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

My stomach decided to misbehave (damned lunch burrito) so I cancelled the swim and came home instead. Once here I decided I’d had enough of the crap on my desk and dining room table, so that’s all mostly cleaned up now. Caught up on mail (but not on magazines – oy), shredded what needed to be shredded, prepped other stuff to file, and mostly made the place fall into order again, which definitely helped bring the mood up from the stomach and lack of swimming.

I need to do the same in the bedroom, but I’m holding off until tomorrow or Friday because one of those two days my new dressers are arriving. I couldn’t say for certain because I have a meeting one of the two days with my deputy general counsel and his schedule’s somewhat in the air, so one day or the other I have the meeting, meaning the other day I get my furniture. It’s worth it because the meeting will be another step closer to killing off a major pain-in-my-ass project, but I really, really want to get my clothes off the floor. Their presence there has been driving me nuts, ever since I got rid of the other chest of drawers. Not that I regret getting it down to my parents and niece, but the floor stuff has got to go. Then I can do a goodwill donation run and get rid of unused clothes and be much better off.

And perhaps even think about finally having people over in numbers larger than one.

Despite what I’ve done it still doesn’t feel completely together yet, though. I guess my expectations are still high. Doesn’t help when I go to friends’ places and they just look like someone actually thought out a plan and coordinated what they were doing. I’m starting to get there, but it’s a slow process on my budget, and it’s an area where I’m feeling the more hummingbird side of my patience (as opposed to the buddha-in-the-wilderness side). It’s frustrating, the waiting and slowly choosing stuff. I want it all done and together NOW, but it doesn’t happen that way. At least some order is coming out of the chaos, and that’s a good thing.

I thought I was going to have to rip my speed sensor apart and replace the battery (and totally void the warranty by doing it myself, but hey). Thankfully I discovered it was just out of alignment and needed to be adjusted back into position. Yay for geeky, obsessive measurements.

In other news™, while the building did come in and plug the holes in the wall today (finally!), I’m still getting the incense smell here. Yuck. I really hope they can do something about these jokers, this is beyond stupid.

The past couple weeks have just been entirely too much. Two flat tires last week, one on each bike. My neighbor across the hall, a sweet older gentleman, died of complications from his diabetes on Thursday. Started swimming again in anticipation of the sprint race I have in two weeks in Richmond, and for the 1/2 Ironman triathlon I’m doing in September. Went out a time or two for a birthday party, and taking a friend who needed to get out of his house, and just for the heck of it. Was up just before 4 this morning to run out to Columbia to be race support for my tri club for those folks racing the Columbia Triathlon today. Most definitely been burning the candle at both ends, in the middle, and everywhere else I could find a spot to light, or just melt off a bit.

I hope that the schedule will be calming down somewhat in the next few weeks, moreso since I’ve done much needed laundry and food shopping. Cooking anything more complex than zapping something in the microwave or popping it into the rice cooker or crock pot is going to be difficult as the season progresses, but I’ll make due. Simple meals are my friends in any case.

Despite how nuts this all sounds I’ve mostly been having a pretty good time. Work’s busy, but not overwhelmingly so. We’re in the process of hiring two new attorneys, one of whom is supposed to start learning some of my area of law so we have a backup for me. I’m prepping some training for the other attorneys in my office so they can better spot issues in my practice area and refer them appropriately. I finally reclaimed my living room from the dreaded futon, so it’s a bit more together (and roomba friendly). I have two dressers on the way for the bedroom, and a plan to pass off the last piece of my niece’s bedroom set to my parents when I see them in Richmond in two weeks. So stuff is relatively together, but definitely needs some smoothing at the edges.

I had decided not to run this morning, opting instead to sleep in. Nonetheless, 5 am rolled around and my brain engaged and I’ve been up since. Nothing like having work (which is what got the brain rolling – work stuff) intrude on perfectly good sleep time.

The good news is that since I had little else to do this morning I managed to find the source of a smell in my kitchen I’d not been able to identify – an onion had gone bad. Dees-gus-ting.

The work stuff is troubling. There are times when you don’t want to know all the facts, as that gives you plausible deniability. Unfortunately I’m too good at gaining confidences at work so I know too much now about certain situations. I see a lot of closed door discussions in my future, some good, some not so much so. And yes, this is the usual cryptic stuff, but such is life at the BGA.

Have now discovered this is a known issue (at least to the neighbors) because they’ve told me it’s p*t smoke and incense coming from the apartment directly below mine. Shitheads. Methinks we’ll have maintenance in there to ‘fix’ their air unit as well so it’s not spilling this crap into the walls.

I don’t care what you do in your home, until it affects me. Then you’re toast.

Been burning a candle tonight (safely) in the bedroom since I got home to help kill the incense smell. Hopefully they’re not home and won’t be up at all hours again. Evidently they come in and out. Management will get an earfull in the morning, especially if this is a known problem.

Was up at about 3 this morning because the pervasive odor of tobacco smoke had filled my bedroom. The air unit in there was the culprit, and the smell ended up driving me from the bedroom entirely (the air unit in the living room? no smell whatsoever). I’ve smelled a light odor like this from that unit before, but never this bad. It did eventually die down and I went to bed again around 5:30 or so, for another 2 hours. Not the way I want to be awakened, nor is it terribly conducive to being all that productive today.

