Pilcrow

I've been busy today working on editing a paper. It turned out to be a nice day weather-wise, and I would've liked to have left the house, but besides the paper I was also doing laundry as usual for Sunday. I probably should have put that off for a while just to have had the short walk over to Caffe Ladro. But then, it didn't really get nice until later in the afternoon, at which point I was already halfway through the laundry and started on the paper, and I didn't want to interrupt any of that. 

I also haven't been out for a bike ride in over a week; I'm not getting out for rides as much as I wanted. That's partly because during the week I tend to head out for the afternoon to do work, and although it stays light out well into the evening, by the time I'm getting home I'm thinking it's time to make dinner. One thing I need to do is figure out how to use the carrier rack I had installed on my bike; I need bungie cords or something to strap down my backpack with my computer in it. Then I could ride the bike out somewhere to work. I could just wear the backpack but it's kind of heavy with the laptop and whatnot in it, and that would make me even sweatier by the time I got somewhere to work.

And you know, I'm really sick of the way Safari hangs all the time when I'm running Parallels as well. I presume my combination of RAM and graphics card just isn't quite enough to handle things, but really Safari does seem kind of bloated and slower than it ought to be. I persist in using it because I like it otherwise and I like that my bookmarks are synched between my two Macs and my iPhone through my MobileMe account—that feature better not be going away with iCloud—but it does irritate me a lot.

I don't have plans for the holiday tomorrow. I'd really like to be hanging out with friends and having fun, but I never asked anyone ahead of time what their plans were, and no one got in touch with me to see what I was up to, either. On the other hand, I'm probably still going to have work to do, and I certainly have a bunch of other projects to tend to, so maybe it's better that I have some time to do things.

Speaking of doing things, time to get back to editing that paper.

…and naturally I'm still stirring. When I was a little kid, at least one year at Christmas apparently I was shaking so hard with excitement that I couldn't open my presents. I don't really remember that happening, I think it was probably sometime between the ages of 2 and 5. I do however remember being a little older, in the 5-8 range maybe, and being so excited that I couldn't fall asleep. And I was tired, too. I lay there for hours, trying to be patient, trying to will myself to sleep, but I couldn't.

I used to have a funny habit too, if I was having a hard time falling asleep I'd try to wear myself out by pounding my head against the pillow. You know, that wasn't just a funny habit, it was really weird. Like, it makes sense in child-logic: I'm not falling asleep, I'm not tired yet, I need to make myself tired so I can fall asleep, but I have to stay lying in bed so I can't run around or anything, so the only physical activity I can do is pound my head agains the pillow. It never did work.

Anyhow, I remember at least one time I ended up crying, because I felt tired and I knew I had to get to sleep because Christmas is a big day, but I just couldn't fall asleep. My crying woke up Mom—well, I'm sure it woke up everyone—who called upstairs to ask me what was wrong and said something vaguely reassuring, and I tried to settle down and eventually I did fall asleep. 

As I got older, I eventually grew out of being so excited about Christmas, and having trouble falling asleep because of it. I also stopped the head-pounding-pillow behavior back then, too. I do still tremble with excitement occasionally, in certain circumstances, but not because of Christmas. And the only reason I'm up late on Christmas eve is because… I just like to be up late. Tomorrow's not such a big day, because we're doing the larger family gathering on Sunday afternoon instead of Christmas, but it is still Christmas and I am feeling tired, so it's time to make way for Santa.

I'm developing a suspicious correlation between getting sick at Christmas-time and going home for Christmas. Last year (2005 that is) I came down with a cold after arriving in NYC, and then when I came home I had some kind of stomach flu, which was really unpleasant. In 2003, as that first entry relates, I also fell sick after arriving in NYC and spent most of the week in bed. In 2004, however, when I did not go home, I don't recall being sick at all, at least not around Christmas.

Anyhow, this year I was fine all week back East, and even through the couple hours I spent at a New Year's Eve party I went to (friends of judaicdiablo), but after I got home I rapidly developed a congested nose, and today I've just been all stuffed up and feeling lousy. So I'm going to finish my dinner and head off to bed. Hopefully I won't have to start the new year at work by calling in sick.

So, what about my Christmas vacation, when I wasn't falling sick? It was pretty good, actually.

I've just realized that I didn't write about last Christmas (2004) at all. (I'm just going to call it "last year" even though it was 2004.) Because I had recently started paying for braces, I ended up deciding not to go home to my parents'. That was my first Christmas away from home, ever, and I ended up feeling depressed about it. I didn't actually spend it sitting at home alone (well, alone with my new cat), as I went with the Dowlers to one of their friends' for dinner; that was nice and I'm glad I was invited. Still, it just wasn't the same as the noisy LaRose family Christmas that I'm used to, and I really missed that.

