Lovely weather...

There is this much less litter in the neighborhood. We had a cleanup and around 90 volunteers showed up. We've got a meeting with the police captain for our region tomorrow about some shootings that have taken place. Hopefully we can get some targeted enforcement. I saw one of the houses I turned in a few weeks ago to code enforcement was getting painted. And to top it off, my neighbor power washed her house, painted her porch and even planted lillies out front. Street sweeping should be later this week. Things are coming around. Hopefully people can keep the momentum going. I also met the son of the owner of all the rental properties near my house and he seemed interested in converting them into rental units for college students. I would certainly welcome that. I need to give him a call later this week to follow up. Lastly, the extended the election for district II which means we will have real debates for the area and might actually have a chance to discuss the problems in the area.  

I went for a run today with an old friend from college. He's also in finance. It made me feel a little better about going back into the industry. It's nice to know there are other intelligent, nice, down-to-earth people are doing similar things. I was really burned out after the go go go culture of the northeast. I think I might send my resume in to Wachovia this week. I'm also going to look into my little dental hygiene plan on Monday. I want to see how long it will take and how much it will cost. The run was also nice. It's the first real pleasure run of the year. I might try to find a running partner who is smart and likes to talk. I really liked the dual productivity of talking and running. Might be tough though, most people don't like to talk and run... and more importantly/unfortunately, most people aren't smart....

I also spent time with one of my old friends last night. She's had bouts with mental illness (she went off the deep end at one point a few years ago) but has mellowed out considerably since I moved back to Columbia. She's almost a mystical Dr.Phil type character now. She's been reading a lot of self help books and been very interested in astrology and other types of new age spirituality. Anyway, long story short she gave me my first tarot reading and a pile of books. I was about to laugh off the whole experience, but it turned out to be quite helpful. Not in a spiritual way, but in a psycho-analytic way. I waded through a lot of the issues I had been facing over the past few months (career, break up, self confidence, what makes me happy, a new relationship). It made me really focus on the changes I have been making to get closer to the type of person I really am at heart. One of the books she gave me was Radical Honesty. The basic premise seems to be that we are all stressed out from living lies. Trying to live to ideals we have created that we don't really care about, but yet strive for (and worry about when we don't live up to them). It seems very timely. I read about 50 pages of it last night. (Speaking of starting a new book....I hate the way I do that. I never read a single book. I am always starting 4 or 5 at at time and never finish any of them. Then I won't read any books for a while).

I liked this card

Glad you're feeling better... and don't worry... you're not too ordinary. I promise. I mean you are, in the same way I am, I think. We have facades and then we have ourselves. We mean for our facades to be ordinary. It keeps people from asking too many questions. Though sometimes we are just lying to ourselves, and we really believe we are like everyone else, but that's only because everyone is telling the same lie.