The new one-a-day

I am so not used to spending multiple hours at the doctor's office.  My usual appointments are 15-20 minutes waiting, then like 5-10 in the consultation, then maybe a prescription on the way out the door.

First off, they took me back about twenty minutes late.  Then, the consultation with the doctor was about 20 minutes.  Then I had to talk to the pharmacist for about 10 minutes.  Then off to the pharmacy for 15 minutes, then off to the lab to get some blood drawn for yet more tests and another 20 minutes.  All in all, I was there for about two hours, but I walked out with bottle of (not-so-little) blue pills.

You're supposed to take them at the same time every day, so I'm waiting until tomorrow morning for my first.  Hopefully I don't react badly to it; the big concern is kidney function, but since those seem perfectly fine for me, the doc doesn't think it'll be a problem.  Apparently osteopenia is also a potential issue, so that's what today's blood draw was for: calcium and vitamin D levels.  My calcium test already came back fine: isn't it great that we live in an age where we can have blood drawn and two hours later have an email notifying us that the results are ready?

I'm not sure I'm going to tell anyone I'm going on this.  I mean, you guys know, and I'll probably tell one friend about it (he's thinking of going on it and is more nervous than I was, but he's also much higher risk and has already had one "scare" that included post-exposure treatment just in case).  But I'm not telling my parents or anyone else, I don't think.  It's no one's business.

I also got the first of the three Hep B shots that I'll have to take over the next six months.  Yay, I guess (this one's really made my arm sore).

The camping trip is all booked, and I'm trying to decide if I should get a smaller tent, since the only one I have is the big 6-man (which actually only really would fit three or four adult men).  That's kind of overkill.  But I'm also starting to get a lot more careful with how much I spend, especially now that I shouldn't be supporting L any more.

... Oh, right.  L.  So, he's been staying in a motel.  He's apparently got another place he's moving into on the 24th - a room in a house in the valley - and he seems kind of excited about it.  Now, last time it fell through at the last minute, so I'm not going to hold my breath against the odds of him snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but it's encouraging.  However, the people paying his motel are stopping that today, so for the next 12 days or so he's going to be staying somewhere else.

A nursing home.

I'm... kind of at a loss as to how this will work out.  I could be wrong, of course, but every nursing home I've been to or seen has been a pretty depressing thing overall, and most of the residents didn't have much in the way of freedom.  L's not bed-ridden, isn't doing physical therapy, and isn't going to want to be trapped in a room all day.  I'm not sure how he'll take it, but we'll see.  It's only for 10 days.

The really awesome - to me, anyway - part is that he's actually been listening and is planning on saving as much money over the next month as he can for a buffer.  He's realistically targeting having about a thousand dollars put aside by the end of February, which would be great if he can pull it off.

This weekend was the first time in literally months - probably 3 or 4 months - that we've hung out and he hasn't either hit me up for money or pressured me about staying here or both.  I was shocked.

Anyway, without his periodic demands, I should be able to manage my money better and actually plan for things.  I also really do need to set up some outside consulting stuff to bring in a bit extra to help pay off bills and buy toys (and yes, I've said this a lot).

On the try-new-things side, I used the sauna downstairs for the first time since moving in 3.5 years ago.  I guess you have to turn it on an hour or so before going in, but once it warmed up, it was pretty decent.  I'm going to plan it better next time so I can do the steam thing as well as have a shower in between sessions (heating the place up for one 10-15 minute shot seems a waste).

Going on a hike tonight; it'll be chilly so need to dress warmer than normal.  We'll get to see how the latest rains reshaped the trails.

Minor things for the week

L is.. well, I don't know what his current state is.  Last I heard, he was being put up at a motel by a charity, but that theoretically ends Monday.  We're hanging out tomorrow, so if he doesn't have a place yet, I expect to get harangued all night.  It won't change my answer any, but it may be the last time we hang out if he doesn't give it a rest: I'm willing to put up with someone being unpleasant to be around, but I'm not willing to spend hours being harassed.

Booked a weekend camping trip in a few weeks.  Going with the hiking group out to the desert, so that should be fun: I've been wanting to do star shots out there anyway, and this is a good trip to be my inaugural with them.  Also, my friend D is coming (his husband may not be able to get time off of work), and it'll be his first camping trip in ages too.  We're going to carpool out there.