Posted to the cult’s email list and it found that this has happened before in other units, and building maintenance can put some sealant around the pipes to prevent it from happening again. Thankfully they’re in the process of doing preventative maintenance on the units this week, but I’ve asked them to bump me up on the schedule and get that done sooner than the Thursday date they have for me.

Disgusting.

So, I am be-couched (be-sofaed?). In any case, I have seating.

An orgy of cleaning followed an announcement on Thursday that the delivery guy would be here today (as opposed to two more weeks from now, which was the original delivery date!). The place actually looks much, much closer to what I want it to look like, with all the stuff off the dining table (including the dust). I’m sure I’ll get pictures up later.

Anyway, he arrived, in a mini-van with my couch strapped to the top in a big box. The thing is large enough that we couldn’t fit into the elevator, so up the stairs it was. So glad I live on the 3rd and not the 8th floor. Assembly was easy – screw on the legs and flip it over.

I’ve found a taker for the old futon couch, but that won’t happen until tomorrow or Tuesday, so it’s taking up some room. Thankfully I have the room for it, without needing to trip over it every time I go to the kitchen, but I’ll be glad when it’s gone.

I do need to get art or a mirror or something for this wall, though. The bookshelf used to be here, and that obviated the need for anything, but now that it’s just the nice, low sofa, there’s a big lot of plain wall there that is crying out for something. Paint, a painting, something.

Otherwise there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot else going on this weekend for me. The time shift was hell on my system for some reason, so not a lot got done this week aside from work and the cult’s board elections. Hopefully this next week will be better.

After deciding I needed to keep myself out of the house as much as possible yesterday, I did just that. Wandered up to Dupont to get coffee (had used the last of it to caffeinate myself yesterday morning), and lunch at City Lights. Devoured two plates of steamed dumplings (was starving by that point), then off to Adams Morgan.

Popped into Skynear, looked at several pieces of furntire, and bought a couch.

Yeah, was just going to window shop, but said “screw it” and got the couch. I’d been eyeing it off and on for a couple of years now, so I screwed up the courage and ordered it. Will come in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I’ve got to rearrange funiture again.

Shopped a bit more, popped in to se a friend, then home. Tried to nap, didn’t work, so I hopped online. When I did, friends were setting up a dinner & a movie thing to see “300”, so I said sure, why not, and hopped out again. We met at a loud beer hall restaurant with a large selection of beers, a cousin to the Brickskeller here in DC. Several ciders with dinner (a very, very disappointing pasta – definitely a burger kinda place), then off to the movie, which I enjoyed thoroughly. I think they did a good job staying true to the roots of the story in the graphic novel in the way it was filmed. Very entertaining.

Then it was off to Remingtons for a couple more beers. Met several friends from gay.com, some of whom I’d not seen in years, some of whom I’d not met in person.  Headed home via Metro (15+ minute waits at each station), alone. Was fun, and social, and far, far too late to be out, as is witnessed by the cold sore this morning. All things in balance, and when you push too hard, too fast, you pay. I regret not an instant of it, it was far too much fun, and needed. Though I would prefer not to have the blemished lip, it, too, will fade, and balance will return.

Awesome run this morning, about 10-11 miles (probably 10, given the ‘off’ factor of my pedometer). Totally on pace and what not to run the Cherry Blossom 10 miler in 3 weeks. Yay! *knock wood*

Our newbies had a group run, either 25 minutes or 30 minutes, depending on the group (sprint/olympic). None of the sprint folks showed up (whoops), so we just looped around Hains Point. I had been all worries earlier in the week about biking over and then having someone to watch gear, then had the “Duh!” moment when I thought about my long run this morning and that the meeting site was only about 2 miles from home. So, ran over, met them, ran sweep with the last runner (great conversation), then did another loop with one of my volunteers (fastish for me, slow for him), then home.

It’s going to be one of those weird spring days where you can’t decide quite which jacket to wear. No matter, one way or another I am getting The Heck Out Of The House today. I think some furniture window shopping is in order.

Quiet weekend here. Steven was in town and crashed here for the weekend, but my legs were bothering me (a side effect of the prednisone, I think), so I was rather more of a stick in the mud than usual. Was good to see him, but was disappointing I didn’t feel up to wandering out (or doing much of anything). Did get in a lot of gaming, both on the DS and the PC, which made me wonder if I really needed to upgrade the PC as little as I use it. Eventually, I’m sure, but it’s not a priority in the budget.

Also caught up on reading (not but so much you can do when the most comfortable long-term position is with your legs stretched out and relaxed), both the current book (“Ironcrown Moon” by Julian May) and delved into the ever-present pile of magazines. I’ve gotten “free” subscriptions to a couple of magazines over the years, and they end up sitting there until I spend 15 minutes to flip through them, see if there’s anything interesting to read (usually not), and toss ’em out. They end up costing more in psychic distress (clutter) than the “free” label would imply, so getting them out is always a good thing.