Near Northsider – Houston

Tonight we attended the Near Northside Strategy day meeting at Moody Park Community Center. It was really ecxiting to see so many people attending.  It wasn’t just Northsiders, either.  It turns out that there are quite a few other folks, organizations, and endeavors interested in our neighborhood and our community.  With so many people committed to seeing good things happen, it would really take some effort to prevent the inevitable.  I mean about the potential for investment in the community.  There will always be a danger of re-gentrification and re-development, but many of the residents and people at this meeting sounded very much in support of investing in this community for the benefit of the current community.  Part of what makes this neighborhood great is its character, its people, and its history.  re-developing and re-gentrifying would of course not be beneficial to anyone in the long run.

It looks like we have a network of support that is ready to make stuff happen.  However, nothing can really happen without the commitment of the residents and the local businesses.  We have to take an interest in our own neighborhood before some else takes their own interest in it.  Go Near Northside.  I was inspired today.

It has been a whirlwind this last half of the year.  Maybe it’s a little of the job, a little of home, or maybe I’ve just lost some endurance lately.  It’s the same ol’ stuff, but I feel exausted.  The holiday has not been going any easier either.  Not enough days off.  It’s not just rest or days away from the grind that I needed; but also days for me to do some work at home, cleaning, organizing, fixing, etc.  I didn’t even get to put lights on my house this year.  I guess we all need that, but we often refuse to take the time away from work.  sometimes because you don’t get paid for the time you take, and sometimes cause even if you do get paid for it, it puts you days behind your work and makes the next few days or weeks that much more stressful.

With a new year, however, I’m hopeful that I will regain my energy.  Maybe I’ll be able to grow from the lessons I’ve learned and maybe I’ll be able to get past those fears and doubts that still keep me from doing all the good stuff I want to.  Moving on.

Happy New Year!

I’m sitting here at night waiting for some clothes to dry and getting ready for tomorrow.  Everyone else is asleep.  It’s always hard getting ready for Monday when it’s still Sunday.  The last bit of a nice weekend has to be spent working on preparations for the coming work-week.  As if the week isn’t work enough.  It’s too bad that we can’t always spend the last bit a hard work-day on Friday preparing for the coming weekend.

I updated to WordPress 2.5 today.  I’m a tech-genius!!!!  I mean, you know, I guess wordpress did an okay job of making it really easy and publishing a perfect guide to the process.  Still, I think it was mostly my genius that did it.

We went to the FotoFest opening on friday night and had a great time. There were tons of people there and it seemed to go on all night. The photography was great, as always, but the real spectacle was the party atmosphere. It was one of the few art openings where you will see folks dancing in front of a live band, drinks everywhere, and people are still trying to look at art. So much happening stuff going on right here on the north end of downtown.

We also went to the Lawndale openings which were awesome, of course. I highly recommend seeing them if you haven’t already. We saw lots of friends that we hadn’t seen in months. We haven’t gone to an art opening since like October. Many of the galleries in the city opened their shows on Friday or Saturday for Fotofest, so there may not be more gallery openings for a few weeks. Keep checking glasstire and artshound, though.