the 5th of May. 35 days of not touching a blade. 35 days of not having to try and remember the last time you shaved.

So how does one celebrate this momentous occasion?

You go to the store, buy a can of shaving cream, and some razors, and you cut your beard into the most fantastic and whimsical thing you can think of, invite your friends over for fajitas and boozamahol, and take pictures of your face.

This was the best I could come up with. I call it the "Fucked-up-lemmy-with-sideburns":




The Captain couldn't make it to the party...



...but his Mirror Universe counterpart could. (yes, we are, in fact, geeks. This should not be that big a surprise) (side note, blogger thinks shouldn't is not a word)



The good Dr pulled off the actually Lemmy quite well.



The paisley gentlemen went with a rather boring pointy sideburns, which he seems inordinately proud of...


wait... no, he had a goatee and sideburns combo:





wait... something's not right....



oh, the horror!


I honestly think he was as surprised as we were.

We did not shave half the puppy, despite her claims that it would make her better at stealing things:




All in all, it was a great bad idea.

Selling Out

Now there are new things on the blog. Things like ads.

Now, just need to get enough people reading the blog to make money.

Also, considering getting a twitter.

Scratch that. Already have twitter, just use it to follow people. Considering actually posting things with twitter.

Work makes me not want to code

So apparently, I'm not supposed to blog about work. I'm ok with that. At least, I won't blog about any of the details of things or super secret stuff that I know.

Mwuhahah.

Anyway, work, is the main reason why I haven't been updating lately. Well, updating the site, not updating the blog. I have no excuse for not updating the blog. So I'm going to do my best to match the good doctor on the bet that I made against him.

So site has been stagnant, except for the new blog that was added. That might change soon, depending on how it goes with school. If I can work on the site for class, I will. Otherwise, it may fall even further behind. Sigh, there's just no time anymore.

Especially with the looking for a place to live. I really enjoyed my two years at the Thames house, but it's time for it to come to an end. Part of it is, I'm becoming an old man, and want those damn kids off my lawn, the other part of it is, I hate... and I mean hate, my landlord.

Over the last few weeks he's been building an extra bathroom addition, taking up a good chunk of the back yard. On Saturday, he took out the back door, I'm assuming in preparation for joining the old parts of the house to the new, and nailed a holey piece of plywood over most of the covering.

No work has been done since then.

Hot air and bugs are now free to come and go as they please. This upsets me. Especially the bugs.

That reminds me, on an unrelated note, read John Dies at the End. It's great, though won't be readily available from bookstores until the fall.

Need to focus. Maintaining a train of thought is harder than I realized. Right. Land lords. Ok time to call out to the strangers of the interwebs. If you've got a story about a crappy landlord, post it in a comment. The best one wins a prize.

I'm not going to lie, it'll prolly be a crappy prize.

In other news, a wedding is only weeks away. Not my wedding, but my buddy adam(I'm not sure if adam has a blog, or livejournal, or website, or anything like that. If he does, I'll hyper-link it). Two weeks from now he'll be hitched. Freaky. I'm going golfing with him next (this? I'm never sure how that works... the upcoming, I guess) weekend to celebrate. Also freaky. I think it will turn into me shooting rediculously above par and heckling myself and others.

My wedding is also steadily progressing. Goomsmen are being attired. Bridesmaids are being prettied up. Wedding planners are... planning.. and caterers are... charging a lot of money...
But the food should be pretty awesome.

I'll try to be better about posting news and pictures, from the wedding and from the week after in Ireland.

More random book love. Read Lamb, by Christopher Moore, it's brillian.

I've had thoughts for the idea of my next tattoo.

This tree might be involved:


As might this quote :

"Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot." - Neil Gaiman.

But I'm not sure how or if the two will meld, and if they do, how that amalgamation will merge with my skin.

Saw the Reverand Horton Heat at the rockabiliy revival. It was awesome. Fighting urge to buy, and utterly fail to learn how to play, stand-up bass.

Started going to TXRD. Cherry Bombs rule!Next time we go, we'll prolly have posters. Cause we're classy. I'll try to remember to take pictures.

Think that's all I have for tonight. More tomorrow.