For those of you who missed it, I’m inching around with an ankle brace. The details are unimportant, mostly because they make me look silly, but I basically missed a step and fell down.
It’s not broken, my doctor says, just sprained. Stay off it, he told me. 10 days before the grand reopening of the Central Library, the biggest event in several years.
Needless to say, I haven’t been staying off it, and my ankle still hurts.
Oh, whoa is me, whoa is me.
Maybe I’ll start paying attention to my doctor, and actually feel better.
A Whole Foods is planned for West Dallas, just a few blocks from my office. It should be up and running in about two years. I hope I’m still there to reap the rewards of such a convenient location.
Whole Foods to anchor new Montrose-area complex
– Houston Chronicle2
A Whole Foods Market will anchor an 11-acre development planned on West Dallas between Montrose and Waugh.
[snip]
Footnotes
2 = article may expire in a few weeks.
This photo, taken by my friend Ed Schipul, is from this month’s Dr. Sketchy event. I went to last month’s event, it was a lot of fun.
Basically, it’s a live model art event where the model is, well, artfully undressed. For more info, visit Dr. Sketchy.
Wishing all of you a wonderful 2008, personally & professionally.
I am thankful for my family and friends (old and new).
I am thankful for all the wonderful things that have happened this year.
I am thankful for the opportunity to grow and learn that has resulted from all the challenging things that have happened this year.
I am thankful for the great food we will have tomorrow, and the day I will spend with my Mother, my sisters, my brothers-in-law, and their wonderful beautiful children.
I am thankful for the emails I receive that tell me that my brother is well (though still in a war zone).
I am thankful for all of it.
Happy Thanksgiving.
I’m so glad this month is nearly over, and all the catastrophes are done with (for the moment).
My nephew Dylan (10 months old) is out of the hospital. He still has a tube sticking out of him (that gets removed in a week), but watching him crawl around his house and laugh and play I wouldn’t know that just a few days ago he was in a hospital room with his parents camped out with him. The infection that landed him in the hospital for days and days (it felt like forever) is mostly gone. He’s going to be fine. And his parents may even recover from the fright as well.
My back is mostly pain free now. For nearly two weeks at the beginning of the month I was in excruciating pain. It’s so easy to forget how bad my back can get. On a normal day I have twinges of pain, mild discomfort. Occasionally it’s real pain and severe discomfort. It’s almost never real pain. Real pain means muscle relaxers and heavy duty pain killers (the kind that are regulated by law, the kind that are habit forming). Real pain means breathing hurts, sitting hurts, laying down hurts, being awake hurts, and being woken up from sleep because you accidentally moved.
My car was out of commission at the same time as my back. Double whammy. The cost of a new radiator, etc., set my rainy day fund back a bit (added to the expenses of the orthopedist, medications, etc.). The fact that after I got my car, the very day I got my car, it overheated again and needed to be towed back to the mechanic’s shop because they didn’t fix it correctly didn’t help. I was without a car for a few days, which in Houston is forever. You cannot get around without reliable transportation. Or unreliable, as the case may be. But my car is fixed now, and working just fine.
This is all coming off two months of intense work. The first week of this month marked the end of three projects that had consumed my work life for weeks and weeks and weeks. It was supposed to mark the beginning of several weeks of slow period to catch up with other items on my plate. I didn’t anticipate that those other items would all be personal.
With everything that’s happened it would be easy to forget that this month is an anomaly. My life, as ordinary and dull as it is, is ordinary and dull. My work environment has gotten better over the past few months, to where it’s occasionally fun again. My health is mostly OK, as long as I remember not to overdue it (in spite of back problems, my mild carpal tunnel and my recent diagnosis of arthritis in one shoulder). The family is fine (even Saul, who is overseas and always in the back of my mind). The kiddos are growing – brilliant and beautiful. I never have enough free time, nights out with my friends or the money to do anything I want (though I may be unrealistic with that last request), but I never actually lack for anything.
So September is nearly over, and I’m glad. I want my ordinary life back.
The new Resident Evil movie comes out on Friday. Since Saul isn’t here, I’m going to have to find someone to go see it with me. I don’t think I’ll be able to convince anyone else in my family to go, no one’s really into sci-fi or horror. And I don’t see any of my close friends going with me, unless I put some serious sell into the request.
Should I consider going alone?
Maybe I’ll get lucky and someone I know will volunteer to go see it with me.
Darn it, Saul.
My doctor says that I have arthritis. I am 35 years old, isn’t that too young? True, I will be 36 in a matter of days, but I didn’t think that that would have some profound effect on my life.
When did I get old?
I’ve set up a Twitter account and have been posting regularly. I like this concept of microblogging, sending out mini-updates on my life as it happens. Very convenient.
Follow my tweets online, or get an account and make me a friend. 
Baby brother is leaving to do his time in Iraq.
On Sunday he reports to his base in Texas, where he will spend a few weeks getting ready for the trip.
After that he goes to Iraq, where we expect him to be for the next year.
I have nothing else to say right now.
