10.28.98

    I'm lying here with my back covered in Icy-hot.

    It's ICY!

    It's HOT!

    I've had lower back pain since I was in high school and I was in a car accident. There was this guy named Cliff and he used to drive me to school. He lived a few blocks from me on base and I was spared the humiliation of taking the bus by his generosity.

    One morning, he fell asleep at the wheel and we drifted off the side of the road, down a muddy embankment and smacked into the mouth of a metal drainage pipe which spun us sideways into a fence. It was the impact with the pipe that knocked the wind out of me and screwed up my back.

    The pain is not made any better by sitting on a poor excuse for a chair let alone a desk chair. And, today it was not made any better for walking four or five mile. Walking the same amount on Monday probably did some damage, too.

    Yes, my part-time career as a dog-walker has begun! So far, I'm having fun. The past two days have been gorgeous and the dogs are generally well-behaved.

    I'm walking mostly in the Beverly Hills/Wilshire area and a few places north of Sunset Blvd. For those of you not in the know—that's money, baby. Every one of these houses is extremely gorgeous and they all have hired help. Today we passed by Lucille Ball's house and we saw Tom Snyder walking his dog. One of the houses had total security with intercoms, cameras and an armed guard. The guard's name is Dave and he's a cute, frat-boyish type who has probably played his fair share of organized sports. He also possesses a crushing handshake.

    I've walked all the dogs so far with the owner of the company, Michael of Michael's Pet Habit. Tomorrow I'll have three dogs by myself. I'm kinda nervous.

    After the dogs, I worked on a new website. I'm designing the whole thing. You know what? It's going really well. I came up with what I think is a unique idea nd I'm running with it and it's looking awesome—even better than I had envisioned it.

    The problem right now is feedback. As in, I'm getting very little.

    I crave feedback. It's sick, really. Why can't I just be secure in my own genius? I showed it to a friend and also to the guy I'm contracting for (not the client yet) and the first thing they both said was that "it loads really slow." And my frustrated answer was "well, of course it is, it's a giant jpeg mock-up of the front page!"

    Sheesh. Can we get to the genius part already?

    We finally got our wedding pictures from the photographer. Some of them are really good but I have one major complaint. It's my hair. There are two photos that I like my hair in and those are right at the beginning when I've just put the veil on. I'm not going to point fingers but somebody messed with my hair and one point and I think it looks really dorky for the next, oh, hundred rolls or of film. There were no mirrors down where I was and it's not as though I could lift my arms up to do anything with my hair. I was at the mercy of my friends and family to notice when something was amiss and fix it. Thanks guys.

    Overall, though—whatever. It was fun to go through them with T. and see some things we didn't get to see because we were so busy. I don't know how we're ever going to pick the photos we want. T. looked dang handsome in every one of his pictures. He's such a cutie.

    Off to take some NyQuil—did I mention that my low-grade cold had erupted? I just hope that the dope wears off by morning. Who am I kidding? It never does.