It does mean I need to get a few things.  Like, I don't have a solar shower yet, so that's one thing; I found a pump one that looks cool but is kind of expensive, but I think I can afford it.  I'm also thinking about getting a smaller tent, since I need one for backpacking anyway.  That would be expensive, so I have to consider it carefully, but putting out a 6-man tent for myself, especially if it's colder temps, is probably a bad idea (D is taking his own).  I also want to grab a couple of those pocket warmer things just in case, but those are cheap.

Oh, I got a 3.4% raise for work.  It'll probably end up being an extra $40 a week, give or take, which will pay for the rent increase I got and then some (not much, but some).  That kicks in Monday, so I won't see anything from it until the end of the month due to pay cycles, but it's still nice.  Apparently, that's the maximum raise the company is giving out this year; I got the maximum last year, too (3% then).

I also get my pay-out from unspent holiday pay next Friday; that should be ~$470.  I suppose I could use that for camping stuff, but I originally going to put that towards other things.  We'll see how my pocketbook looks after this weekend.

My appointment with the MD to talk about PrEP is on Monday.  I've gotten all my test results back; nothing seems odd to me except that my Hepatitis B vaccination apparently never took (I guess you need multiple shots; I only ever got one).  So, I'll probably be getting that vaccine here too shortly.  But I don't think there's anything to stop me from going on the meds starting Monday.  This will be interesting.

In a random note, the gym at my apartment put in a new machine downstairs; we had one of those multi-function stations, but this one is all pulley-based.  I haven't used the weights down there in ages (I have free weights in my apartment and generally only use the treadmill in the gym), but I might try the new thing out to see how well it works.

Hot and steamy

I went to a Korean spa on Saturday.  Now, I've been to plenty of clothing-optional resorts, and I'm not exactly inhibited, but this was literally the first time I'd been to any kind of spa or bath house.  So, I was a little anxious, but I went anyway: my friend D and his husband are the ones who asked if I wanted to go, since they were going (and apparently had been before).

It wasn't bad.  Some of the steam rooms had the steam on way too much for me (I actually had trouble breathing in one of them), but overall the experience was pretty relaxing.  And since I'd spent the afternoon (this was at night) with my best friend, it made Saturday a really awesome day.

Which is just what I needed, since L's been having his typical chaos.  The guy he was supposed to move in with on Saturday decided to "cancel" their agreement on New Year's Day.  Technically, he couldn't do that, since L had keys and a contract, but the charity paying L's moving costs didn't want to pay to move L into a place where he wasn't welcome.  The problem, of course, is that the lockout happens today (Monday), so this put L in a bit of a bind.  The service said they'd put him up in a motel for a bit and move his stuff into storage, but that the hotel funding would take a few days to set up.

So, of course, he sent me an email saying, "Give me a call when you have a chance."  Which is a signal that he's going to try and strong-arm me into something, since otherwise he'd just ask in email or call me himself.  Again he asked if he could stay with me, and again I said no, and he got angry.  Then his phone started cutting out, and he just hung up.  I haven't really spoken to him since, so no idea what's going on at this point.  But I'm also not sure I care much.  I mean, I hope he gets his living situation worked out, but if he decides he doesn't want to speak to me or that I'm a horrible person, well... that's his decision.

The couple hours at the spa relaxed me, and I slept extremely well Saturday night.  Also checked out a new coffee house yesterday, before hanging out with D a little; it was okay, not somewhere terribly comfortable but not horrible either.  I'm still in search of a hang-out-for-an-afternoon kind of place.

Had my blood and pee tests done on Friday, and the results seem unremarkable (I don't get the STD results online, due to disclosure rules, but there's not going to be anything exciting there; the resultsI did get was things like kidney function).  A couple of numbers might be a little cause of concern if they were accompanied by other signs, but they're probably just normal human variation (trace values where ideal is none kinds of things).  I have my appointment with the physician to go over the results a week from today, so that would be the day I start PrEP if she sees nothing concerning.

I was actually thinking about that at the spa.  The place is Korean, so there's that population obviously, but it's also something of a gay cruising joint (though relatively low-key apparently).  I didn't see anyone doing anything risque, but I definitely got a lot of looks/stares.  Some of that may just be because, as I said, I'm not exactly inhibited and tended to walk around naked rather than wrapped up like most of the guys.

