fox

keep meaning to call, just to say hi.

keep chickening out.

advice/discussion welcome.

so i did have a voice mail when i got off the plane. its gist was "oh my god, you probably think i'm the biggest asshole ever, i don't blame you, please give me a call and i'll try to convince you otherwise." discouragement more or less over. :-)

esti626 will be entertained to hear that after i hung up from the conversation with him and B (who, incidentally, really ought to have a livejournal of her own; work on that, willya, E?), the woman on the aisle said "so i take it you're waiting for a guy to call? listen, being my age and having had a starter marriage, lemme just tell you: forget the angst and the drama. ain't worth it." heh.

so, in spirit: much cheered. in body: suffering, as the mystery back pain has returned. will call student health tomorrow, and hope they tell me it's nothing.

the thing is that i'm going to be up in DC again this weekend, for like an hour tomorrow when i fly out of national and then again on monday when i fly back in. so on the advice of counsel, i called to say so.

FOUR RINGS AND THEN A BUSY SIGNAL? WTF?!

fortunately, half an hour later when i tried again, i got the voice mail. left what's probably a totally inane message. sputtering has been tabled.

being, actually, an update on what happened over the weekend, rather than an update taking place on the weekend itself.

wednesday
drive up to dc in the evening to go to the movies with darthrami and cmshaw. fetch rami at six-ish; stop by the bookstore to get a grammar book with exercises in it, so she can practice Correcting Things for the grammar test she'll have to take at the headhunter's on thursday; arrive at the movie theater at a little after seven, utterly stunned to have no trouble at all finding parking. realize that the early-opening-ness of the matrix: reloaded (for that was what we are there to see) doesn't begin until the 10:00 shows, so we don't have to compete with people who were there to see 4:00 and 7:00 screenings. run into jgesteve, indydc, and datlowen in the lobby; they're there to see X2. rami and i chat with them for a couple of minutes, then go to retrieve our pre-purchased tickets and meet cmshaw for dinner.

( thingsthatsuck.com )

thursday
( i feel like something happened in the morning, but damn if i can remember what. )

the birthday hanging-out was fun. the first scotch and soda had a critter in it (wings, legs; protein, only, not so much), but after that false start, the drinks flowed smoothly, at least where i was concerned. rami and i were joined by datlowen, who had to leave after only a few minutes, but whom i was glad to see anyway, as well as jgesteve, flt, mearagrrl, and esti626 -- none of whom, funnily enough, i actually met through LJ. life is funny like that, eh? (indydc had promised to be there, but never showed, grr. later learned that sowilo had intended to come, but couldn't get through to anyone to remind her where we were. bummer.) cmshaw would have been there, but she was feeling ickysick and stayed home instead. drank scotch. played pool. after the first two drinks (the first two bug-free ones, i mean) came in brandy snifters, the bartenders twigged to the fact that it was my birthday and started sending them (a) stronger and (b) in pint glasses. good times. went home; i recall having a Very Earnest Conversation with rami about le boy and That Other Guy and That One, but i don't really remember what i said about any of them. had no trouble falling asleep.

friday
woke up early (well, it felt like early, after thursday night) to take rami to her interview and then hustle back to the city so she could walk in the not-graduation ceremony they had prior to the commencement (at which, praise god, they didn't read individual names). got her there Just In Time, met up with her mom and brother, sat through the ceremony (sure, it was boring, but these things are never fascinating; excitement involved an old man having a medical emergency a few rows behind us and to the left during the main address to the class, but after a couple minutes of tension the old man was able to walk out on his own, though accompanied by the emergency-type people). went for some dinner, and then to bring ice cream to the still-ailing cmshaw. watched vids, spoke on the phone to laurakaye until she disappeared, apparently a victim of a dead phone battery. came home, again in the middle of the night. no need to get up early on saturday. huzzah.

saturday
i only had to leave the house at about noon, to pick up a theatre ticket from a former co-worker (actually a former copy vendor, but close enough). schmoozed for a while there, playing with the nineteen-month-old while the hosts prepared for the party (crawfish boil; i don't know, they're from new orleans) that afternoon, at which my actual former co-workers and i would be arriving late. got a ride to the metro, met other theatre-goers: my former boss (who hates being called anybody's boss, but that's what she was -- okay, immediate supervisor, if it makes her happier), her sister, and the sister's friend. the show was 1776 at the ford's theatre, and ( i'm going to hell. )

thence to the end of the crawfish boil at the copy vendor's. assorted former co-workers were there, including both Office Christmas Party Boy 2000 (whom i didn't go home with, remember), and J.A.S. from the office christmas party of 2001. also other people. chatted, things were pleasant, discovered i don't really care for crawfish. not much of a surprise.

that party ended, and i called rami -- who had been with her family all afternoon -- to learn that she was ultra-sleepy and didn't intend to go to sowilo's birthday party after all. ( so i went by myself. )

sunday
got home at about 6:30 a.m., showered, took a nap until rami woke me up and told me it was time to go. drove into the city, found excellent parking, got quick breakfast and met cmshaw, trudged to the ellipse and huddled in the (very light) rain until and then through commencement. (me: just a bundle of aches. due no doubt in part to the weather and in part to the several nights running of sleeping on the couch, but also to the veritable collar of really impressive bruises i'd managed to come home with. endorphins are all fine and well, until they go away.) had coffee and then late brunch with rami's mom and brother, and then they went off to drive home and rami and cmshaw and i went back to chez rami, where there was buffy on the vcr and napping on the other couch, and then pizza. (and buttercream eggs, also called erotica in my mouth, which rami had made for me for my birthday! mmm-yum.) i'd intended to drive home in the evening, but it got later and later, and i wasn't getting any less tired, so i sacked out on the couch one more time.

monday
woke up around 11:00. apartment was empty. collected my belongings (except, i realized once i was out the door, four bottles of soda) and finally left. stopped by the safeway to get diet cream soda, and they had none. bastards. drove home, without incident, and took a nap when i arrived. slept from like 3:30 to like 8:00. am therefore now wide awake. good news, though, is that aches are mainly gone and bruises are considerably faded.

sic explicit fox's birthday weekend in toto. it's good, having nothing school-related one is supposed to be doing. couple more weeks of that, before the russian classes start. i shall continue to be a complete lazybones. (i shall concentrate, furthermore, on not waiting for the phone to ring.)