Such a day!

I woke up this morning a little after 9 am with no idea what I was going to do with myself. I didn't have anything planned. I called in my prescription refills and sat down at the keyboard to surf around a little bit, reading my virtual newspaper. I also played a little LegendMUD.

I took my morning pills and put myself in the shower, then headed over to the pharmacy to pick up my prescriptions. When I returned, I started tackling the mess in the kitchen.

I'll make a confession: I'm a slob. It's the most obvious symptom of my procrastination. So when I say I had a mess in the kitchen, I'm not trying to describe the aftermath of some dinner or party. These are dishes that have been abandoned, sort of a Julia Child meets Lord of the Flies thing. It's very sad.

I washed nearly every dish I had, then took a break for more quality time with my Mac, then actually prepared a lunch myself and took my pills. (With piles of dirty dishes, I can't do much cooking, which means that putting things off actually costs me money.) After lunch, I washed up the dishes I had used, then took a bit of a nap.

Russell had called earlier in the day to tell me that two of our friends, Chick and Mike were having a wedding reception this evening. They were married in Massachusetts about two weeks ago. They have a beautiful boy that they adopted, named Jackson, and they've adopted two fraternal twins, Samantha and Lila. The reception was held at the home of Shirley and her husband, friends of the happy couple.

Russell and I met Ett and her partner Linda at Michael's house and drove up to the reception. The grooms were all tricked out in their tuxes and everybody was having a wonderful time. A few square dancers were there, including a few that I haven't seen in years, like Sherri or Dean and Stephan. Tom was there, with his new boyfriend Bill, as well as Barry, his ex-boyfriend and one of my regular dance partners.

At one point, Chick asked me to hold Samantha for a few moments, which turned out to be about half an hour. I didn't mind at all, she was a joy to hold. Such a delightful baby. Russell and Ett were surprised to see me with a child in my arms, and she seemed to take to me, although she saved her smiles for some lesbian that would come over to tease her every few minutes.

I indulged my introversion by managing to sit by myself in a crowded room, just enjoying the atmosphere and watching all the friends having fun. I could really feel the love that everybody had for Chick and Mike and their new family. There was a political discussion near the food, but I backed out of that rather quickly. Sitting out on the patio was also pleasant; it was such a nice evening tonight. Perfect, in fact.

Afterwards, Ett and Linda dropped Russell and I at the Rotunda, where we met Michael to see John Water's A Dirty Shame, which carries on the proud John Waters tradition. Russell and I had planned to go to the Spotlighter's community theatre production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, but we've moved that to tomorrow night and Michael will be joining us. It should be a fun evening!

Update: I also made changes to Ett's website that I'm maintaining for her. Most of the changes were easy to make, but I spent a few minutes trying to remember what I was doing with the PHP code. This was the first PHP code I ever wrote, and it calculates the next dates that her square dance clubs meet, so visitors don't have to pull out a calendar to figure out when the next second or fourth Monday is.

My day so far

I woke a little early this morning, even without considering the time adjustment. I rolled out of bed and did some web browsing, then I took a shower and started my day.

I headed over to the neighborhood grocery to buy some stuff for lunch. I haven't been grocery shopping in a long while, mainly because I didn't have a kitchen that I could really cook in. I brought all of the stuff home in time to take my morning medication and then I headed out to Hunt Valley to pick up some new socks and underwear. I also picked up a new pair of black shoes for office wear.

I came back home and prepared a nice lunch, then started straightening my apartment. Michael N. was coming to pick me up for bowling today and he asked if he could see my place, so I wanted it to look presentable.

Michael came by to see the place and we took off to pick up his friends David and Jason, who will be joining the bowling team. They are such a cute couple! One of the attractions of bowling is watching the asses of these men as they stride down the lanes. :-)

Jason and David bowled very well -- by my standards, anyway. John T. came over at one point to quietly observe to me that he had clothes older than they were! Actually, he's no more than five years older than the oldest one, and I'm only one year younger than that. Still, they look young!

On the way back, we talked about running and marathons. I had heard from heterodoxy that gregmce was doing well at the halfway point. David had been in about five marathons and Michael had run at least one. We all had a great time.

When I got home, I invited Michael in so I could locate the league rules for him; while he was here, I checked LJ and found that Greg had beat his 6 hour goal! Michael was very excited for him. Of course, Michael is often excited. :-)

Tonight I may do some laundry, but I will definitely be making some dinner, then seeing the production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show at our local community theatre with Michael D. and Russell. (Baltimore has more than one community theatre group, of course, but this one is just a block away, so it's "ours"!)

A glimpse of self-mastery

I successfully resisted the temptation to while away the hours after I returned home from bowling and finished a load of laundry. The washer didn't spin properly, which meant the dryer couldn't dry all the clothes thoroughly, so I'm letting them air dry a little before folding them.

I prepared a dinner for myself and cleaned up afterwards, washing the glassware that remained from my dishwashing yesterday.

I regard these things as accomplishments. It's the end of the weekend, and I've almost defeated all of my dirty dishes and made the rest of the apartment look presentable. There are still things to do, but this weekend I've managed to get chores done while still having fun with my friends.

I'm also rediscovering the simple pleasures of coming home to an orderly apartment and fixing food for myself -- although it's simple fare -- rather than spending money at a restaurant or on delivery.

I've noticed that LiveJournal has a todo feature. Maybe I should put my todo items on the list and let my friends shame me into keeping on track. :-)