So this year I decided I wasn't going to miss that again, even though I'm arguably worse off with about the same amount of credit card debt outstanding and a condo to pay for as well. Because I didn't buy my airplane tickets until Thanksgiving weekend, I spent a lot more than I wanted to. I'd already decided I couldn't afford a rental car, and I knew the transit strike in NYC was likely to happen, so I was also anticipating travel hassles; that plus the expensive flight made me grumbly before I left and second-guess whether I should be going. But I'm very glad I made the decision to go, because I really enjoyed myself.

The transit strike and jet lag meant that I didn't do much in NYC before Christmas, but it was good to visit with Andrea and Jen (my younger sister and her girlfriend) and see their new place. I wanted to check out the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company, but we didn't have a chance to go by there until after Christmas, at which time we determined it seemed to be closed for school vacation. (It fronts for 826NYC, a nonprofit organization for teaching writing skills to students. Rather annoyingly they don't simply list any kind of store hours anywhere on the site as far as we could tell; we had to piece together that it was closed for vacation from how the latest news was written.)

Up in Boston, I got to have some of my favorite pizza in the world, sausage pizza at the original Pizzeria Regina in the North End. I was arguably more disappointed the last time I was home for Christmas two years ago by missing out on that than I was by being miserable and sick all that week, so I was particularly pleased that it worked out this time. I also had pizza at Bob's in Nashua, my favorite local place, and that was good too. Ah how I miss good sausage pizza! It's just not the same out here.

My plans to hang out with my friends mostly worked out. Unfortunately, I managed to pass on the cold I'd picked up from Andrea to my friend Doug, so that he was sick on Christmas and wasn't able to come hang out with Scott and his family that night. I did have a good short visit with Scott and Lissa and Scott's parents and aunt, though it would've been nice to have some more time. Fortunately Doug was recovered enough on Monday evening to come over for a family game and little birthday celebration for me; and we also hung out on Friday and Saturday evenings, so I got to spend some good time with him. There was good family time too, mainly Christmas day itself, a family game of dominoes on Monday afternoon, and family breakfast on Tuesday before Andrea and I returned to NYC (driven by my younger brother bandtechiegeek, who stayed overnight).

Back in NYC, Andrea, Jeremy and I had dinner at a hipster place in hipster central, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We didn't see any famous Williamsburg residents like John and John of TMBG, but I swear the attractive hipster at the next table (with the birthday party group) kept checking our table out. The next day after Jeremy left, we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to meet a few of Andrea's friends for a dim sum lunch - and now that I've been I can say I have tried it and it's just not something I care for. Then Andrea and I went to the Museum of Modern Art for their Pixar exhibit, which was cool.

I had hoped to meet some of my VHive (ex-Delphi) forum friends for drinks while in NYC, but there was minimal response the first week when I talked about meeting after Christmas, and no response that Wednesday. I felt snubbed, but it was a very busy time for everyone, and I know at least one other person's party plans were being turned down on account of general tiredness, so I figure I shouldn't take it personally. Anyhow it's probably for the best, as spending the last evening quietly at my sister's place, reading a book (All Tomorrow's Parties by William Gibson) and repacking my luggage, was a good thing to do. Still, I realized that since my sister moved to NYC, I haven't spent an evening out on the town in Manhattan, and I'd like to do that.

That's about it for the trip. As I mentioned in the previous entry, my flight home took much longer than it was supposed to - first there was a delay leaving because of the weather, then a passenger with diabetes fell ill and we landed in Minneapolis to let him off, and it took about two hours to get back in the air - so I got home very tired, which may have contributed to my illness over the weekend. I also didn't get to see all the friends I would've liked to; I really need a trip with more time, and a rental car so I have the freedom to travel around to my friends' scattered homes. Overall though it was a very good Christmas holiday.

I hosted Thanksgiving for the first time this year. The past three years, I've gone to my friends the Saccos' home, but with Pam due to give birth next Monday, they didn't want to host anything this year. Instead, I invited them over, and John and Elizabeth as well. Naturally, I got started cooking far later in the day than I should have, so we didn't sit down to dinner until 8:30, but everything turned out okay and my friends all were pleased.

I talked to my sister Andrea yesterday about how I've found myself yelling at Nimiel a lot more ever since moving here. Nimiel has been more troublesome about things such as trying to fish pebbles out of the tree pot, she's shown more interest in biting on electric cords, and generally has been more aggravating. No doubt I've been more sensitive due to stress from settling in and from financial issues, but still she does seem to be getting into stuff more, and generally showing little interest in her toys - it seems the only toys that really interest her are the small fur-covered rattling mice, that she now destroys and devours within 15 minutes. Andrea mentioned how Siamese cats are clever and consequently get bored easily, which is something I've worried about, that I'm not providing enough entertainment for Nimiel and don't know what I can get that she won't destroy quickly. Getting another cat, as I'm sure certain people will be quick to suggest, is now out of the question even if I wanted to take on a second one, because the condo association rules only permit one cat (or dog).

Today however, Nimiel's been very mellow, and spent a while sleeping on my lap. She got a lot of attention last night, with various people playing with or chasing her, and she was so tired that when I left the computer desk to get ready for bed, she stayed put in her perch on top of the desk instead of following me around as usual. Perhaps I just haven't been taking enough time to play with her lately, although I have also noted that a couple times recently when wrestling with her, I've irritated her enough to make her try to leap at my head as an attack. So there's some balance to be struck there.

