decidedlyodd

I was just thinking I haven’t written an entry in a while when I realized it’s now been nearly a week. Yikes!

It’s official–summer is over. A finally relit the pilot on my furnace because it’s finally getting cold enough (supposed to be 40F tonight). With the end of summer, I’d expected my life to magically get less busy but so far that doesn’t seem to be happening.

The past weekend has been fairly busy. And by weekend I mean Wednesday through Sunday because of how early my social schedule tends to start up.

On Wednesday, my friend Don came over to give me tips on decorating my apartment. We made a list of the stuff I still need, which adds up to about $700 more to spend. It’s nice to see that I’m almost there. A few more shopping trips to Costco Home, Dania and Ikea and I should be set. Afterwards, we watched Lost on my TV. Don was impressed by how clear the picture on my TV is despite the fact that I only receive broadcast over rabbit ears (I don’t do cable these days). I’d been impressed with it before, but it was nice to hear a second opinion that the picture is truly outstanding. As for Lost, I was really confused about what was going on. I haven’t seen the show since the first few episodes of the first season. Perhaps I’ll go find a plot summary of the rest of the first and second seasons or something.

Thursday was the standard TV watching night. I jokingly refer to it as the night formerly known as Will and Grace night since the show’s been cancelled for a while now. There appears to be a movement to start calling it Ugly Betty night in honor of a new show with many camp elements that gay men everywhere must also be finding delightful. Afterwards, several of us headed over to Madison Pub and stuck around talking until close. Needless to say, I didn’t get to bed until fairly late after that.

Lately I’ve been swimming on Friday nights and the last one was no exception. The pool has been getting more crowded over the past month or so as people return from the lake and outdoor pools which are more popular in the summer. I grabbed dinner with several people from the team and then headed home before going out with some friends to the Cuff. I had a few drinks there, but unfortunately didn’t get to dance. It had been a really long time since I last went dancing which is unfortunate since I generally find it more fun than standing around drinking. I ended up sticking around longer than most because I often enjoy just sitting around people watching the dance floor. After a while though, it starts to get sad because there’s hardly anybody left.

Saturday morning, I got up early to go boating on Lake Union with some CAMP friends (Chris, Jack and Perry).

The boat we had was electric with windows that could be unzipped according to the weather. We went up to the Ballard Locks and then back, stopping briefly to visit with one of Jack’s friends who lives on a house boat in Eastlake. It was pretty fun drifting around and chatting with those guys. I got back home some time in the early afternoon and promptly took a nap. Originally I had planned to meet up with some guys for bowling but by the time I woke up from the nap it was too late. I did meet up with Robert and after walking all over the hill had dinner at Jamjuree (a Thai place) on 15th Ave East. I enjoyed the food there especially since it’s been a while since I’ve had Thai. After finishing up dinner, we meandered down to Pike/Pine to hit the bars.

We started over at Purr where we ran into some other friends. We went to the upstairs part in the back, which I’d never been to before. It was pretty neat back there–more chill and quiet compared to the rest of the bar. Because it was the first Saturday of the month, a few of us headed over to Bacon Strip at the Re-bar. It was a bit nostalgic because the first time I went out in Seattle was to Bacon Strip back in February and I hadn’t been back since. Unfortunately, the show seemed shorter than usual but it was still pretty enjoyable. As expected, we ate some of the complimentary bacon carried around on a tray by some “bacon slave boy”. Eventually, Ken, Robert and I decided to hike back up the hill to the Cuff. Everybody seemed to be there including the usual crew I go out with plus lots of other people. In fact, I ran into Chris (from the boating earlier that day) and ended up hanging out with him and his friends. We all danced a bit too which was fun. Afterwards, I wandered with them over to the QFC on Broadway since they were hungry. In typical drunk fashion, nobody could really figure out what they wanted but it didn’t really matter since we were all at least a little intoxicated. In the end, I seem to recall a few items being bought: some sort of veggie imitation chicken nuggets, a packet of ham lunch meat, some vitamin water and a loaf of bread. I didn’t get anything, although I did make a quesadilla for myself when I got home. Anyhow, it was fun hanging out with those guys even when we were wandering through QFC.

Because I’d gotten home so late, I ended up sleeping late this morning and skipping out on brunch. I lazed around most of the day actually reading (which I haven’t done in a while) and doing laundry. Still, I did get my act together and get out of the house to go swimming by 5. On Saturday Jack and I did some recruiting on Chris to join Orcas. He showed up today though which was really cool. He’s definitely somebody I’d like to get to know better. It was probably the busiest I’ve ever seen it though. I don’t usually go on Sundays because I’ve just been gone most of the weekends since I started getting more serious about going to Orcas. It was enjoyable though. There was a different coach than usual, who I’d actually met at Frontrunners several months ago (I think he’s actually a triathlete). His routine was pretty good even if it was a bit unorthodox at points (we had to do some push-ups between sets). I’m really going to try to go on Sundays regularly in the future. I’ve been regularly disappointed with Wednesdays (low turnout, hands-off coaching), so I’m going to do Sunday, Monday and Friday instead for now I think. I may even try to start doing the Wednesday night Frontrunner’s instead since I keep missing Saturday morning with my travel and social schedule.

After swimming, I went over to Billy and Robert’s place for dinner and to watch Desperate Housewives among other TV shows. Desperate Housewives was entertaining as usual, but we watched this horrible show called Brothers and Sisters. I almost got up and left because it was just so melodramatic and boring! Ugh, what a terrible program about rich people with overly dramatic problems! We did watch part of Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO though. I haven’t seen him since his show on broadcast TV got cancelled years and years ago. On HBO, I think it’s even more entertaining than it was before because Bill seems to cut loose a bit more being on cable and all.

Whew, what a weekend! Next weekend, I’m going down to Oregon to help my parents move into their new house. It should be cool to see them and their new place.