Last vacation of 2005 - day one

[illusionofjoy]

I drove joi_division into work this morning. Once again, I find myself with time off and no plans for what to do. This time around, I have the whole of this week off – Thursday was a given, as it is Thanksgiving Day, but Monday through Wednesday and the Friday following the holiday were my vacation days. These five days in a row fulfilled the requirement at my place employment that I take at least one full week of vacation time a year. Unlike many European nations, you don't get to save up your vacation time and use it at your leisure. In the United States, you get two measly weeks which you shoved somewhere into the year regardless of whether or not you can figure out what to do with them.

So, I drove Joi into work. The traffic was horrific this morning, as cars left metallic veins in the dead organism that is Pittsburgh's system of vehicular throughways. It was about ten minutes before her start time when I finally dropped her off at her workplace. We kissed goodbye, and I drove off, turning on the local NPR station. George W. Bush was on the news again, making excuses for the fact that he was such a fuck-up. Apparently he suffers from continual jet lag...or so he claims. I wish I could make up an excuse for every single one of my failures that people had to swallow with a shit-smeared smile because I was supposedly "powerful."

I made it home, pulled the car into the parking garage and walked up to our apartment. In order to drive Joi into work, I had made the effort to get dressed and had done something with my hair that would pass for being combed without any extraneous effort on my part, but also being done up enough that I didn't feel like a matted dirtbag. Other than that, I was unshaven and unshowered, making me a dirtbag from the sideburns down – with the exception of my armpits, which I did slap with deodorant. If I was to be in a car with Joi for any period of time, I didn't want her completely blaming me for stinking up the enclosed space. So, I was standing in the apartment, fully dressed, but certainly not clean, debating with myself whether I should actually kick the day into gear and try to be productive or give in to the fact that I had no coffee to drink and was still yawning.

I looked at the bed that Joi and I share – and have been sharing every night since we moved in together and the majority of the nights before that since we started dating. It looked back at me, as if to say, "come and be warm, safe and comfortable for a while – balls to the world outside." The queen-size mattress with its velvety blankets and 100% cotton sheets was making a good argument. It wasn't bitterly cold this morning, which would have made me go running for the covers, but it wasn't warm either. Outside it felt like fall, and the radiators in the apartment threw off enough heat to keep naked flesh from breaking out in goosebumps.

So, I crawled back into bed. About five minutes later, the cat decided to jump up on the bed and snuggle up next to me. All was well with the world, at least until around noon when I was woken up by someone in the apartment who was neither Joi, the cat nor myself.

Last week, we received a notice from building management that maintenance would be painting the doorframes of the units in our building. Because of that, it would be necessary open the doors of the apartments to get the job done. Joi and I were under the impression that this would all be done last week, when they began the job. Instead, they finished it today. I was soundly asleep when a maintenance man unlocked the deadbolt on the front door and walked in to tell me that he needed to make sure our cat was out of the way while he painted. Groggy and annoyed by the intrusion, I picked up what until recently had been my furry, orange heating pad and locked him in the bathroom with his litter box. He meowed pitifully for the hour it took to get the painting done while I puttered about on the internet in my bathrobe. Once the front door was closed and locked again, I gave the cat back his freedom and finally took a shower for the day.

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The reason I slept so much today was because I barely slept at all last night. Yesterday afternoon I had left a voice mail with bonamoz, who called me back about an hour later. She was sitting bored in her apartment, as was I so I asked her if she wanted to hang out. She took me up on the offer and about forty or fifty minutes (plus one cell-phone call later), I managed to find her place in the depths of the countryside.

We went back to my place, where Joi decided to be socially-inclined over pizza and a viewing of the Family Guy movie. Since she had to work the next day, Joi turned in early while Bon and I went to a coffeehouse down on South Side for caffeine and conversation. I took her home around midnight where we listened to The Addicts and when her boyfriend got home, I got to see photos of his time in Europe. All said, I ended up getting to bed around 2:00AM.

I do admit that I function better one on one or in small groups than I ever could in a situation where I'm faced with trying to deal with a dozen or more people. I become flustered when I have to multitask a conversation with five or more individuals. I simply get lost.

When I used to go to Ceremony all of the time, there was a certain group of people I would hang out with like clockwork. However, there's something about that environment which doesn't really allow you to get to know others. The place has this horrible homogenising effect – especially now. Sound, sight and personalities all become a blur.

Those individuals who I initially met at the club whom I still associate with today are quite dynamic individuals. I enjoy time spent in good conversation or even just silly chatting about nonsense or whatever. That stuff is more meaningful to me. Not to say that I hated hanging out with people at the club, but outside of that environment...you see something more real.