I just got home from work a bit ago. I'm going to sleep as long as I can, but I'll probably wake up before noon. Graveyard shift does that to me. Probably walk with the dogs this afternoon and do some chores, then back to work tonight. I hope to go on a bike ride tomorrow, and then I'm planning on taking myself out for Sushi. MMMMM I lead such an interesting life...

Well, I worked on learning Flash late into the night last night, then planned on getting up around 9 AM today and going to get chinchillas with my girlfriend with a spring in my tail.

Instead I was awoken by my best friend and his date coming home just as I was falling asleep. After lots of tossing and turning for an hour or so, I was just about to fall asleep again when I was awoken by a telephone ringing around 4 AM. Then it took more ages to get to sleep. For some reason I woke up at 7:30.

I may not have that spring in my tail, but I'm going to go get chinchillas damn it. So most of today will get taken up with that. Then we're probably just going to stare at chinchillas for a few hours.

Tomorrow I plan on learning more Flash. Exciting.

--reading Plato's Republic (not the whole thing, of course)
--cleaning the apartment
--playing Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (the best video game ever)
--going to a party tonight!
--leaving that party and going to another party!
--leaving that party and going to a bar or something!

Basically, it's a "pretend I'm a college student" weekend for me. Except for the "cleaning apartment" bit.

I just got back from shopping. I went to Chingford Mount, a couple of miles from where I live. It's mostly small stores, some chains but a fair number of small independents, including two really good Cypriot stores which sell fabulous vegetables, bread, Greek yoghurt, olives, herbs and spices.

I bought bread - I wanted a daktyla, but they only had the kind with sesame seed and I wanted the one with caraway/sesame seeds, so I bought a soft flatbread instead, exactly like this.

I also bought a new garlic press and some chili flakes, so later on I'll be making occhiblu's broccoli arrabiata, which I plan to have with lemon pepper turkey (yes, turkey! bird flu? bring it on! I already have silly cow disease, a bit of bird flu doesn't bother me).

The football kicks off at 3 so I'll put the TV on and follow the scores while I read (I'm reading The Hunt Club by John Lescroart, a favourite writer of mine).

Probably an AA meeting tonight if it's not pouring down.

Tomorrow? Housework, laundry, get ready for the week ahead.

I realised today that I spend too much time on my own. I seriously do need to get out more. The trouble is, I find lots of ways to fill my time by myself, and that can lead me into thinking I don't "need" to do things with people. And the more I isolate, the more of a hermit I become. I do not want to become a nutty catwoman but I am slipping into it and before I know it I'll be the loony in the supermarket who talks to everyone.

Captaintripps, buy a guinchilla instead. I don't know if they have been born yet (or ever, even) but they must surely be teh cutest pet evah.

In about five minutes I'm going to take a shower and go to work. Then, hopefully not too long later, I'll come home and bitch about what a mess the house is. Then I'll take the dogs hiking. Then maybe I'll get the house clean and make pad thai for dinner and watch a movie or something. . .

Slept in this morning. Going to breakfast in a few minutes, then to work (bleah). Come home, bring firewood up onto the porch, start a fire in the fireplace, drink Guinness and play The Sims. (Unless my partner's in a movie-watching mood, in which case the Sims will be replaced by a movie.)

Tomorrow: catch up on laundry, other household stuff like that.

Woke up @ around 7, converted technical doc for work to an .eps file so that I look like a shiney penny to the scientist who was wondering how to get this done, emailed it back to him. Finish the last fifty or so pages of some fairly crappy cyberthriller I started a few days ago while the (freezing) fog lifts and the sun comes out and it gets warm enough for me to get on the bike and go ride for a couple hours (hopefully). Come home, clean up, eat, pack my photography and overnight gear, get on bus to Denver, go down to LoDo, hang out with buddy Frye in my fave funky little coffeehouse/sandwich place until the bf gets off work and comes to pick me up. go back to his place for the evening and no you can't get a detailed report on that stuff, tho we'll prolly go out for dinner cos he claims he's been jonesing to go to this little Greek place he likes. Sunday morning get up at ass o clock, drive up to Arapahoe Basin ski resort so we can ski, board and shoot a million pictures (hopefully). Slide around all day, shoot pictures, get dirty and exhausted, come back, throw me on the last bus into Boulder.

i'll catch up on laundry and household chores when i'm dead.

Today:
- Put down deposit and sign papers on new practice space (current building is being sold).
- Burn more "metal" to laptop.
- Consolidate notes on the following books: An Introduction to Information Theory, Cradle to Cradle, Atlas of Novel Techtonics, Architectures of Time, Point and Line to Plane, and The Code Book.
- Put off work I brought home with me.
- Try to get some drawing time in.

Tomorrow:
- Go out to Breakfast
- Do Metachat Radio Broadcast in honor of a comment by TheDonF (around 2pm EST)
- Do most of the work I brought home with me.
- Play 1/2 punk rock show at the Annex NYC. Show starts at 7pm, you're all invited (sadly, it costs some money - details at band site).
- Fail to try to get some drawing time in.

I got up at 10:30. Put on clothes, went to corner store for coffee and cigarrettes. After I finsh my coffee, I'm going to shower and maybe shave. Then we're going to go buy a TV (ours broke). I'll probably pick up some beer, too. Then I'll come home, take off my clothes, put on my bathrobe and watch TV and drink beer.

I am jealous of jonmc now.