Anyway, the thought was that I really shouldn't do anything even if the opportunity arose :) The nurse I saw pointed out that the idea of the initial STD tests was to form a baseline before giving me the prescription and to be absolutely sure I was "fine" before I started; he also said I should be careful not to do anything that might change my status between the tests and the consultation, which is basically saying "don't have sex for the week between".  Which normally wouldn't even be an issue, but I also don't normally go to spas :D

Anyway, nothing happened, and it was great, and I'll probably go back again at some point (with or without D & C).  It's kind of a drive, so I might also see if there's something closer to me, but I could also justify it if I got a massage or something while there (which they offer).

Should be a slow week this week (and of course saying that, things'll go crazy, right?).  Though I think I want to book a camping trip out to the desert: my hiking group is going, and it's time I actually took advantage of the opportunity.

... That may be the motto for this year: taking advantage of opportunities.  We'll see.

If I cannot bring you comfort...

Very few things this year worked out quite how they were expected.  Well, I don't know how true that is: I'm not sure I expected much of anything.  But the year's almost over, whatever it was.

L is in the process of moving into his new place, and I'm not involved.  The current plan is to not even store anything at my place.  We'll see how long this lasts.

I'm in transition at the office; theoretically, my position is disappearing, though that doesn't mean I'm getting laid off or anything.  I've got plenty of things to do and bosses who like me.  But things will definitely change here in the next 6 months.

I've got two potential date situations developing.  Not sure if they'll go anywhere, but it's more than I've really tried to do in months.  I'm pretty much writing off OKCupid and going to other tools (starting with Tindr).  I can't do Grindr, since they don't have a Windows port, but perhaps that's a good thing :)

Related to that, I'm seeing a specialist about the whole Truvada as PrEP thing.  I'm not really liking the idea of a daily pill (though  I took a daily vitamin for years), and I'm far from being the most at-risk person out there.  I'm also not looking forward to the potential side effects.  But an honest look back at why I haven't dated much or "explored" much in the last few years has to include recognizing my (low but present) anxiety about HIV: I can name at least one occasion when that anxiety stopped me.  It's probably not something I'll ever mention to anyone I date, and I plan on still practicing safer-sex, but a reduction in risk is a reduction in risk.  Sex isn't necessarily the end goal, but it's hard to progress in dating much without sex - and especially in the gay community, sex is often an early requirement rather than a later one.

I never really got into the shape I wanted to be in. I've built up my chest and arms a bit, but my weight and belly fat are still what they were in April.  Now, there was the whole bruised rib thing, but that was better by June-ish.  Since then, I just haven't been able to make a dent.  So, I need to try something different.  We'll see.

I made it to Yosemite, which was a blast.  Didn't make it to Hawaii this year, and only slightly miss it.  Haven't gone on any other camping trips yet, but there are a few my hiking/camping group has planned that actually look interesting (and it's the middle of bloody winter, so it's not exactly the high season).

Haven't really gotten into swimming the way I wanted to, so maybe that will be how I try and get into shape.  Also never got that bike I've been talking about for ages.

I've made a few new friends and have been hanging out with some of them fairly often.

With L's change in situation, I put my foot down on finances.  Yes, I've said that before, but there's absolutely no reason why he can't survive without my help at this point.  He's even getting someone else to pay his first month's rent, so he should be able to build up a financial buffer.  But that's his business: mine will be getting back to a comfortable level of savings and being able to sock money away for a new car and more vacations.  I start getting four weeks of vacation time this year, and I've already got more than three saved up.  I need to start using them.

Also, with L having a roommate, I'm hoping he'll be less dependent on me for social contact.  I've already told him that we're not going to be doing the every-weekend thing, since he's further away now and still doesn't want to drive much; that'll free up time for dates and other activities.

Not sure if I'll pursue the business thing.  I mean, I need to know if I need a license to do consulting and such, but actually getting a D-B-A and registering as a business apparently has a lot of tax consequences.  As much as I love the logo I did up, I'm not sure it's worth it - especially as I've never made any money with my photography.  Oh, related to that, I finally told Flickr they can peruse my stuff for stock use; I'd disabled that when I was trying to work with other companies, but since none of that worked out, I might as well let Flickr do it if they want.  I've still got NC on everything.

Aside from the doctor's appointment tomorrow, I've no plans for NYE.  There's a hike going on (which I'll probably miss).  Also, a couple of friends were talking about having a small get-together, but since one of them is in Canada on a last-minute emergency thing (and not a fun one), that probably won't happen. So, it might be a quiet evening relaxing at home - which may not be all that bad, since it's supposed to be freezing (literally) tomorrow night.  I might even wake up early enough to wander out to the Rose Parade at some point (don't bet on it).