Today's been a very mellow day for me as well. The weather here has turned crappy, with temperatures in the low 40s and rain, so it was a very good day to sleep late, stay inside, and do nothing. Nimiel finally got me out of bed at 11:30am by starting to play with the alarm clock cord, and I fed her breakfast, but then I just went right back to bed. I dozed a while longer and was thinking about how I ought to get up when my parents called at 2pm to find out how Thanksgiving went. This time I stayed up, showered, and had breakfast at 3. I've spent the day just browsing online, and finally making my flight arrangements to return home for Christmas. It's been nice to have such a do-nothing day. Tomorrow afternoon I'm supposed to meet with John to go over the Stranger Things draft, and Sunday I'm having the Dowlers over for a dinner of leftovers, featuring turkey pie.

Well, Easter went well. Yesterday (= Saturday), Pam helped me prepare the chicken cordon bleu. Surprisingly, it took nearly 3 hours to do, and that was with two people and using my neighbor's kitchen so that we wouldn't have to deal with Nimiel getting in the way. Of course, we did prepare 27 of them, but still it was a bit surprising to be reminded how labor-intensive it is, for something fairly simple.

Because we didn't get started until around 5, I didn't go to the Easter Vigil Mass this year, but that was okay. I was just as happy really not to have to sit through the 3-hour service. Instead I went to the 11 AM Mass this morning. I didn't manage to get up early, in fact I skipped breakfast and only just made it in time to get a seat and a lot of people had to stand through Mass. So when I got home at 12:30, I still had to vacuum the apartment, spruce up the bathroom, wash dishes, and wash up a bit and change - and I hadn't eaten yet so I wanted a little breakfast. I had told everyone they could come over any time after 2 PM, and fortunately everyone reliably followed the normal practice of not showing up until at least a half-hour after the time I tell them they can arrive.

Nimiel was a good kitty all day, even though we had a couple toddlers along with the dozen or so noisy adults. My friend Clara brought a new toy mouse for Nimiel, as well as a bag of cat treats, which was very cool of her. Everyone enjoyed the chicken cordon bleu (well, except the vegetarian, who brought a veggie dish that some other people ate as well) and the other dishes, we had birthday cake for Orkgrrrl, and lots of good conversation.

After everyone left, I did all the cleanup, then I thought about eating something but I wasn't really hungry yet, so I caught up on my checkbook as I knew I had to mail payment for a couple bills tomorrow. And then it was after midnight, and I was hungry, but I didn't really want to make anything at that point. But Brandon had made mini corn muffins and there were a couple left, and I thought, well, I can just eat those, I guess. I went to get a drink out of the fridge and saw that I still had a lot of strawberries, which both Brandon and Donna&Chris brought, and I thought well, I should have some strawberries with the muffins. And then I remembered the vanilla ice cream that I'd bought to go with the cake, and thought ooooh, vanilla ice cream AND strawberries AND corn muffins in a bowl! Excellent!

And that's how you end a good holiday.

Oh, almost forgot: Orkgrrrl took some good pictures both of Nimiel and of the chicken, but I think I want to move them off Shutterfly before linking to them.

Just a quick update on some recent events. First, work: the boys at 3sharp gave me an offer this week to become a full employee. Yay! No more job worries for me, and a pay raise over my last job, to boot. I was supposed to become a full employee as of May 1, but because they're getting company health insurance set up, I became a full employee this past Wednesday (the 23rd).

Next, play. I turned 33 at the very end of last year, my friend Pam turned 33 a few days later, and my friend Tony turned 33 at the end of January. Because I was back East visiting family and friends for the holidays, we didn't have a big group party at the time. I made a joke about how we should have a "33-1/3 RPM long-playing" party, which would have to be around the end of April when we were all around 33-1/3. (I also said I did NOT want to find myself faced with a follow-up "45 RPM singles" party!) So, we decided to do just that and have the party last Sunday (the 20th), which was also Easter. The party was at my apartment, and I had 10 of my friends over -- nearly everyone I've spent time hanging out with as friends, since moving here. I don't really cook much at all, and don't know a lot about cooking, but I made my dad's chicken cordon bleu recipe (which really isn't hard) and it came out really well. Everyone had a great great time, it was lots of fun.

One of the friends I invited was Christine, a roommate of my friend John. She hadn't met most of my other friends before. When I saw her again a few days later, she commented that I have really good friends, that they're all really good people. When my younger sister and her girlfriend had been out for a visit last summer, they had the same comment after the dinner party we had at that time. And all of them are correct, I do have really good friends, I do know really good people. That's how I ended up coming out to Seattle in the first place, and that's why I have no intentions of leaving at any foreseeable time. I have the best friends, and while half of them may not live here in Seattle, the other half are scattered about the country. I'm very fortunate to know so many cool people and to have so many of them here in one place.