Of Moose And Men
The Best Laid Plans Of Both Often Go Astray

11 miles on the Heart Rate Monitor, which means 10 in actuality. 1:53. Negative split, and the faster pace I kicked it to in the 2nd half is going to be doable for next week. Looks like a cold front is expected in next weekend, so the Cherry Blossom’s going to live up to its nickname of the ‘Chilly Bloosom,’ but at least we’re not losing an hour’s sleep just before the race (the one advantage to earlier DST?). So looking forward to finally running this race!

Managed to get up for the club bike ride again this morning, despite being up a touch too late the night before, and having a wee bit to drink while out with friends. The ride went well, despite being a tad cooler than Tuesday, and definitely more windy. The wind was coming up river, so each time we crossed down toward the Awakening it was like hitting a wall of wind when we came out of the trees down near the parking lot.

Long day today. Did finish up, I hope, a project which has been haunting us for several months now. Now I can move on to several other projects that have been on the back burner for far too long. At least they’re interesting ones that I feel like I can dig my legal teeth into. Payment for services we provide to the public (and the rates therefor), and the funds we receive for work we do for other federal and state entities and how that’s accounted for. We suspect some of our field offices have been playing fast and loose, so my accounting folks and I are digging down into the authorities there.

Boring to some (most), stock in trade for me.

Crashing early here tonight, up tomorrow for a run. Still on track for the races coming up, but watching it to make sure I’m careful about injuries. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Early start to the day. Up at 5:30 for a pre-dawn ride with the club. Did an hour, but got smoked early on. The mostly solo ride was good, nonetheless. Hains Point is very well lit, so was no trouble to be out there before the sun came up.

Got home, whipped up a meal for the crock pot, started the dish washer, got cleaned up, biked up to work.

I’m exhausted just thinking about it (and about ready to crash here at 8:30 – will just be up another hour, I think).

No smoke today from the neighbors. Hooray for small things. 😉 Dinner from the crock pot was wonderful. Hot food, no cooking in the evening. Perfect.

Getting rid of the old couch tomorrow evening, yay. Will try to run in the morning as well. Will be cooler than this morning, I think, but easier to run in that than bike.

Have now discovered this is a known issue (at least to the neighbors) because they’ve told me it’s p*t smoke and incense coming from the apartment directly below mine. Shitheads. Methinks we’ll have maintenance in there to ‘fix’ their air unit as well so it’s not spilling this crap into the walls.

I don’t care what you do in your home, until it affects me. Then you’re toast.

Been burning a candle tonight (safely) in the bedroom since I got home to help kill the incense smell. Hopefully they’re not home and won’t be up at all hours again. Evidently they come in and out. Management will get an earfull in the morning, especially if this is a known problem.

Was up at about 3 this morning because the pervasive odor of tobacco smoke had filled my bedroom. The air unit in there was the culprit, and the smell ended up driving me from the bedroom entirely (the air unit in the living room? no smell whatsoever). I’ve smelled a light odor like this from that unit before, but never this bad. It did eventually die down and I went to bed again around 5:30 or so, for another 2 hours. Not the way I want to be awakened, nor is it terribly conducive to being all that productive today.

Posted to the cult’s email list and it found that this has happened before in other units, and building maintenance can put some sealant around the pipes to prevent it from happening again. Thankfully they’re in the process of doing preventative maintenance on the units this week, but I’ve asked them to bump me up on the schedule and get that done sooner than the Thursday date they have for me.

Disgusting.

So, I am be-couched (be-sofaed?). In any case, I have seating.

An orgy of cleaning followed an announcement on Thursday that the delivery guy would be here today (as opposed to two more weeks from now, which was the original delivery date!). The place actually looks much, much closer to what I want it to look like, with all the stuff off the dining table (including the dust). I’m sure I’ll get pictures up later.

Anyway, he arrived, in a mini-van with my couch strapped to the top in a big box. The thing is large enough that we couldn’t fit into the elevator, so up the stairs it was. So glad I live on the 3rd and not the 8th floor. Assembly was easy – screw on the legs and flip it over.

I’ve found a taker for the old futon couch, but that won’t happen until tomorrow or Tuesday, so it’s taking up some room. Thankfully I have the room for it, without needing to trip over it every time I go to the kitchen, but I’ll be glad when it’s gone.

I do need to get art or a mirror or something for this wall, though. The bookshelf used to be here, and that obviated the need for anything, but now that it’s just the nice, low sofa, there’s a big lot of plain wall there that is crying out for something. Paint, a painting, something.

Otherwise there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot else going on this weekend for me. The time shift was hell on my system for some reason, so not a lot got done this week aside from work and the cult’s board elections. Hopefully this next week will be better.

