DEC 15

2025

Monday: seems like I'm now looping the loop on my cycle of sleep deprivation, as I woke up around 3:30 AM and couldn't get back to sleep, so I logged into DQX. Finally going through the Beginner's Quickstart Guide optional checklist items, both to finally have more than two zoomstones and so that I'd unlock more vocations. This was a lot of fun, but around 6 AM I logged into work early to catch up after my long weekend. My professional photo is now live, which I must admit is an update from what I'd had before. I took a shower just before my shift was supposed to start, which meant that on my lunch break, I could walk to the store. I picked up cereal and some granola for my yogurt before buying lunch from the cart. Sleepiness started to creep in by my second break, and took a 15 minute power nap while the Grinding Gear podcast about the TGA results played in the background. There were way too many calls during my shift.

After Julie and I were done with work, we suited up and trudged over the icy sidewalks to Stogie Joe's. We ended up a the two-top table as usual, and the crowd in that room as almost as irritating as it was last week. I much prefer the weeks when we get seated closer to the restrooms. Julie ordered something weird. Sausage bites, perhaps? I stuck with the stromboli. This is week three of slightly more Christmassy questions and music, and our performance suffered. We weren't close to placing this time around, and Julie was eager to get out of there; she at least took satisfaction from the nearby teams performing just as badly as we did. Once we were home, I got John a treat before getting ready for bed. I managed to play about ten minutes of UmaMusume, basically just enough to qualify for the last round of the current CM event. Probably not going to finish the five career runs I need by the end of tomorrow to get some bonus carats, but at least my stockpile for Tosen Jordan finally crested 30,000. I was again asleep before 11.

2024

Sunday: tried (and failed) to catch up on Trade Sanctions stuff, but I ended up handling too many chat support requests again. Since we expected to have three of the next four nights spoken for (due to two nights of trivia and a hockey game), we pursued our own interests in the evening. This might have been when Julie made chili for dinner.

2023

Friday: as soon as Julie was done with work, we had a dinner party to get to, so we took the subway up to regional rail, which we rode out to the Mt Airy/Chestnut Hill area. I might get some names wrong, but: our hostesses were Faith and Lauren. I spoke with Allison and James as well as Brandon and Kristen. (Julie said I also spent some time talking to William's wife, but I didn't catch her name. The Mario sweater turned out to be a conversation starter.) Later, I sat next to Jenny and her wife Sarah, and the last to arrive were Zach and the other Lauren. (Zach thought I looked familiar for some reason, but personally, I thought Jenny looked familiar. I think we all just have common face shapes.) There were at least two other couples whose names I didn't catch.

Several parts of dinner and drinks had a Puerto Rican theme, and in the conversations around the living room, it seems like a lot of people were transplants from New York. I've never heard the phrase "Bumble BFF" said so much in a single location. After people had finished eating, we did the white elephant gift exchange; Julie had picked up a big oversized slipper to wear on both of your feet, but I'm not sure who got to go with that one. The gift we opened wound up being aromatherapy oil and other holistic supplies. Someone who shall remain nameless brought a riding crop, not anticipating the kids would still be up at the time the gift opening occurred, but people played it off well. ("It's for horses.") She wound up trading for it before all was said and done, as she'd made a point of saying she never provides a gift she wouldn't be happy to receive herself. Other popular gifts included a huge box of Gushers fruit snacks and a gift certificate to a local bookstore. (We later found out this was a last-minute replacement for some edible underwear.) Once all the gifts were distributed and the kids went to bed, we played a card game called The Game of Real Life. Our host had a copy because these DBT techniques were ones she used professionally, while another attendee had actually been the editor for the game. We played a little Heads Up before all was said and done.

The highlight of the evening for me was when Faith pointed out that in some of her first exchanges with Julie, Julie had made a big deal about how she needs to get out of the house and make new friends in part because I'm such a huge introvert, which seemed like a funny contrast since I'd spent the evening coming across like I'm outgoing and gregarious. But it's true! I AM a huge introvert, even if I can get some of the biggest laughs of the evening when we're playing a therapy-themed card game.

Anyway, we took an uber home, and now I'm trying to write this up before I go to bed myself.