So, I guess that's my year in review, combined with a little bit of what is hopefully to come.  That wave function keeps collapsing; you never know what's going to happen until it does.  Hope for the best, plan for the worst, and keep your head up high - for the night is young, the air is crisp, and the stars twinkle in anticipation of your eye.

The night

Well, it happened.  L finally asked me about the room.


We were at dinner, and he was commenting that a place he's looking at is too far away (17 miles!!).  I said something like, if it's that or sleeping in your car, which would you take?


L: "You'd let me sleep in my car?"
Me: "Versus?"
L: "Well, staying in your spare room."
Me: "... Yeah, that's not happening."


After a bit more back and forth, he stopped talking.  And then stopped eating dinner (he was only about half-way through).  Fine, whatever.  I paid for the meal, and as we were leaving, he still wasn't talking (which is really unusual for him).  I asked if he still wanted to go to the movie ("The Imitation Game"); he said "yes".  That was, literally, the last word he spoke to me for the next half-hour, then the length of the movie, then about 20 minutes after while waiting for the car.


By this point, I was annoyed.  So, as we got in the car, I just said, "I guess I'm taking you home, then."
L: "No, I need to be out with people right now."
Me: "Well, I don't see any reason for us to hang out if you're just going to give me the silent treatment for the rest of the night."
L: "Is that what you think is happening?"
Me: "What else would it be?  Prior to this conversation, you've said one work since dinner."


We went at it a bit.  He said he was hurt, he thought I was his friend.  "I know you've said repeatedly that is your best friend, but I never thought..."
Me: "What, that I actually meant it?"
L: "Well, I mean... It's just..."


I laid into him a bit about bad decisions, about the people (including me) who have been shielding him from the results of his choices for like 10 years, of a few of the times where he's pulled shit, gotten caught/caught out, and ended up needing to be bailed out, etc.  He started by denying it all, then slowly had to admit I was right.


Then he started in with the emotional manipulative shit.  "It's hard to hate yourself."  Well, yes, been there.  "I'm not you, I can't just kill myself."  Okay, yes, been there too, but that's a shitty, low blow.  "How can you be friends with someone who is such a fuckup?" Not touching that one with a 10-foot pole, bud.  "I've made bad decisions.  I was afraid."  Sure, but mostly afraid of the outcomes of bad decisions you'd made prior.


L: "I never wanted to use anyone."
Me: "And, yet, 30 minutes ago you were perfectly content to spend a night with someone you didn't want to be around just so they'd drive you places and pay for your drinks."


Anyway, he kind of accepted it eventually.  At least, he wants to see a movie next week; we'll see how he feels tomorrow (it's entirely possible he'll work himself into enough self-righteous anger to blow me off lest I remind him again about how he's wrong).  But at least the conversation is out there.


I still think he thinks he's going to manipulate/trick me into letting him stay here.  One would hope that after all these years he'd know not to pull that kind of thing on someone with limited empathy.


The movie was pretty good, if a bit depressing in the end (but how else could it be?).  And now, to bed.

A place in the sun

So, Palm Springs was fun.  The place was a bit more... let's say "frisky" than I was expecting, even at a clothing-optional resort, but apparently that's par for the course in PS.  Still, I did enjoy myself, spent a lot of time in the hot tub, and actually slept well and peacefully for a couple nights.

And then came back home and woke up at 5 am stressing out about stuff again.  Oh well.

On the good news front: heard a little bit about this issue at work, and the one part that I've ever been involved with is also probably the only part that is safe, so I'm pretty much in the clear.  Haven't heard about the rest.

Oh, and iOS 8 sucks, but I spent all day Monday debugging and finally figured out the two bugs that were breaking my company's application - one is definitely a bug, the other is possibly deliberate but a change from past OS versions.  At least I found work-arounds that seem to be functioning, so the client who was running into this problem is happy.

L sent me a message complaining that one room he's looking at (he still hasn't found a place) is 17 miles (!!!) from where he currently lives, implying that this is so far as to make it unreasonable.  I sent back something shooting that down handily, but I've also decided I'm done with him playing the victim.  I mean, he's more than welcome to do it, but I don't want to hear about it any more.