Spent a good chunck of this morning with a splitting headache, both from physical sources (lack of sleep, the sore), and work itself (another Big Government Agency is proposing something that I can’t find any legal basis for doing). An overly heavy lunch and some advil helped somewhat, but not completely. Was very happy to leave, though it was a tad late.

The newbie program proceeds apace. Having a weekly conference call is helping tremendously this year to keep us focused and going (and to spread the work). I think we’re doing much better than last year at this.

I rearranged the living room furniture in anticipation of the new couch. Yeah, I have several weeks yet, but I wanted to experiment before the thing was actually here. I’m not entirely convinced this set up works, but we’ll see. The books from the one bookshelf are still all over the floor, so it’s hard to tell how it’ll look when it’s all together.

After deciding I needed to keep myself out of the house as much as possible yesterday, I did just that. Wandered up to Dupont to get coffee (had used the last of it to caffeinate myself yesterday morning), and lunch at City Lights. Devoured two plates of steamed dumplings (was starving by that point), then off to Adams Morgan.

Popped into Skynear, looked at several pieces of furntire, and bought a couch.

Yeah, was just going to window shop, but said “screw it” and got the couch. I’d been eyeing it off and on for a couple of years now, so I screwed up the courage and ordered it. Will come in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I’ve got to rearrange funiture again.

Shopped a bit more, popped in to se a friend, then home. Tried to nap, didn’t work, so I hopped online. When I did, friends were setting up a dinner & a movie thing to see “300”, so I said sure, why not, and hopped out again. We met at a loud beer hall restaurant with a large selection of beers, a cousin to the Brickskeller here in DC. Several ciders with dinner (a very, very disappointing pasta – definitely a burger kinda place), then off to the movie, which I enjoyed thoroughly. I think they did a good job staying true to the roots of the story in the graphic novel in the way it was filmed. Very entertaining.

Then it was off to Remingtons for a couple more beers. Met several friends from gay.com, some of whom I’d not seen in years, some of whom I’d not met in person.  Headed home via Metro (15+ minute waits at each station), alone. Was fun, and social, and far, far too late to be out, as is witnessed by the cold sore this morning. All things in balance, and when you push too hard, too fast, you pay. I regret not an instant of it, it was far too much fun, and needed. Though I would prefer not to have the blemished lip, it, too, will fade, and balance will return.

Awesome run this morning, about 10-11 miles (probably 10, given the ‘off’ factor of my pedometer). Totally on pace and what not to run the Cherry Blossom 10 miler in 3 weeks. Yay! *knock wood*

Our newbies had a group run, either 25 minutes or 30 minutes, depending on the group (sprint/olympic). None of the sprint folks showed up (whoops), so we just looped around Hains Point. I had been all worries earlier in the week about biking over and then having someone to watch gear, then had the “Duh!” moment when I thought about my long run this morning and that the meeting site was only about 2 miles from home. So, ran over, met them, ran sweep with the last runner (great conversation), then did another loop with one of my volunteers (fastish for me, slow for him), then home.

It’s going to be one of those weird spring days where you can’t decide quite which jacket to wear. No matter, one way or another I am getting The Heck Out Of The House today. I think some furniture window shopping is in order.

Or, Why I’m Far Too Serious For This Shit

I’ve had folks ask me to help them with piercings, and they always describe how “hot” it’s going to be, and how much they want it, and what they want to do with it (and what they want me to do with it), etc. But I just can’t seem to get into “scene” space when having those discussions.

What runs through my head when someone says they want a piercing is not the finished product and how it’s going to look, but rather who to see to have it done, and how long the healing is going to take, and what safety precautions you have to take to protect both the piercing itself and the piercee in general, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum. Frankly, I think the folks who want to be pierced (permanently, as opposed to play piercing) as part of a scene are delusional. The flesh is not going to be ready for any sort of play, and it’s got to be protected against infection, which severely limits what can be done as part of the scene.

Having advised several folks on piercings in general, and PAs in particular, I’m always careful that they know things like how long it’s going to take to heal, what you should and should not do with it, immediate aftercare, etc. It’s a big deal to hack out a divot of flesh and put surgical steel in your body in its place; it’s a wound, and has to be treated as such.

I’m certainly not qualified to pierce someone, nor would I try. And my favorite piercer here in DC is as straight as they come, so I’m not going to inflict some overly horny gay man who’s popping boners left and right as he’s getting ready to pop in the metal on him. Not that I think he’s not seen it all, but I think I’d be embarassed as all if it happened while hand holding the piercee.

All of which makes me far, far too serious when someone just wants to talk about how hot it would be to get pierced somewhere.