Of Moose And Men
The Best Laid Plans Of Both Often Go Astray

Yesterday evening just the thighs were sore, today it’s pretty much the entire lower body. Long run Saturday (7.2 miles), followed by a 2 hour bike ride Sunday (32.5 miles). Yeah, so nice and sore here today. Will stretch out shortly, but am enjoying sitting around in a bathrobe with my cereal and the web first.

Relatively quiet weekend. I did check out the local S&M club on Saturday where I learned that: a) I don’t like to receive heavy nipple play; and b) I despise being smacked on the ass.

After the usual lesson on a fetish (in this case, water sports), I had two play sessions, one as a bottom, one as top. In the first I was tied to another bottom, supporting each other as the top circled us, playing with nips (hands, clothespins, clamps and something else that felt pretty sharp, but which I did not see due to the blindfold), some light flogging (which was not unpleasant), smacking (which was unpleasant for me). The entire time he was hitting my ass all I could think was that I had a two hour bike ride to do the next day and that if he went too much further the ride was not going to be pleasant. Ah well, live and learn. In the second I worked a bottom’s nips and punched him some at his request.

In neither scene did any of us come. That was similar to my experience at the local fisting club, though there it was easier to make the bottom come, since I literally had a hand on the trigger.

I also learned that unless I’m restrained, I don’t like to just lie there (or stand there, as the case ay be). I need to be a bit more active than that. In the first scene I was at least able to run my hands over the other bottom, but I think if I’d just had to stand there with nothing to do I’d have been more bored than anything else. At least if one is bound one can strain against the ropes and do something. I suspect I’m more on the S side of the S&M equation, though I enjoy both sides of the B&D equation. Dunno. The only other time I’ve done much in the way of S&M was when a dom top was lightly punching my chest, which I did enjoy, but in the context of the larger scene. I actually stopped the top in the first scene from Saturday at one point when he was hitting my ass because it was just not comfortable, and not something I was into at all.

Oh, and in an odd moment, someone came by when we were blindfolded and put a cold water bottle on my butt. Felt like ice, and I was thinking that (ice) actually might have been fun, but it disappeared far too quickly. Not sure if they had the top’s permission to do it or not.

Watched one guy work over a bottom with a long dowel rod (I can’t think of any other way to describe it). I could see learning that particular skill.

I’ll attend again, I think the class structure at the beginning of the evening is good and I do need additional instruction in how to do certain things, but as I learn more about my own likes and dislikes I’ll become more selective about what I do.

I shouldn’t be surprised at it, but I still seem not to grasp quite how much the state of my digestive system can effect my entire mood. The past few days it had been gradually getting worse, the result of allergies run amok. Yesterday was just the culmination of it, combined with a calf that continued to hate me, and a work day that was beyond insane, and I was just in A Mood. So I came hom, stuffed myself silly (my body’s normal reaction to upset stomach – eat, Eat, EAT!, I suspect in an effort to drive out the ickiness), popped a sudafed and proceeded to have a little pity party.

What finally snapped me out of it was being ignored in a chat room while being whiney, and then Richard calling to confirm that not only was the USPS still not forwarding my mail, but that I’d gotten a jury summons yesterday (my fourth in seven years living in DC). I think the jury summons was the last absurd little detail, which finally got me laughing (and by then the sudafed had kicked in and my stomach was settling). Slept well, and today was much better. Just as crazy at work, but without the stomach woes, so the whole attitude was much, much better.

Tonight I managed to clear off a bunch of junk (over a year’s worth of flyers from when the place was empty), finally talk to TiVo (who had never charged me for the lifetime service and had charged me again for a monthly – they’ve now fixed that), tried to hunt up a receipt I need to mail in (unsuccessful), and paid a couple irregular bills.

Had bought flowers on Friday and they’re still looking nice. A simple touch that is very pleasant to look at, and nice to have around. Will have to consider doing that more often. Of course, I need to get plants in here period. Brought none with and haven’t bought any. But first I need to figure out the layout of the living room, and for that I need to drag in outside help.

I am hopeful that an email I received in response to my complaint to WebSense about livejournal being classified as a “personals/dating website” will help get it unblocked at the BGA. They claim to have looked over the site and put it into the category of “Message Boards and Clubs.” I’ll keep my fingers crossed, but not hold my breath.