[... I feel like I need to qualify that "victim" statement.  I don't hold with blaming victims for what happens to them; that's really bad.  And L has had a few things happen that were just shitty luck or other people being assholes.  But L has also, on more than one occasion, tried to cheat the system, gotten caught or caught-out, and suffered as a result; he then tries to play the "woe is me" card, sometimes even changing his story on what happened to remove any fault from himself.  It's been minor in the past, but lately he's been ramping it up a fair bit - to the point where things that I was around for and witnessed are now being presented differently than as they happened.  And we're not talking about minor changes: things like "had to bribe a doctor to get a note saying couldn't do a deposition" to "but I wasn't well enough to do the deposition!"  If he's starting to believe his own lies, I'm totally done (there's nowhere positive that can go).]

Need to plan stuff for NYE.  I've got a meeting on the 30th I can't miss, but I could head out that afternoon and go somewhere maybe.  No idea where I'd go - most places are booked by now.  But I'm not going to spend NYE with L.  PS was certainly easy to get to, but it's probably even more of a party place for New Years than it was for Thanksgiving.  I still feel like running away to the woods somewhere, but the place in Guerneville doesn't have any cabins.

Decisions, decisions.

Not quite an underpants gnome

Step 1: Ask a very silly question about a tool commonly used at your place of employment.  As people repeatedly fail to answer said question, realize it's not so silly and that there actually may be a really bad problem.
Step 2:Inform Corporate Compliance, who respond with what amounts to, "... wait, WHAT?!"
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit... I hope.  Or maybe get fired.  Or maybe nothing.

We're still at Step 3.  CC is looking into it, but her initial reaction wasn't what I'd call comforting.

I'm actually not likely to get fired, except maybe in a "shoot the messenger" kind of way.  I'm possibly the only person on this side of the organization who hasn't misused this system, but that's because I don't use it at all and wouldn't need to use it in the incorrect way anyway.

And one of our clients is having a problem related to a known bug in iOS8, and I'm getting heat for it from various people.  "It's a problem with the OS, not with our app" doesn't help much, especially when there's no "perfect" workaround.  But I can at least be comfortable that it's screwing with Facebook and a dozen or more other major apps as well, so we're in good company.

Anyway, short work week.  I've booked two nights at a resort in Palm Springs, and I'm so looking forward to it.  I mean, it's just "one day" effectively, but I'm actually kind of excited.  L isn't thrilled, but screw him.  I'm pretty much out of patience with him.

Like, take Thanksgiving.  We'd talked last weekend, and he expressed an interest in going back to this nice Italian place by my apartment.  Fine.  So, after I picked him up Saturday, I asked if he'd made reservations yet.  "Sure, I got us a 6 p.m. at Paradise Cove."  "I thought you wanted to go to [Italian Place]."  "Nah, that's just too difficult.  You'd have to pick me up, then drive back to your town, then drop me off afterwards."  I said nothing (I was driving).  Him: "Or, well, I suppose I could have driven out to your place, but that's too much hassle."

So, let's compare.  Me driving 20 miles to his place, picking him up, and then heading another 30 miles to a restaurant at the beach: not too much hassle.  Him driving 20 miles to my place: so much effort it's not even worth considering as an option except as an afterthought.

We've had this argument before - last Thanksgiving, actually, when I complained that it made zero sense for me to drive 80 miles total to go to a restaurant 3 blocks from my apartment just because he didn't want to drive.  So, this year, he's apparently decided that it makes more sense for me to drive 100+ miles round-trip than for him to drive 40.

The room he thought he was going to get fell through.  More and more I find myself hoping he has to move back east to live with his sister.  And I hate feeling that kind of animosity towards someone.

Anyway, a weekend away at a clothing optional resort, spending as high a percentage of 48 hours as possible in the hot tub, will be a good thing.

I've also been playing around with maybe getting my company set up, but it's hard to justify when I probably won't have any revenue from it.  It's mostly just fun for now, in the same way that I used to have fun designing and building BBS sites in the 90s.

I did learn something maybe not-so-fun: it looks like I might need a business license to even do my consulting stuff while living in my current place.  Not sure how much it will be, and I doubt anyone would ever find out if I didn't, but it's in the city's laws.  I need to contact them and make sure; if it's cheap enough, I'll probably do it just to play nice.

This week's episode...

When last we left our hero:


So, L had his court date today.  He's got until January 5th to move out, which is far, far more generous that I thought anyone would be.  That may be too generous - it removes a lot of the immediacy that was actually getting him to do things.  But we'll see, and at least he (and I) don't have that hanging overhead for the moment.


