Urgh. Today I feel kinda crappy -- my stomach hates me, and I'm not entirely certain why. :(

So! It's been awhile since I've actually honestly updated, no? Let's see how concisely I can do this...

Last Monday, I got together with Big A. We had some tasty dinner, split a bottle of white wine that I'd received for my house-warming party (thank you, MD!), and watched "Carolina," a mediocre bad romance movie starring Julia Stiles, Shirley McLaine, Randy Quaid, and other people. I did some semi-tipsy mocking of the movie, and then afterwards we talked. His dog likes me, I'm sure. :)

On the way home, I ran into a few boys who'd also been out drinking. One of them was being somewhat loud, so his friend shushed him, saying he had to use his indoor voice. The loud boy (Eric, from Calgary), apologized to me with, "I'm sorry ma'am," which sparked me asking if I looked that old, and then the conversation flowed from there.

When Eric and two of his friends left the bus, he turned to me and hollered, "I love you!" Ah, alcohol is good. When the final friend left the bus, he held his hand out for me to give the good-bye bump to; although in retrospect maybe I was supposed to do the fist smack-down? I think that's from the 80s, though -- we've evolved since then. ;)

I posted my Ode to Alcoholism that night, then hit the sack. :)

Tuesday night OFK came over and watched some tv with me, and we chatted into the evening.

Wednesday I went to an opera recital with Stefan, and then we picked up MD and Ben and went out for some drinks at a nearby bar. We had a great waitress, who was behind our starting a food fight with the other table, just so long as we didn't get her floors dirty. We wound up not starting anything with them, but we did order the scary deep-friend bread. It came with feta cheese and some kind of random dip, and we all partook and agreed it was very dense. You wouldn't want to order a whole whack of it and then try to go swimming or something. :P

Thursday night I had a fantastic nap on the couch with Venus, then hung out with R and N, and we played You Don't Know Jack for PS2 and the MuchMusic Pop-Up Video game. N and I stayed up for awhile talking after that, and I was told that I'm one of the only people that enjoys playing trivia games with them. Go figure. I got a lift back to the bus station, once again missing the bus by about 5 minutes, so I had a 30 minute wait, and then a 30-minute trek home, meaning I got to bed around 2:30. Urgh. :P

Here's where I have to point out that despite an entire week of not-enough sleep and no downtime (or very little), I didn't fall asleep at work at all, and I only had the one nap (for an hour) on Thursday. Go figure!

Friday I went out to the folks' place for dinner, and my sister, cousin and family friend E were also there. We had barbecued steak, baked potatoes, salad, bread... *drool* So good. I drove us out to the movie theatre, stopping at the paramedic's to drop off a videogame on the way (just left it on the doorknob - his place is removed from the road, so I wasn't worried about thievery), and then had to explain to my sister that no, I wasn't driving her home, and that's why Mom gave her the cell phone and so on. We worked it out. :P

I joined up with the majority of the group to see Hitch Hiker's Guide on opening night, and we had fun. It seemed to be enjoyed by all, and I got to rack up (no pun intended -- you'll see why in a minute) another occasion of "stupid things I say in public": one of the girls was leaning in close to read my David and Goliath shirt ("Don't put a cat on your head: It hurts real bad"), and apologized for doing it, saying that her eyes were all messed up, and normally she'd be able to see. I said not to worry about it, that I didn't mind having people talking to my chest, or something -- and a youngish-guy in the row ahead of us turned around and said, "Hi!" After I glanced at him in slight confusion, he said he couldn't resist, I laughed a little (at myself and then at the situation), and that was that.

Another one of us (N, if you're keeping track) mentioned that there was a guy sitting in front of her wearing a beanie cap, and asked if that was because something to do with the book/movie, or if that was just him being a geek -- I said it was just him being a geek. As we were sitting watching the credits, I was hunting through my PDA for the correct phrase that gets said, sparking an international incident (they changed it for the movie), and apparently that made me geeky... but when we left the theatre and I said that what would have made us all *really* geeky was if we had brought towels, 75% of the group started saying that they'd thought about it, that they'd forgotten to, or that they really should've, and that would've been awesome!

My friends are geeks. :)

We went back to R and N's place and hung out and chatted, and somehow got on the subject of what Greg and my's strength bonuses would be in D&D, based on what we can lift in real life. Oh yeah, geeks. For my upper body, I'd apparently still have a -1, since I can only lift about 80 lbs (at my best, that's a guess) above my head, but if I could up it to 87, I could get a bonus or at least not a negative.. and Greg said that if I had handles, he could probably lift me above his head. :P

I mentioned that I'd weighed myself on my parents' scale when I was over (this weighing took place *after* eating a full meal), and that I'm at my highest yet... but I pulled up my pant leg to poke at my leg and show that it probably is mostly muscle, since my legs are solid. Then I was surprised at just *how* solid they are (at least from the knee down; the thighs can still use some work), and JJ said that it was really impressive. *flex* ;)

Saturday I went and got my hair dyed (you've seen the results), returned the car to Mom, and went out to a movie and dinner with... A Boy. Actually, a man -- he's 33, but looks 25. We talked, made fun of the punks in the restaurant, and he dropped me off after dinner. I tooled around the apartment a bit, then got together with Greg and Madeleine, and R and N over at R and N's place. We were going to play some games of some sort, and I brought over a bunch, but we ended up just chatting and debating. Good night. :)

Sunday I finally relaxed a little -- sat on the couch and watched some Sex and the City, developed a huge headache/migraine, then went off to work -- where my headache/migraine (which eventually went away) made me crabby... as did the situation going on with the phone lines and so on. It all worked out in the end, though.

And now we're into this week. Last night I went out on another date - this time with a different boy - and we had some hot beverages at the fair trade place and went and saw HHG. Yes, I'd already seen it, but he hadn't. We had a lot of fun, laughing and making fun of each other (we've known each other for awhile, but have only met up once, ages ago), and it sounds like we're going to go out again sometime soon.

In the meantime, this week is another crazy week -- Wednesday I'm meeting D for coffee or a drink after the gym, Thursday I have a language test, gaming session and a meeting at my old high school for the alumni band, Friday is book club... ouaf.

I found it funny that last night's date was asking me if I'd lost weight, that I looked like I'd lost weight. Here I am, I've put on at least 20 lbs since he last saw me, but he's asking if I lost weight. Brilliant. :)

Also, I managed to get a bunch more of my pictures posted yesterday to my buzznet site -- http://eiram.buzznet.com. At this point, it's mostly pictures of Thena that are up, but there are also some from my housewarming party, and some random pretty ones, including my new profile pic for this page (which took me forever yesterday to crop, resize, and upload to blogger's specifications). Feel free to comment as you wish. :)

Also, a meme I'm stealing from livejournal: "Ever wanted to see something about my life? I have a digital camera, so REQUEST A PICTURE. You can request anything you want -- a picture of something in my house, in my life, at my school (doesn't really apply), in my neighbourhood, ANYTHING. I will either post a picture that I have, or take a new one."

Caveat: I do reserve the right to decline the requests that would constitute an invasion of privacy.

I should have a new Whore's Boudoir article up later today, too. I tried to have it up earlier, but I wasn't able to post, and then I just kept forgetting/being busy. Stupid life, getting in the way of me doing other things. ;)