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It seems that I've misjudged what time of year it is. It is the last week of summer, but I seem to be ready for the beginning of winter. It's a clear Portland night out there. I don't know how much longer it's going to stay like this. By the time I am able to properly discern the changing of the seasons, I'll want to move again.

I want to get out of this city. I need an emergency vacation.

My brother asked me when I was going to go see him. I don't know why I didn't ask when he's going to come see me. Afterall, I have lived here longer than he's lived in California. I just thought "When am I going to see New York? When am I going to see Spain? When am I going to see South America? When am I going to see St. Petersburgh?" "When am I going to see Hollywood?" never occured to me. I've seen it. I crossed it off my list. I danced across the clay shingles of a nunnery while staring up at those letters spelling H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D up in the hills. After that, how much more is there to do in that plastic city? I'm sure my brother has some sort of answer to that question, plus a million and one interesting stories. Someday, my brother, someday we will drink margaritas on the beach.

Right now, I settle for drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon at my desk. I only bought one can. This is the smallest amount of beer I have ever purchased. I wasn't even going to drink tonight, but then I opened the window, and the cool breeze invited me for a walk, the walk demanded a purpose, and the easiest purpose seemed to be beer. (A Steve Martin kind of "special purpose" as in The Jerk would have also been nice, but enirely implausible at this time) I wanted to pop that bad boy open and sip all sixteen ounces on the curb of the Plaid, but I was afraid of either making freinds with, or being asked for change by the crusty old neighborhood tweakers, or even worse, being caught by the police, so I took the can home with me.

On the way back, I took another look at the bilboard on 13th and Columbia. I've been watching this one change ads for awhile now, and I know it's going to be my first target for billboard redesign. It's so accesible, you can step right up to the base platform without a ladder. Right now would be perfect to, if I could afford supplies. It says "Want to take the next 25 years off?" On one side, plain text with a black background. The other side, the same font, red background, says "The solution is key." It's an advertisement for Key Bank. I want to change it to say "Want to make the next 25 years better? The solution is Peace." Then, I would cover up the Key Bank part with a simple banner that says "No war on Iraq."

The billboard liberation front has been doing this sort of guerilla advertising for years, and has never been arested, because they use adhesives that don't damage the original advertisement, and have lookouts that keep watch for the redesigners while they're working. If I had the money to buy these supplies, I'd be doing this right now, but I can barely afford food, so I'll just keep on dreaming about it.

However, if you would be interested in donating to this cause, which would include buying canvas, printing words on it, pasting it on the billboard, taking pictures of it, and then issuing a press release, I have been considering creating a paypal account, with which you could give me money for such projects. I know, the idea of anybody giving me money is laughable, so tomorrow, how about I alter this text to just be requesting money, and include a link to my new paypal account. That way, you can get the full affect of how funny it is for me to be asking for money from people who would never in a millionyears give it to me.

Check back, I'll have that paypal thing soon.

Update: It seems that paypal thing is going to take a few days to get set up. I know you were all so eager to start giving me money, but I assure you, I would have only wasted it on groceries and paying bills. I'll try to find some way to get supplies for my redesign. It should only take a few square yards of canvas, possibly less than that. If I don't get it done in time, there's always next month's advertisment.