It also means I can seriously consider going away for next weekend, even if only for a couple nights.  So, I'm checking out the place D told me about in Palm Springs; we'll see if they have any availability.


I also discovered that I've got four full weeks of vacation time saved up.  I probably ought to burn some no matter what, so I think I'll take time off for the holidays even if I don't end up going anywhere (though I may do a few days in Guerneville just to get away).


I need to clear that with one of my coworkers, just to make sure he's not planning on taking time off either.  But since he's been burning through sick and vacation time recently with a series of low-grade disasters, I'm not sure if he's got the time off to take.  But I want to make sure he has the option if he wants it.


The deal at work went through: we're officially forming a new company for the project I work on.  Papers were signed today, press release goes out after Thanksgiving.  Not at all sure what this means for me long-term, but the CEO of the new company almost point-blank asked if I could work with them, and my director hinted that my at-work availability would be limited (and also that I was "minimally incentivized").  So, I may get a side contract out of this for a few hours a week (I think 10-20 would be easily doable, time-wise, but I'm not sure how we'd work it out; maybe work will let me do a 10/4 AWS and do this on Fridays or something).


The complication with that is determining compensation.  My typical consulting fee for something like this would be ~$125 an hour, but it's also possible I could get stock or something.  I don't know.  I'll have to see what they offer (if they offer anything), and then go from there, but I think a combination - say, lower consulting fee combined with some kind of equity - would be most acceptable to me.  I've never worked for/with a startup like this before. 


I'm also - theoretically - officially being compensated as a co-developer, but I still haven't seen anything that says how much or of what.  In fact, no one's really talked to me about it at all except in vague terms, but my director said it's official... whatever that means.


I thoroughly impressed most of the people at work this week with a couple presentations, but I also may have found a major hole in security.  So, it's possible I'll burn through all that good will by being the messenger that gets shot.


Until next time...

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow

... It's all been said.

So, the tired thing seems mostly gone.  I'm still sleeping more heavily than usual, but that's not necessarily something I can complain about.

A friend - let's call him L - is about to get evicted; I don't know if I've mentioned him before.  He's over 65, has no real job (he tutors for under-the-table money and recently started getting a small Social Security payment), and yet has been living in a $1200-a-month apartment for years.  Yeah, bad combination.

He's also spent most of the time I've known him trying to "cheat the system", as it were.  Like, taking jobs just to get an address/secretary but not really doing the job he was hired for, or trying to find legal loopholes or lawsuits he can pursue (all of which fall apart).  The sad part is, he's moderately intelligent and could actually pull his own if he tried, but he's convinced himself he "deserves better" and that he shouldn't have to work at it.

Well, now he's got a court date in a week that will result in an eviction in early to mid December.  Most of the people that could have at one point helped him have gotten tired of bailing him out of the years and won't do it any more (including me, to a point; I have a spare room and there's no way in hell he's coming to live with me), and he's putting at-best token effort into finding a new living situation (which would be hard anyway without his reluctance).  I wonder how much of his stalling is to try to "pin" me into caving; he hasn't actually asked me if he could move in yet, so I assume he's saving it up as a "I have no more options" play (which he does pretty regularly).

I really don't want to see him homeless, but the three things I will not let people mess up are my job, my finances, and my living situation.  I tend to cave more on the second than I'd like, but never entirely, and I have no intention of caving on the other two.  I didn't get him into this situation, and I've been doing everything reasonable to try to get him to stay out of it (he hasn't even started packing, as an example of the denial, and he hasn't paid rent since August).

I admit I feel a slight bit of guilt, as I'm generally driven by a "fix all the things" imperative.  I'm a "guardian" by personality: I find a way to solve people's problems and help them.  But I am not responsible for his situation, and I will not compromise my health and well-being because he refuses to deal with reality.

And it's a good thing I'm still a little tired lately, because that's the only way I can sleep at night.  Mostly, I can say I'm doing enough by 1) taking boxes over to his place this weekend as a "start packing you dimwit" thing (he'll get depressed and maybe even cry, but it's time he started facing facts) and then offering a place for the boxes to get stored for a while so they don't get lost (I can keep them in the living room at least, or maybe in the spare room closet depending on how much there is).  That's about the last of my good will on the subject.

