Production Diary: First Week Wrapped

Right now I am sitting in an air-conditioned room in a big house in my hometown of San Antonio, Tx., reading comics and thinking about lunch. It's like the beginning of The Unstrung Harp when Mr. Earbrass begins the story in a state of perfect rest.

I knew this really cute girl from Santa Fe who went to college on the East Coast. Santa Fe is up at the top of a mountain - you can think of as walking half way across the width of Manhattan except you're walking up in to the air. I like Santa Fe, but there are three things that bother me whenever I'm there: static electricity, race relations, and lack of oxygen. I'm not America's most physically fit man, but in Santa Fe I can't even climb a flight of stairs without getting winded.


This girl grew up at that altitude, and when she moved to sea level for the first time for school, she felt like a superman. For the first two weeks, she felt like she could do anything - jogging, studying, staying up all night. That's because oxygen gets you high, and her body was responding to a lifetime at 7,300 feet.

That's how I felt this week. After a month spending every day on my feet, returning to my normal lifestyle has given me a lot of excess energy. Before it took me months to do things like deal with leases, get ready for a trip, clean the apartment, buy an air conditioner. Just now I managed to get my life together in about a week.

I've even lost weight. I keep staring at the spot where the rest of my belly used to be, and all my cool shirts fit again.