the coughing's mostly over

nothing too exciting going on these days. since the grant writing frenzy ended, going to work has felt unbelievably pointless. no challenges. not really using my brain. not even moving around much. turns out i have a strong dislike of desk jobs. i enjoy moving around during the day. after sitting for hours, i feel like my spine is compressing & my back just hurts. i'll take the cuts, bruises & dirty fingernails of carpentry over the backpain & boredom of desk work anyday... except my shoulder still doesn't work right, so i'm kinda stuck for now.

i got to go to a few job sites yesterday & at one, i taught the folks how to build a set of stairs, which was super fun (i'm a big, ol' dork & some days, i'm proud of it!). last week, i drew up a few construction details for the stair & as i was drawing everything out, i was filled with excitement & really wanted to build it myself. (whomever reads this crap, sorry. i know it's b-o-r-i-n-g.) anyway, i realized how much i enjoy the design-build process. i want to do both because they're both important & exciting to me. but i still don't know what kind of design-build work i'd like to do. i mean, that was part of my last job - but i was bored with the projects. so...that's what i've got to figure out now.

hm... i might go to a straw-bale building workshop in the beginning of march. could be exciting. the woman giving the workshop is an architect & builder that i've been admiring from afar (i read about her on the internet & met some folks in northern maryland who had worked w/ her a few years ago). maybe i want to be like her? dunno.

also, just to weigh in on the time machine vs wings debate: wings win every time for me. i have enough trouble living in the present. not really interested in going back in time, unless it's like watching a movie - no interacting, just watching - but i don't do that much movie or tv watching anyway, so why bother? i also have no interest in going back to relive parts of my life... once is enough, know what i mean? it would probably be pretty humiliating & awful anyway. flying just seems like fun.

celebrated my 31st birthday earlier this week. had an enjoyable day w/ D. we walked to federal hill & had some tasty thai for lunch & spent the afternoon at the science center. i was pretty pumped to see the body worlds 2 exhibit. but it wasn't mind-blowing at all. thought it might be horrific/creepy/interesting/bizarre. unfortunately, it was a bit of a let down. definitely bizarre. people turned to plastic, cut up & arranged in weird displays. i'm awful glad we have skin.