today was one of those days where all you want to do is crawl back in bed. i don't know if it's plain weariness or just a foreboding that the day is going to suck, but the "call of the bed" is usually right; you would be better off spending the day between the sheets.

for our weather today, hurricane wilma decided to make friends with tropical storm alpha (or something like that). To really have fun they teamed up with some other system from the midwest to create a triple-whammy brouhaha. but, okay, wind and rain aren't so bad.

Today was also one of those "see how many people we can squeeze onto the subway" days. the platform was already packed when i got there, and there was a long wait just for a train to arrive. but of course most of us couldn't squeeze onto that one. No biggie because a slow train usually causes a log-jam, so there's trains right behind it. but, lucky me, not today. so i positioned myself strategically to be near the train doors to get onto the next one. the price to pay to get onto the train was that i had to be smashed up against like five other bodies. it's like getting molested in a socially acceptable way.

but i got to work only ten minutes late. i took off my jacket and saw that i never put on a belt this morning, so now i feel like a moron... a late moron who can't dress himself and got molested on the way to work. unless someone stole my belt as we were pressed up against each other on the subway. this IS new york after all.

on a bright note, i dragged my lazy self to the gym this morning. after my workout i sat in the sauna. the sauna makes everything better!

i'm a junkie looking for a fix.

without really realizing why, i keep opening my desk drawers. once in a while i'll rifle through my bag. there's got to be something around here... a piece of gum or a mint... anything! i'm freaking out. i need candy, or maybe chocolate! can i really make it the rest of the work day without satisfying my craving? it's only another hour or so, but... AHHHHH!

i'm pathetic. but you still love me.

today was a good car day. On my taxi ride from my job site (a fashion trade show) i saw a Lotus Elise. and earlier in the day my taxi was following a Lamborghini Mercielago. sweet like aunt jemima! (thiking about this, i realize it was a Lamborgihini Gallardo. still nice!)

I ran an errand this morning before work that involved driving into manhattan. as i was waiting to be helped, i looked outside and noticed a NYPD tow truck parking in front of my car. then i realized he wasn't parking... he was looking to tow me! as he was maneuvering into place, i nonchalantly walked over, unlocked the car, and got in as if to drive away. thankfully, the tow truck driver gave up and drove off. whew! God was watching out for me! i even made it to work on time after driving back to Brooklyn.

tomorrow the car goes back to its home on long island. summer is over, and with it the weekend drives to the beach. it's sad, but at least i don't have to deal with moving the car four times a week for street cleaning.

Happy Birthday Holly! . . . . . .

I'm going to be singing on an aircraft carrier on sunday. sound interesting? well, i should clarify: i'm singing with my church choir on board the Intrepid Air, Sea & Space Museum, a decommissioned aircraft carrier, as part of a service to honor the military. they plan to tape the singing & speaking and send out thousands of DVDs to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

first i must get over this cold. today i've moved into phase three, at least by my count. Phase one: sore throat. Phase two: sneezing and oozing. Phase three: coughing. but since i don't know how many phases there are, i'm not sure how well i'm doing. hopefully phase four is back to full health.

I'm going to visit the land of cheese the end of next week. i can't wait to have a bratwurst! hopefully it won't be snowing there yet.

i'm having lunch right now: an entire stick of big red gum. yummmmm. last night for dinner i had mango juice. Before that was a lot of water. i'm 39 hours into a 3-day fast, so i only have... 33 hours to go. whoo-hoo! fasting isn't easy, but i guess that's the point right? I rely and take so much pleasure in food when i should be looking to God to sustain me. i'm getting it.

My church is holding the three day fast and hosting services every night. join us?

I'm going to visit the great land o' cheese this month, probably the weekend of the 24th. (I guess i should ask off of work before i start making plans though.) a little vacation will be nice. And since i'm 'christmasing' in north carolina this year, i'd better visit sheboygan at least once this year. B+T, will you be in town that weekend? will you eat taco pizza with me? New York has more pizza joints than sheboygan has bars and churches but it seems no one offers taco pizza.

okay, i can't take this talk about food.

after many failed attempts at creating a username so i could leave a comment on a blog site, i came up with a new one: SHASTUN, which stands for Someone Has Already Selected This UserName. that's what they kept flashing at me in big red letters, so i thought... okay, works for me! now don't steal this from me... make up your own dorky name.

tuesday, but just like monday...........................................................................................

i'm always a little sad to go back to work after a vacation day. you know how it is, right? i miss all the free time, and i wish i had done more with that free time. I should have gone on a big bike ride on Labor Day, or maybe spent some time in the park... picnic? instead i did some architecture and watched a CSI marathon, and then switched the channel to US open tennis. I did manage to leave the house though. I tried to no avail to make use of the last day of tax free week at Macy's, but my heart just wasn't into shopping. and i'm so broke that i couldn't make myself part with any money. So i went deep into brooklyn for dinner and a movie at a friends house (meaning free). we watched "open water," the movie about a couple who get left out in shark-infested waters while scuba diving. Thankfully i didn't meet any of those sharks while i was at the beach on saturday.

