17.12.04 :: naughty or nice?

my dearest santa,

i will be traveling this holiday season, so this will be my last blog post before christmas. i wanted to let you know that i have been a good boy this year. i am very thankful for so many things: the people that have come into my life this year, my family, my health, my friends -- both past and present.

i don't really have a gift list for you this year. (afterall, you know as well as i do that when i need or want something, there she is, buying it up.) but i do have a few questions and/or comments for you, if you would indulge me for a moment...

001 :: do your best to get our troops out of iraq. they've been there too long, and it's a losing battle, in my humble opinion.
002 :: watch over our new president -- half the country didn't want him, but we've got him, and he's going to need all the help he can get (and then some).
003 :: why is it that when i wash my car, it rains the next day?
004 :: when you're flying over texas, could you stop in austin and pay my 2004 federal taxes?
005 :: make sure that paris hilton has something fabulous to wear for new year's eve.
006 :: can we have another tori amos album this year?
007 :: can you make it so that when my cat has the desire to scratch on my leather sofa, she opts to do something more constructive, such as -- oh, i don't know -- vacuum the apartment?
008 :: i would like it so that i'm more inclined to actually go to the gym and work out, and not just drive past it.
009 :: is mrs. claus really your wife, or is she just your beard? come on, you can tell me...
010 :: we could do with a little less "reality" on t.v. this year and a little more "creativity."

thanks for listening. hope everything is well with you. take care, and talk to you soon.

much big texas love & luck,
- l o n e s t a r s t e v e

posted by lonestarsteve on fri 17.12.04 7:11 AM

i'll be traveling again soon. this saturday i leave for philadelphia to visit with my family over christmas. i've been looking forward to the trip, although i deplore hobnobing with the traveling masses during the holidays. any holiday. but particularly christmas.

i always get sick when i fly. and i spend my entire trip recovering from an upper respiratory infection or something of that nature. and i haven't even started shopping yet. i figured i would hit the stores once i escaped the ferver of consumer madness that has engulfed houston.

not that it will be any different in pennsyltucky, but at least i won't have to lug bags of wrapped gifts on the plane with me, trying to wedge them into the overhead compartments between 23a's walmart bag filled with crap he had no right to ever bring onboard the plane and 23c's oversized louis vuitton purse containing nothing but ziplock baggies filled with candy and other snacks for her 5 runny-nosed children.

god, give me strength.

posted by lonestarsteve on thu 16.12.04 7:18 AM

today we had our annual company holiday party. there was a charicaturist there. his rendition of me was not very life-like. what do you think? i think that i look like a sanitation engineer or something.

the "artist" (and i use the term very loosly) was smiling at me the whole time he was drawing. not a friendly smile, but more like this goofy, shit-eating grin. i told him to make me look younger than in reality, and he added the smart-assed comment to the bottom of his "work" (and i use the term even more loosly than the word artist).

i wonder what was going through his head as he sat and drew me and about 20 of my coworkers as we chowed down on chicken breasts and filet mignon.

my company couldn't have shelled out much to land the guy, so i guess that shows in his work.

good work, if you can get it...

posted by lonestarsteve on tue 14.12.04 10:52 PM

i wanted to send a quick shout-out to the city of houston for turning my once quazi-enjoyable, 10-15 minute commute to work into a frantic, crazy, anxiety-inducing nightmare. your plans to expand the traffic capacity of 610 loop are simply brilliant...not. i can't believe that you will be working on this piece-of-shit project for the next 5 years!

don't get me wrong. i realized that signs of construction (or in this case, destruction) in any city signifies that progress is happening. contractors are employed and working, the city is growing, and ultimately, we will have an efficient highway (in theory) to show for it. that's all good and fine. but this work has been going on for at least 2 years now, and i just can't imagine another 3 years of this crap. i am a relatively patient person, or so i've been told, but i can't see my patience holding out for much longer. and i've tried taking alternative routes to work, but none are as fast (believe it or not) as the one that leads me through this traffic jam.

so, where does that leave me? clueless. befuddled. perplexed. frustrated. and amazed that this could go on, and on, and on...

posted by lonestarsteve on wed 08.12.04 8:02 AM

it's been one hell of a year for me. sure, nothing really earthshaking happened, but i got a lot of work done, on myself. i didn't do such a good job on taking care of the physical me, but the mental and emotional me is better off.

not that the year is quite over yet, but i'm just having some trouble believing that it's nearly 2005. could time have flown by any faster?

my intention here, however, is not to write a disquisition about my past year. (afterall, i've got to leave something to write about in january...). but rather to say simply that i was glad for 2004 to have been such a year of incredible growth for me. i'm employed, i'm not living in a cardboard box on westheimer, and i'm surrounded by friends who i trust and love and who love me back.

so, here's to a great 2004 and for what's to come in 2005. pretty exciting time to be alive, don't you think?

posted by lonestarsteve on mon 06.12.04 6:57 AM