The last few days were better than the couple of weeks which came before. Visiting friends from afar and closer to home, exchanging presents (at long last!), walking on damp but safe sidewalks, enjoying the benefits of public transportation once more, and getting out of the house combined to give me a somewhat more cheerful outlook on life. It wouldn’t have taken much to improve on my headspace from a week ago, of course.

On the downside, it looks like our company’s insurance rates are going up again and I’ll be paying $100 more per month. Say goodbye to anything resembling a discretionary budget, folks! Oh well. I was enjoying life too much as it was, right?

On the upside, I put the new domain into place over at the newly-renamed but otherwise-unchanged anime forum. One of these days, perhaps, I’ll be able to afford some sort of advertising to bring in new faces…

I haven’t written here in the past few weeks because I was waiting until I had something cheerful and/or entertaining to say. Unfortunately that hasn’t happened, but this morning I decided not to continue ignoring the gaping hole that my journal has become.

So, let’s recap: Between coming down sick and the arrival of The Winter Storm Of The Millenium, I’ve done almost nothing. Not even “nothing of note” or “nothing particularly fun,” I mean I’ve done nothing. No dates (other than a couple of  “let’s trudge through the snow for some Arby’s” type of meals out with Kyla, and bless her for helping keep me even remotely sane and upbeat this month), no hanging out with the kids, no holiday get-togethers (other than the one The Roomie hosted at our house), not even going to the office but for a couple of days last week. I’ve barely gone shopping. So many canceled plans litter the month that I don’t even want to think about them or I’ll become truly angry.

Or depressed. Which is what happens when I realize that today would’ve been the last of the Moti-Vent Calendar entries… if I hadn’t thoroughly botched the job of lining up material that I had permission to use. Way to go, me!

And, thanks to Tri-Met still canceling several of the bus routes I depend upon, which is thanks to the snow that isn’t slated to let up until Friday, odds are good that I won’t be going anywhere or doing anything tomorrow, either. My first real sojourn out of the house this week is likely to be… going to work on Friday, while most of our clients have the day off.

Merry blank blanketty blank Christmas to you, too, 2008. Now hurry up and go away so we can see if 2009 will be even the slightest improvement.

Today’s lesson? Always read the fine print.

I don’t know when, or if, I’m going to try another “creative project.” They all seem to go down in flames one way or another.

Have a nice weekend, everybody. I’ll be back… eventually. I suppose.

Payday arrived on the third working day of the month, as usual, and not a moment too soon because that morning I used up the last of my shampoo. Yesterday evening, after a tasty dinner at Rose’s on Broadway with Kyla, we swung through Safeway so I could pick up another bottle (and some other things I’d run out of).

In my infinite lack of wisdom, I thought nothing of the fact that the shampoo bottle, one of those push-pump jobs, was packed sideways in the black fabric grocery bag… where it sat all night on top of my other desk until this morning as I headed for the shower. Pulling out the shampoo bottle I realized that, of course, it’d been leaking. I spent several minutes cleaning the bottle. I spent several more minutes, because I’m a numbskull, figuring out how to get the pump top to pop up. (This required a look at the old bottle, and some more cleaning of slippery fluids so I could get a grip on things.)

Finally, my shower could commence, yadda yadda. Then I figured it’d be a good idea to clean out the inside of the bag. PIcking it up, I learned something new: Those black grocery bags are rather… porous. Yes, I ended up cleaning a big puddle of shampoo from my desk. Then I cleaned the bag as best I could and hung it up to dry.

I wonder if I should use conditioner on the bag, too, for fuller body and a healthier shine…