i'm so sad. ............................................................................................................................

i'm going to miss the sixth annual edition of BADCALFF, or Brent and Dales Cheap-Ass Labor day Film Festival. you may dismiss it as too lowbrow for a film festival, but it's a lot of fun. the gist of it is this: after a pot luck barbeque at Dale's house, everyone heads over to the local dollar theater where, other than a scheduled dinner break, you basically watch 5 or 6 movies all in a row, moving from screen to screen. this is easily accomplished because Dale has called the theater weeks in advance, gotten the movie schedule, and planned out the entire day's itinerary. you just buy all the movie tickets when you arrive and you're set for the day. some are the movies you saw earlier in the year but want to see again, some are movies you missed in the first-run theaters, and the rest are the movies you either kinda wanted to see but refused to pay good money for or were too embarressed to admit to wanting to see them.

i've only been able to go to one festival, but it was enough to make me sad that i'm unable to go this year. maybe next year?

it was one of the best beach days this past saturday. hot sun, cool breeze, warm water; what could be better? after i'd had enough, i went cell phone shopping with my cousin "yuko." we checked out the various providers and pondered which cell phones we liked. in case you're curious, we determined the deal at t-mobile was superior to those at cingular or verizon. (i forbid shopping at sprint.) the Motorola V330 we chose takes pictures and video and has blue-tooth capabilities, although none of that really was the draw. It simply wasn't big and ugly like most everything else we saw. i was shocked at the crappy phone selection; i thought technology and design was supposed to get better, not worse. (brent, i saw the phone you got. very nice! not as small as i thought though. it must be all those features.)

yesterday was good church. Our pastor was back from his 5-week vacation. i WANT one of those!

i'm going to argentina. (have i blogged this already?) i officially registered and gave my deposit for the trip this past sunday at church, so i should be in rosario the last few days in march 2006. now i need some language lessons. dumb american educational system: how could they let me get through 19 years of school without learning any spanish?

my church is organizing a big crusade, so there will be a whole lot of us going over. and since they keep the choir under lock and key, i probably won't even notice that i can't communicate with anyone. But this missions trip includes the young adult choir too (i'm in the adult choir, sometimes called the old people's choir!), so that should make it a little more interesting. it's always good to meet more people, and they're more my age group.

but that's a long ways off. for now, i'm just hoping for beach weather this weekend.

the theme this past week has been "do overs." for example, at work we've been dealing with folks who like to change their minds, which means we're always redoing the drawings. (and yes, they've already started construction.) Now i'm redoing them again, sometimes going back to how they were originally. so much pointless time-wasting is involved with "do overs." (redundant, i know)

Example two is the weather problem at my apartment. you see, it's been raining poo. the toilet on the floor above ours was backing up yesterday, spilling sewage into our bathroom. after scrubbing down the walls, fixtures, and floor with bleach, we experienced yet another poo storm. so now i'll have to re-disinfect. what a nightmare. (see ryan's blog for the start of a catchy song related to this incident: feed me architecture)

but not all repeats are terrible. this saturday i went to the beach again. i could live there.

is a scone not just a failed attempt at a muffin?

As I write, It's 6pm and 93 degrees. We should just shut the city down and head to the beaches. It's really not worth it. Last night was perfect bike-riding weather, so I pedalled over the Williamsburg Bridge (which is just a giant hill!), across manhattan to the West side, and down to the World Trade Center. I went back basically the same way. I never know exactly where i'm going on my bike; I just know the direction i want to go and head that way as much as possible depending on traffic openings and where the streets go. it always seems to work out and i get where i'm try to go. but right now i'd like to just stay inside where it's a/c'ed.

Like Jerry Seinfeld's TV character, I am a big fan of cereal. I have a bowl and half or so for breakfast every day. The actual kind of cereal changes every year or so, but the morning routine stays the same: milk and cereal.

Now that i'm going to the gym and at least pretending to work out i 've been thinking about what else can change in my daily routines that would be healthier or cheaper or whatever. Thinking about my cereal diet, i realized that i consume a lot of dairy. (Plus i'm a big fan of cheese, being from Wisconsin and all.) So i decided to try soy milk to see if 1. i could bear the taste, and 2. if switching helped my weight at all.

This morning was the test. Would it be too unlike milk and too gross to eat? well, the taste was fine. it's different than milk, but reasonable. But by the time i finished my bowl of cereal, my throat was pretty swollen and it was difficult to swollow. Also, my palms were really itchy for the next hour or two, and i was producing all kinds of mucus and coughing it up. Sooooo, it doesn't look like i'll be having the rest of that soy milk i bought. and it seems i have some sort of soy allergy.

I love mondays.