Fighting off a head cold at the moment. No fun, but they do happen. Better than the case of stomach ickies caused by some questionable Chinese food earlier this week (spent what felt like a good part of the day in the loo the next day, though thankfully it was all coming out the right end).

Been playing the DS again, mainly animal crossing. I hope to have three new types of fruit trees up tomorrow, but we’ll see. So far I’ve had bad luck with getting trees to grow. I suspect I wasn’t watering them immediately and thus they were all wilty the next day and gone the third, but we’ll see.

Work was an absolute mess this week. One of the customer organizations within the BGA is having problems and they’ve been consuming far, far too much of my time over the last year. To the point where other customer organizations are now calling to find out where their stuff is and I keep having to stall because of the constant emergencies with the problem child. Ugh. Not where I like to be on customer service, but I suppose these things happen. Anyway, that’s absorbed most of my week, with the result that another organization is going crazy to try to get another thing off my desk that I Just Can’t Get To Yet.

I’m so glad it’s the weekend, looking forward to catching up on some much needed sleep.

I hate when I overschedule.

I’m normally fairly good with putting things in the two different calendars I maintain (work and home), but I forgot to put in an after-work-work-function (aka happy hour with the other young attorneys) and scheduled dinner with a friend this evening as well. Given the relative positions of the friendships and what not, I’m choosing dinner over HH, but I hated having to spill the beans that I’d overscheduled and was not making HH (even with the real and good excuse that I have to run and get my new glasses after work today). Ah well.

Been in a mild funk the last two or three days with a lack of sleep, general feeling of pessimism, and dealing with the last bits of the relationship with CT (a handover of some things I left at his apartment). Not terribly fun, but I know it’s a temporary condition, just have to keep telling myself that.

The dining room table arrives today, as does a stool/side table for the balcony. The chairs are on backorder until the middle of the month, but that just gives me time to clear the remaining junk out of the way. Once the table’s set up I’ll have a chance to look at various designs of couches I’ve been looking at, to see if any of them would work in the space. For the most part the dining room table will be in the folded mode against the wall, so I’ve got some space for a couch in front of it, but I’ll need to actually see the space, as well as measure, etc.

Work’s nuts, with several things bouncing around. Thankfully the bosses are understanding since they’re bouncing on the same issues (as well as others). Fun stuff (not). Hopefully will settle down soon, but if not, oh well!

The calf pain returned briefly this morning. It happened after I had to run in place at an intersection, waiting for the light to change so I could cross. After walking a little bit I was able to pick it up again, but that running in place (as opposed to running to move forward) would be the cause of the pain jives with my prior experience of pain after running on a treadmill. Made sure to stop at intersections and not bounce up and down (aka running in place) and it seemed to do fine. Mental note: no more bouncing, at least until after the June race.

Is it bad that I bought a bicycling helmet that was fancy expensive enough to come with its own carrying case? Needed Wanted a new helmet for racing & to train on the tri bike, plus I needed beaucoup hydration equipment (read: I left all my water bottles at the old place), so it was off to the bike shop yesterday evening on the way to the club happy hour to pick up a few things. Was a successful trip, getting their last between-the-aero-bars water bottle, the helmet and a couple regular water bottles. Did forget to pick up arm warmers, but hopefully they won’t be needed any time in the near future.

Ran this morning, another successful run with no calf pain. Went out the same way, along the marina and up to L’Enfant Promenade to zip across the Case bridge, but this time I popped down into the park and ran around the Washington Channel and back that way, so a more varied loop than Monday’s run, and about a 1/3 of a mile or so longer. A lot of concrete out there, which is going to take some getting used to.

I set my old roomba loose on the floors this morning (since I’ve yet to swiffer them *whistles innocently*), and it seems to be running just fine. It didn’t like the old place, but I suspect we had too many obstacles set up for it to run well. Now that most boxes are out of the way, and I have no carpets down yet, it seems to be happily bumping it’s way through the bedroom, sucking up dirt. Let’s hope it helps with some of this dust that’s all over the floors.

I’ve determined that I’m never going to be a good gamer. I’ve not picked up the DS but once or twice since I’ve been here, and that was to place Advance Wars or Sonic Rush. I don’t think I’ve been to Animal Crossing in a couple weeks now; all my ‘neighbors’ will have run away and the place will be overgrown with weeds again. Ah well.

Nothing quite like having your hair stylist ask if you want to have her trim your eyebrows. This after a morning spent plucking the odd long hairs out of my ears. Ah, the joys of aging.

