[doors close]

I�m staring out the window across from me, kinda smiling to myself in general when he interrupts.

�It�s a beautiful day out.�

�Uh, yeah.�

[silence]

�Yeah, the weather is just so beautiful. I�m happy it�s no longer snowing.�

�That�s nice.�

[silence]

�Do you read books?�

�Sure.�

[silence]

�Have you ever read this one?�

[holds up the Kamasutra]

�Um, no.�

[silence]

�Well, maybe it�s called something else in English.�

This is Wilson. Doors open on the left at Wilson.

�This is my stop. I�ve gotta go.�

[scamper, scamper, scamper away]

Unless a woman makes eye contact with you to indicate she wants conversation, leave her alone. Thankfully, this man didn�t talk with me until the final stop of the ride.

Whew!

This weekend was a pretty good one.

After work on Friday I stopped by a nearby gym to check it out. I didn�t intend on getting a membership, but it was so damn cheap and had classes galore. For $20 a month, I�ll take the healthy time-spender. Today I go for my weigh and measure intro so they can show me just how much I�m improving on everything, blah blah blah. We�ll see how that goes. More than just that, we�ll see how waking up for 6:30 a.m. aerobics goes for tomorrow morning...

Friday night was spent at F!irst Fr!days with Oz, Ohio21Boy, and a few other friends who don�t have diaries or established personalities on my site. With the Valentine�s theme, we giggled about who should send Valentine�s to whom in the room, took personality compatibility tests (that proclaimed Oz and I were �the smartest of them all� -- har har), and made Valentine�s at the craft station.

Thinking that I would feel like going to the untz-untz, I made plans with the other set of friends to leave at 9. By time 9 came around, we were still making Valentine�s cards and nixed going to the untz-untz.

Since I was in the neighborhood, I stopped and chatted with my ex-neighbor Helga until 1 in the morning. It was good to catch up and hang out for a bit.

Saturday started with an el ride and the conversation mentioned about. Headed to the chiro for one last cracking before my final evaluation where I will say NO MORE and go about my business with an on-again/off-again ouchy in the back. Headed to Belmont for red boots that ended up having sticky stuff all over them because the owners put anti-theft devices with crappy adhesive. Headed down Lincoln because it was so friggin beautiful out.

I stopped at the very good consignment shop and headed to the 75%-off room. Although I�m in saver mode right now, I did spent $61 there. But oh buddy! The good stuff I got!

Two full suits, a lightweight leather jacket*, two button-up shirts, and a pair of replacement perfect (enough) pants in black since I stupidly washed the previous $125 pair that I got for $1 in a thrift store, figuring the delicate cycle was close enough to dry cleaning to not ruin anything just that once.

* As someone who doesn�t eat meat, diary, eggs, etc., no, I don�t think it�s cool to buy leather. However, this was used leather. I�m economically creating no market for leather goods if I�m merely using the ones others have already used and are now discarding. So there.

Today I�m wearing the pants from the brown pants suit I got, and I�m quite pleased. They fit just-right. Whee!

After getting the goods, I headed home to pack my bag to go to Benito�s. He picked me up, and we went grocery shopping. He dropped me off at his house and left for work. Home alone, I found a book on his shelf and lounged in the sun while reading.

When the sun went down, I retired to the living area with the book. 200 pages and an hour and a half phone call from my dad and brother later, Benito came home as I was heading out for dinner. He accompanied me to pick it up, and we went back to his place to eat, lounge, watch some TV, and play a videogame we�ve been working on for the past few weekends.

That about sums up our night.

The next morning we slept in, and then he headed to work. I read some more of the book, did a couple loads of towels through the wash, and went shopping for burrito ingredients. When he came home, we found out we were invited to an impromptu Superbowl party.

Game, schmame. Whatever.

After we left, we watched Garden State. I kept waiting for something to happen, but I didn�t necessarily dislike the movie for having no real action. I was pleased at the end though. Kinda a weak ending, but it�s what I wanted to happen. Spoiler(ish) below:

If you love someone, do you leave them behind when you move/relocate for work/whatever?

My answer: No. If you want to be with them, you at least invite them along. Then again, my opinion is that long distance relationships are a joke to not feel so alone. Unless you have a wedding date or a moving date planned, you�re just fooling yourself.

I�ve been doing a whole lot of truth-telling lately. I know it�s going to get me in trouble eventually, but so far any question I�ve answered honestly and given reasons to back up what I say have been well received. It makes me wish that the he�s-just-not-that-into-you book wasn�t already written. I�ve got a book�s worth of rants on that subject and many others.

Nanowrimo? My ideas aren�t fiction, but I�ll see what I come up with for it. Whee!

All right. Time to wrap things up so I can head out. Have a good one, all.