Underbrush
Nov 14, 2001
geeky shit, but then it gets better:i bit my tongue on the left side of my mouth three times last night, waking me up, each time, in the throes of excruciating pain. i think i may be grinding my teeth in my sleep. i need me one of them kung-fu mouth guards.
the past few days i have been doing some contract programming in php and mysql. for a long time, SQL intimidated me so i steered away from it. this job forced me to learn it. it turns out that it's all very simple, and very powerful. i really should apply for more of those SQL jobs. anyhow, i whipped together a php/mysql script that displays the monthly bandwidth usage of a whole buttload of subnets. it made me realize just how sharp my coding chops are, it gave me the satisfaction of building something useful, and it will pay my rent next month. woohoo!
now i just need to find a steady gig and i'll be all set.
while drinking homemade red wine tonight with my pal jeremy, i got to thinking of how incredible life is. if i declined rob shufelt's birthday party invitation in 8th grade i wouldn't have befriended tim. if i hadn't befriended tim i wouldn't have met brian. if i hadn't met brian then he couldn't have invited me out to shoot pool and dance the fateful night that i met wendi. if i hadn't met wendi, then i sure as hell wouldn't have moved to austin. if i didn't discover the ut-austin chapter of the acm's mailing list, then i wouldn't have known about (and attended) the job fair that landed me my first phat software development job. if i hadn't worked at kazan, then i wouldn't have met becky. if i hadn't met becky, then i wouldn't have known that st edwards existed, let alone sat in on a class, and eventually attended. if i hadn't attended st edwards, then i wouldn't have met dory. if i hadn't met dory then i wouldn't have met jeremy. if i wasn't laid off back in march, then i wouldn't have to be doing contract work now, and i wouldn't be sitting in dory and jeremy's kitchen drinking delicious homemade red wine out of mason jars, waxing nostalgic about life, and watching catahoula hounds licking each other's genitals.
it's really amazing.
life, that is.. ;)
going back even further, when my father and mother were en coitus, back before i was a sparkle in anybody's eye, if he had decided to wiggle a little to the right instead of wiggling a little to the left, i could be a girl now. or a dwarf. or even a republican. jesus, think of that.
every single moment, every single decision is a tremendously critical one. seizing or passing up even the smallest, least obviously significant opportunity sends a tidal wave of fate surging forward, unstoppably, and forever, irrevokably changing everything. everything.
everything. every decision changes EVERYTHING.
don't _make_ me use the blink tag. ;)
the bare white blank canvas of life stretches out before us. our paint is pure will. the capacity to create beauty and pleasure and adventure and life is but a willful stroke away. yet so many are reluctant to lift their brush. fear of marring the empty white serenity paralyzes them into an illusion of blank security.
life is art.
lift that brush.