In happier news, I biked a couple loops around Hains Point this morning on the tri bike, nice 40 minute ride (seriously, seriously have to get more water bottles and soon). After getting ready I decided it was time to try biking into work. Commute time, door to door: 10 minutes. 7:40 of that was actually riding (1.3 miles), the rest was getting down in the elevator, locking up the bike and getting up to my office.

It’s hard not to gloat about a 10 minute commute. Oh, who am I kidding, I’m gloating. Full-on, doing the happy Snoopy dance gloating. Gloating with my shaggy eyebrows.

Having food at home is a good thing. Cooked yesterday (just some frozen pasta & sauce) for the first time, and made a good salad this evening. Starting to feel like home, finally, with some food in the fridge & cabinet (and my belly).

Work’s been odd this week, with absolutely no one in the office on Monday when I got in, which is really, really bizarre as I’m usually the very last person to get there in the morning. Easter Monday, go fig. And otherwise it’s just been a strange mix of busy and not-busy. And of course the last place I want to be is at work, preferring to be at home getting things together. Whee.

Calf is still okay, so I’m hopeful it’ll be okay when I run tomorrow or Friday (haven’t decided if I want to run or bike tomorrow). Swam this evening, pretty good swim, and not too busy in the pool, which was a pleasant change from the mornings. I still want to check out the two closer pools, but if an evening swim would be less crowded, that might be a better option (since I do like the YWCA facility overall).

You know, packing is fucking depressing.

I think the height (depth?) of that was removing the magnets and comics from the refrigerator. Going through all of these memories, quickly, and having to quickly sort them into ‘want,’ ‘don’t want’ and ‘deal with later at a more leisurely pace’ is really draining. Thankfully most things sort easily into the first two categories with only a few items (old letters, mainly) falling into the third. I used to write multi-page letters to people via snail mail and I have a lot of that correspondence from the early 90s still, and I’m reluctant to part with it as yet. But it does bring back a lot of looking back, both good and bad, on that period in my life. Harder yet has been having Richard shred years upon years worth of financial records, many of which sat in envelopes, unopened, in storage. And I had deluded myself into thinking I don’t suffer from depression. Ha! Those unopened envelopes put the truth to that lie pretty quickly.

Part of the financial mess I got myself into back in the late 90s, after grad school and both while I was living with The Ex and after, was that I just didn’t want to face that I was in so much debt. It took years to get out of that, and finally smacking myself and organizing my finances in such a way that I had a system I could follow (and follow to this day) to pay all my bills on time and not accumulate more debt than I could handle. I’m proud of having gotten out of that, but not so much about having gotten into it in the first place. Thankfully I picked a profession and a career path that’s allowed me to make meaningful progress on my debts and do things like buy this apartment.

Took today off to do more packing. I’m going to need more boxes, but I’m not sure how many at this point. I think I may be at the point where I’m just going to have the movers pack what else is ready. Shouldn’t be a problem, especially seeing as how the bulk of my stuff is packed. I’ll continue to sort my stuff so they only need pack the things I’m taking with me, and I’m glad we packed so much this weekend, but I think I’m tapped out for this mess now.

I recently upped the amount of protein I’m taking in, in order to help with my training. Picked up some Spiru-Tein soy protein powder and have been having a shake in the morning with breakfast. I do notice that I’m not as hungry mid-morning as I usually am (the joys of the lessened appetite effect that comes from eating more protein), but that’s about it thus far. The only other effect was to notice that I don’t currently own a blender (I’ve been using Richard’s), so I had to order one, as well as a toaster, to be delivered to the new place. Hopefully they’ll be there before next week’s move-in date.

Okay, time for my Pet Peeve of the Day™: If the urinal has a foot pedal for flushing it, men, you have no excuse not to push the thing down and flush the urinal once you’re done. You’re not touching the handle with your bare hand, you’re stomping it with a covered foot; there’s little to no chance you’d pick up any extra germs that way. So don’t be lazy and remember to flush. ‘kthnxbye.

I think I may have to go back and see my physical therapist and/or a coach about my running. The sore calf keeps intermittently coming back, and it’s starting to get me worried about my race in June. If I can’t run more than a 1/2 hour at a time without pain, it’s kinda hard to imagine doing a 1/2 marathon at the end of the tri without injuring myself pretty badly. So the PT gets called today to set up an appointment, I think.