"If you want to be free, you must struggle with yourself." -From my Bacci chocolate

That damned conversation about the coffee table has had my mind spinning since my eyes opened this afternoon. I even on two occassions stared at it and contemplated the space of my living room without it. I nudged it maybe three inches, then stopped to look at it again before I finally gave up the internal fight and went to the kitchen to find nourishment of other sorts.

Did I mention that yesterday the skies were an amazing 80 degrees ouring down lightning and summery showers. Today I woke to find snowflakes lightly kissing the pavement.

Listening to Dido makes me think of a certain someone in that Windy City and how he survived his first cold winter after he decided to become adventurous.

In other strange worlds,spent last night in Baltimore with my good friend Golden Boy, his roommate, mi Gerardo and new friend Big Daddy. All was superficial, not bad just surface based, till the ride back to DC in our green exploration machine. The new boy bombarded with questions spilled them forth from his mouth. Not offended, and strangely very open, we spoke our minds and hearts as best we could to make him understand. Understand what? Now I am not quite so sure. But I was suddenly overwhelmed with this deep sadness which I have not felt for so long. Sometimes we try to find the small things of everyday to make us happy, to find that smile upon our faces, to feel a slight jump in our hearts when they skip a beat. Sometimes we forget the long term happiness that we strive for because it seems so far away, or perhaps even entirely unattainable. All aI know is that somehow the new boy broke through my walls that I normally strategically place. I looked out the left window and a tear or two or five ran down my cheek. I do not know, perhaps because he broke my translucent wall that keeps me from seeing how unhappy I really am inside, because today I was bombarded with questions in my head that I have no answer to.

My heart is complacent and purple today.

"When I lately stood with a friend before [the cathedral of] Amiens, . . . he asked me how it happens that we can no longer build such piles? I replied: 'Dear Alphonse, men in those days had convictions (Ueberzeugungen), we moderns have opinions (Meinungen) and it requires something more than an opinion to build a Gothic cathedral.'" - Heinrich Heine, Confidential Letters to August Lewald on the French Stage (letter 9), translated by C.G. Leland

What the heck am I still doing propping my eyes open with toothpicks? Nothing of great importance occurred today, while I find it important to note that the sky was wringing itself out, and the bathtub called earth was clogged. Went out at the normal 3pm lunch hour for Vace...the normal place for those days when walking outside for long periods of time is not an option. Right across the street and conveniently located next to the drive up ATM, I often times pull up in my imaginery vehicle and withdraw the necessary funds to feed my hungry stomach.

It is supposed to be 75 degrees tomorrow. Better check those weather guys for a more accurate update. Whatver. All I know is that it was frozen over solid for months, and then two days of thawing last weekend, and now the floods that Moses saw I have also lived to see...no more teasing with my skin and goosebumps. I cannot handle this constant change--my body can no longer decide to be wearing the overcoat or the tee.

Well, it appears that 20th century media war has begun. Dawn has broken in Iraq and everyone is on their tip-toes to discover what massive destruction was caused by those night shaded stealth bombers. I am tired and my eyes are soon to be closed to this day and this war.

For those of you who wondered what it was like at the anti-war protests @ d.c. -- I was surprised at the amount of young people (younger than my quarter of a century), parading their signs with such fervor. I ponder if they would actually still feel that energy after a 54 hour work week, study prep for the Architecture Exam, dirty dishes in the sink, and a loadfulx6 of laundry.

My imaginary kitty whom I shall call Spot.

Another evening spent at the National Building Museum, another evening living in inspiration and awe at the amazing things an architect can conceive, derive, and become. Click here to witness the inspiration of Santiago Calatrava for yourself.

I am going to attempt to enter the ARCHvoices Essay Competition. It is theoretically about the process of this internship/apprenticeship experience of architecture that I am supposed to be journeying on right now. Somehow, perhaps thru that most amazing movie that my boy keeps watching, you know that movie with Cruz&Cruise, I feel that cryogenics/cryonics, whichever is the proper term, is so much like this gap between school/work. The immense ravine that divides the two is much like my brain being frozen, and I am suspended in this canister, surrounded by liquid nitrogen or whatever chemicals they use, not knowing whether or not someday, in the extreme distant future, if I will ever be able to wake up whole, complete and functioning --ready for battle to become the architectural warrior that I have so longed.

Today, there were green hats, bagpipes, and girls with springs for hair dancing down King Street. The parada to celebrate a Saint who spread Christianity thru Ireland. I did not know that shamrocks became so precious as he used the green little clovers to explain the trinity concept of three-in-one. I shall be eating my Lucky Charms now with a new found wisdom every breakfast morning.

I ran across this site and it reminded me of an old man that once drove a little bug, and then an upgraded bug, and now he cruises down the 101 to the beach in his nice shiny, black, mercedes. It's all about life in the subway. I think the old man would like it.

My surrogate brother called me today...once again with sadness in his heart. I wished so badly to be alongside of him sitting on a grassy hill, basking in the warm sun together. He told me of adventures in San Luis Obispo, and my heart dropped to remember the life I spent there, so many friends, so many laughs, so many memories. [sigh] And now I feel as though I have been dropped in some foreign land, where snow and coldness resides. What the crap am I doing here? I have to remind myself of the goals I have set for myself and yet I still wonder if being here is good for me. It's the seasonal adjustment sickness proabably talking through my fingers right now. Seasonal disorder or not, it doesn't change the fact that I long for my friends and the love that surrounds me when I am with them.

" We know today that form is always the product of an inquisitorial process of matter - the specific reaction of matter when subjected to the terrible coercion of space choking it on all sides, pressing and squeezing it out, producing the swellings that burst from its life to the exact limits of the rigorous contours of its own originality of reaction. How many times matter endowed with a too-absolute impulse is annihilated; whereas another bit of matter, which tries to do only what it can and is better adapted to the pleasure of molding itself by contracting in its own way before the tyrannical impact of sapce, is able to invent its own original form of life?" -salvador dali

[yawn]...Can you imagine? It is 8:33 in the a.m. and I am actually a living, breathing, more or less awake human bean. Aside from my new short hair looking like some small colony had an atomic bomb explode, my eyes are wide open and ready for a new day. I am alone today, however, as my shadow is off working. Perhaps I am like Peter Pan - you know like the shadow never being able to stick, yet constantly there, somewhere, in a world of it's own. [sigh] Where is my Wendy, who will sew it on for me?