On to less depressing news, I've made a couple of friends on the hike.  D and M started coming a couple months ago, and I probably mentioned them off-hand.  We hung out together a few weeks ago and had a blast (including D's husband), and we'll probably do it again.  I floated the idea of hitting the clubhouse at my apartment, since it's got a full kitchen and, more importantly, a pool table.  That seemed to go over well, so we'll see if we can make it happen.

D was also talking about places he and his hubby have gone for weekends or short breaks, and it sounds like they also do the clothing-optional thing pretty often (including having hit up a couple of the resorts I've been to).  So, I might have friends to go on a weekend getaway with at some point.  Though I think my next might just be a weekend in Palm Springs, maybe Thanksgiving weekend.

... I might have to time that last one carefully, though.  I mean, it wouldn't look too good for me to be off lounging naked in a hot tub when L is getting evicted, especially if I need to get his boxes to my place.  But we'll see how things go.  If his move-out date is less immediate, I can have dinner with him on Thanksgiving and then justify slipping away for the weekend.

Anyway.  Stuff's happening at work that may result in a slight sort-of pay increase on top of any annual raise.  I don't know most of the details yet, but I'm theoretically being included as a co-creator of a product and thus getting a share of licensing fees.  At a minimum, it's a few thousand dollars a year after taxes; it could be a fair bit higher than that, though, depending on the exact details.

Still haven't finished doing my personal business site.  I really need to put that together.  Maybe I'll get back into it this week; I really just need something to showcase photography and talk about my consulting stuff, so it doesn't have to be super-fancy to start with.  Just enough that I can get new business cards printed with the logo and web site address.  Oh, gotta get that DBA as well, come to think of it, but that's just a matter of getting to the clerk.

Update:
You know, as an addendum to this, I keep thinking about what would happen if L had to go back east to live with his surviving family.  He'd be miserable, but it would sure simplify my life a fair bit.  And that seems pretty callous to say, but it's also true: L is the focus of most of the stress in my life (a big reason why no-way no-how is he living with me).  I don't wish that result on him, but I can't say I would be horribly upset if it came to pass.

Running on low

I'm tired.

It's not the time change.  I've been physically and mentally low-energy for a few weeks now.  It got bad enough last Sunday that I thought I was coming down with something, but I never did.

It's been affecting my fitness routine: I just get home and don't have the drive to do anything.  Which, of course, is probably making the issue worse, so I'm going to try to get back into it at least a bit this week and see if it helps.

It's been affecting my diet: I found myself not eating dinner a couple of times just because I was too blah to get up and make something.  I then found myself ordering in or getting fast food more often, which is bad.  Time to shift back into eating reasonably again.

It's been affecting work, though not horribly: I find myself procrastinating more.  Part of the problem is likely that I've also had a whole bunch of stuff dumped on me in the last few weeks, so every day ends up being chaotic.  Today was actually the first day in over a week that I haven't had hours of meetings scattered throughout the day.

It's been affecting my social life: not that I have much to begin with, of course, but I've been making even less effort than usual.  Of course, feeling like I'm out of shape (see: fitness and diet) and being lazy in general does help with feeling like dating or going out much.  Yay for more vicious circles.

I'm not sure what's going on.  I may just need a vacation; I haven't really taken any "me" time since my birthday, and that was 4 months ago.  I know I've been jonsing to get away for a weekend, but money's been a little tighter for a variety of reasons: it's hard to justify blowing a couple hundred bucks on a hotel when you have to drop $1200 for new tires.  Maybe I should do something for Thanksgiving.  I dunno.

Anyway, I've got a hike in... 2.5 hours here.  And another Thursday.  It'll be totally dark up on Mount Hollywood, but there's enough ambient light from the city to see by usually, and I carry a flashlight just in case.  I'll try to do at least a couple of days' lifting at some point.

I did manage to get it together enough to re-balance and re-allocate my retire funds (all four of them).  I mean, it only took an hour or so, but I've been putting it off a while.  I also up'd my contribution another percent or so, so there's me being all adult in at least some small way.

I need to do laundry, and plant my garlic, and transplant my tomatoes.  I managed to trim one basil bush back yesterday, but I need to do the other still.  And I should vacuum and clean and sweep and...

I've never really been someone who gets depressed, though I know that's what this looks like.  I'm wondering if maybe I don't have a mostly-asymptomatic version of what's been making everyone around me sick for weeks at a time.  All I want to do right now is go home and crawl into bed and take a nap.

Oh well, time to go home.