stairwells and hallways

another day at the office, needed to get in some more good time at the gym but between leaving the office late and plans for dinner cancelled that idea. then dinner got got cancelled and i wound up in line at walgreen's again buying my dinner again. i would've started to feel bad about myself until the woman with the white castle microwave cheeseburgers and a pack of cigarettes was in front of me.

cielo came by the 'hood later and we popped in to cav for a glass of wine and some conversation. it was actually my first time there which is crazy considering it's about two blocks from my apartment... good atmosphere and service might head back there this weekend.

finally won a frickin' ebay auction for some good bike raw materials. seller said it should be here in five days so we'll see what i can do with it after it gets here. uneventful day but did the first really great run in a while, 40 minutes, 5 miles, 8 minute mile... definitely sweated out a decent amount of the weeks stress so far. slept like a rock.

nothing good about this monday, couldn't even rally to get into the gym... felt kind of cranky so i watched some yakuza films and then went to sleep... very seth cohen of me.

'christ rose from the dead and you decided to come over and work on a sunday, two easter miracles.' – mlv

went to work on the magazine most of the day, greta and mike made me a nice easter basket and after wrapping up some layouts for the magazine we had a nice dinner and watched the warriors/lakers game. al harrington has been rocking these crazy shoes lately that i would kill for. the closest pic i could find of them is here from someone's flickr that's the link to the hi res image so give it a minute to load, while you're waiting you can probably also see the close up of the disinterested look on mikael pietrus' face... might as well have a trade me sign around his neck. come to think of it i recognize that look, it's the one that women who are dating lame guys get on their faces that says 'break up with me already.'...

rallied from a semi-hangover to go work on the magazine for a bit, completed several layouts and listened to a lot of this american life. afterwards we all went into the city for dinner. original joe's was shut down for some reason so we decided to head out to the pig and whistle.

i have a slight confession at this point, for some reason over the last few years i have developed a very low tolerance to riding in cars, especially when it comes to city driving and i get carsick about as fast as a 10 year old trying to ready a comic book in the back seat of a station wagon...

needless to say i wasn't having much of my dinner and wound up walking home in hopes of some fresh air doing me some good. it did and by the time i hit the door to my building i was starving and inhaled the rest of my cold veggie burger and fries. i should see a doctor and get that sorted out because it is not fun and it makes me feel like a kid.

trained again after work, all kick boxing this time but as we finished up steve invited me to his jujitsu class but not really being in the physical or mental state to roll for another hour i passed on it. maybe next week. after chilling out i met up with jenni and some peeps at a show over at the knockout, ironically enough jeremy from red planet's new band was playing, they were called 'the parties'. after getting caught up with him and saying good night to the rest of the party i met back up with steve and we kept drinking until about 3am, i'm getting too old for this...

long day at the office, very tired, skipped the gym and had a bad junk food dinner purchased at walgreeens. not pretty. i've sworn that i will not be one of those people that starts working in a new position at their office, gives up on the gym and winds up with the ulcer and middle age belly, so tomorrow i've got to make up for it. big time.

usual day, headed to the gym for a really good long run and a nice work out, feel much better now.

spent the rest of the night glued to my television... and i will deny it if you ask me in person, but for some sick reason i can't stop watching real housewives of orange county.

monday's at the office aren't so bad when you've prepped most of sunday for them but unfortunately that means you have to be in the office on a sunday. skipped the gym and hid out at home doing laundry.

i know it sounds sad to be sitting in your office on a sunday but it was actually nice for a change, feel like i'm getting ahead for once. left and headed over to town hall to visit cielo at work. had an amazing meal, started with the shrimp, then moved to the asparagus risotto and finished off with the butterscotch and chocolate mousse dessert. i was going to originally take the train home but i was so incredibly full i decided to walk it off. proceeded to pass out once home.

woke up surprisingly early considering how late i was out all night last night, had my usual citizen cake pastry and coffee before heading to the east bay to go over to mike's. did less magazine layout and more talking about basketball and my new plan to try and secure us season tickets next year for the warriors.

headed home somewhat early so that l.a. and i could go to robin's for her st.patrick's day party. i have to hand it to robin she always has the best dinner parties, great assortment of guests, good food and not a minute goes by without you having a drink in your hand.

afterwards l.a. and i stopped by the lion's den to wish her friend a happy birthday before i was dropped off at a fairly early hour that i totally took advantage of and got some.

on my morning scan of boing-boing i came across ilkka halso's stunning series of photographs/montages called 'museum of nature'. while i'm not the biggest fan of digital compositions (i realize the hypocritical nature of that statement given my current career choice) the results here are pretty incredible.

even more incredible are the constructions involved in the 'restuarations' series, in which he actually constructed scaffolding around the subjects for his photographs. in both bodies of work there is an obvious awareness of the current plight of the environment but even more so with these, the thought of construction and development being used to preserve nature even though it is the prime reason behind nature's demise creates a nice juxtaposition that makes the work impactful. the lighting and sense of drama for some reason reminds me a lot of japanese photographer izima kaoru's work.



kauro's work has been a long time favorite of mine primarily for it's composition, color and grand cinematic quality. with all of the works living within a series rather than individually you get more of a sense of the subject's stillness, and by subject i mean the staging of the death of a beautiful woman wearing very expensive clothing.

it's funny, in this flickr/digital camera era, i spend so much time snapping pics with my digital camera, even more so lately my iphone, it's really easy to forget just how wonderful photography as art can be. 

pretty damn happy that it is friday, left work for my usual training session but for some reason i was just a bit off this week, no real reason why, just wasn't quite all there. learned a few new things, including some grappling stuff, even though i've been at this for a while and my steve out weighs me by a good 30 pounds, i'm still a bit afraid of hurting him at times.

after went home to relax and got a text from jenni so i cut across town to meet her and nathan at the ha-ra. it was the first time i'd actually been in there really and i was surprised that it wasn't crammed with hipsters. had a drink with them and then walked over to the hemlock to see if anyone was around. ran in to richard from the office and had one quick drink with him before i got a text from steve and hopped a cab to the mission. as i headed in to the 500 club i ran into nyssa and rachel and talked to them for a bit then eventually i spotted steve and sent a drink down the bar to him, then he sent one back, then i sent another and the drink buying went on until we both had a bit too much.

we all said our goodbyes a little after closing and hit the road, i grabbed some slices from cable car on the way home and enjoyed some greasy pizza before soundly falling asleep.

mellow sunday, met up with a friend from out of town and hit up some shopping downtown, considering how much i've been spending over the last few weeks had to keep myself in check and wound up not buying a single thing. after we all headed back to my 'hood for drinks at absinthe, nothing like a martini in the afternoon to kill any chance of productivity for the rest of the day...