My plans are similar to jonmc's except I won't need to go shopping beyond the corner store. Beer, smokes, take-out and catching up on a week of TV recordings. I may throw a shower in there somewhere.

Take both cats to the vet at once. Pure hell. There will be panic pee involved. At least we got around to trimming their claws yesterday.

Finish reading Against the Day. It's good but I've been reading it too slowly to keep track of everyone.

Woo yay! I get a radio broadcast in honour of my "radio needs more metal" comment!

So far:
* got up, mildly hungover, and spent a couple of hours in chat
* replaced glass in picture frame (£23.50 - ouch)
* made lunch
* worked on anti-Valentine's compilation full of "love gone wrong" tracks
* fell asleep

From now on:
* decided to play a radio set tonight
* desperately trying to work said set into some kind of shape
* will cook good food, snaffle wine tonight and watch a film
* going round to my parents place tomorrow to cook them lunch
* get ready for next week
* boring housework

I realised today that I spend too much time on my own. I seriously do need to get out more. The trouble is, I find lots of ways to fill my time by myself, and that can lead me into thinking I don't "need" to do things with people. And the more I isolate, the more of a hermit I become. I do not want to become a nutty catwoman...

jan, i know you didn't ask for me to come along and sling my oar in but this sounds so much like me awhile back that i hope you'll forgive me for being a big buttinski.

what helped me was first coming to this same epiphany. what i did about it was a couple of things. first i accepted the invites of a couple random loonies i vaguely knew from the cycling community to come join them in their cruising and debauchery. this opened doors to new friendships in ways i hadn't anticipated. looking back, I know now that I was probably slightly clinically depressed, and my constant turn-downs of friends' invites wasn't because I was 'otherwise occupied', it was just me going 'meh i can't work up the courage/motivation to deal with being social'

please, don't fall into that trap.

the next thing I did, against my very better judgement mind you, was to get a roommate. and not just a roommate (cos believe you me roommates really can piss me off no end) but a roommate who is into all the same crazy kinds of hobbies / interests as I am. This was the best thing I could have done to snap me out of my funk. Aaron doesn't LET me be a wet blanket. he will (bodily, if need be) drag me out to $1 taco night at the local mexi joint, beers with friends, weekend mountain bike trips, ski trips, et cetera. it's cos he was in the same boat and sympathises, but really having some form of kindred spirit like this really fixed my grumps.

I hope this was somewhat helpful. I am well aware how lucky I am to have happened onto such a great roommate and group of friends, but believe me they didn't just drop out of the sky one day. I had to poke my head out, make some phone calls, answer some IMs and email and just get off my ass and do something about it.

i think i can speak for all the bunnies when i say from my own personal point of view: we love you jan, and we want to see you flourish. this is my own little message in a bottle towards that goal.

and to everyone else, i forgot to add to my list of weekend plans/accomplishments: i just took a yummy fresh baked loaf of banana bread out of the oven. I make mine with cardamom, dates and nutmeg in. everyone's welcome to a piece!

Take a shower. Broil a steak, make some toast and another cup of coffee for breakfast. Then, spend the day over at the Hilton casino chasing rich widows.

My oldest bro is visitng this weekend. We went for dinner at Milestone's last night and then a hockey game (Abbotsford Pilots). This morning bro and the mister went for haircuts and this afternoon we're going to an off-leash dog park. Don't know any more than that.

Sleep late, ignore parents yelling about sleeping late. (done!)
Loaf around reading magazines. (done!)
At some point: watch lectures, work on presentation, grade assignments, make jewelry which probably won't end up wearing but have had ideas kicking around in head forever and they must get out.
Also: sew more bunnies.

My plan for the weekend was to be rich and devastatingly handsome. It has not worked out.

i just woke up.
i'll probably eat something.
There will not be any panic pee involved.
i find arsehat devastating.
Then it's just hunting down anomalies until i choose to pass out.
Or the debauchery of life.
Or both.

I'm going for the Matinee showing of Black Friday today. Should be good.

Updates: finished Against The Day. Read it way too slowly though, and lost track of who everybody was. I couldn't remember when the hell Cyprian Latewood first came into the picture for instance.

The vet visit was full of drama. Both cats need to go on a diet, and when they were taking blood samples they nicked our boy a little too deeply, and when I was going to put him into his carrier he started bleeding all over his nice white shirt front and my hands. He was fine, not bleeding out or anything, but viscerally it was horrific. They cleaned him up of course, but still: brrr.

Your cat wears white shirts? Is it slimming for a cat to wear white?
Was there panic pee?

I, too, am curious about the cat couture.

i'm betting it means having white front markings but at first i was wondering if the vet got spattered, which serves him right.

i was going to mention in the pet thread about how i use to yell: PHIL!!! and i once heard the neighbors whisper: "Phil?"
Phil never panic peed but he did once have a horrible airline incident. i blame the state of Rhode Island.

Your cat wears white shirts? Is it slimming for a cat to wear white?
Was there panic pee?

Eddie's white shirt on display:

≡ Click to see image ≡

It is absolutely not slimming, as his similarly outfitted sister can demonstrate:

≡ Click to see image ≡

(They're both going on diets. No more free feeding.)

No panic pee from our continent boy, though his sister let loose as we were getting her into her carrier.

He's eaten his way through a case of yogurt, what do you expect?

Mine use to bring me burger and hot dogs. There was no curbing him.
It was beating on dogs and paling with groundhogs and foxes that kept him less than dirigible.
And no more fried chicken!