Sorry for my extreme radio-silence lately. I’ve been mostly sort of keeping up with other people’s LiveJournal posts (albeit with more skimming than usual), but I haven’t had time or brainpower to post or do much commenting. Anyway, since I’m sure you all are wondering whether I’m still alive, here’s some of what I’ve been up to lately:

Home repairs: Just after cathijosephine moved out, the bath surround (the panels on the wall around the bathtub) fell off. Well, large bits of it did, anyway. It had never been all that convinced it wanted to be attached to the wall, and it gave up. I had been thinking for a very long time (since before I moved in, come to think of it) of pulling it off and repairing whatever damage it had been put up to cover, but had never gotten around to it, in part because it involves not being able to use the shower for extended periods of time due to wating for various bits to dry. Anyway, since I didn’t have a housemate for a bit (anybody want to move in? Quincy’s got lots of history and lots of yummy restaurants! Won’t be available for a bit yet, though.) I decided I’d go ahead and try that. As is the way with these things, it quickly became a much larger project than I expected it to. It was just three days ago (after starting the project about a month ago, although of course I’ve been working on it in spurts) that I finally had a day where I left the bathroom looking better than when I started.

This has all taken a lot longer because of not having a working car any more, so when I discover I don’t have the right tool or I didn’t get enough tile adhesive, I need to either carry stuff on the T (and on the walk home from the T) or rent a Zipcar. (I have to say, I’m really enjoying using Zipcar. But still, it means having to plan stuff in advance.)

Theater: As I did last year, I’m rehearsal-assisting for plumtreeblossom’s show in the summer one-act festival at Theatre@First. Unlike last year, I’m also going to be on the run crew, which I don’t think I’ve ever done. Means I can’t sit in the audience for the actual performances, but it means I get to be on stage, albeit with the lights dimmed. Also unlike last year, the show plumtreeblossom is directing is one she wrote herself! My darling is having her début as a playwright! I’ve read a bunch of short stories she got published before I met her and really enjoyed them, but this is the first substantial writing she’s done since I’ve known her, and I’m thrilled to see her getting back into it. It is a really funny show being put on by very talented actors and it’s going to be a blast! Many of the other one-acts are also really funny too, including the one being directed by surrealestate (who is directing for the first time, if I’m not misremembering). I am really really looking forward to this and you should all come see it.

plumtreeblossom: Things continue to be delightful in my relationship with plumtreeblossom! We have lots of wonderful dates and delightful times. Tomorrow we are going to see Up for the third time. :-) Her cat Rowley who had been frighteningly skinny for a while has been putting on weight, which is really encouraging. We’d already been mentally preparing to lose him. Not sure if the subcutaneous fluids the vet has her giving him are what made the difference or not, but he’s doing a lot better.

Work: Work is busy, but rewarding, and I feel like I’m accomplishing stuff (although projects in IT, as in homeownership, tend to take several times as long as you think they should).

cathijosephine: I’m delighted that I’m still seeing lots of cathijosephine despire her having moved out. We’ve been trying to have dinner together once a week (often with darxus and m_c_t if he’s in town, and sometimes with xmelancholia). Chickenfinger (her cat) has adapted really well to moving back to her condo; we were both worried she’d be upset about moving back to a much smaller space, but she had no trouble adjusting at all.

(Other than seeing a lot of plumtreeblossom her housemate and cathijosephine and her partners, and the Firsties, I’m feeling a bit undersocialized and missing my friends. Have been popping my head in at some lovely parties though, at one of which I got to catch a glimpse of the delightful weegoddess during a visit this side of the pond.)

I feel like there’s been other important stuff over the past few weeks, but I’ve run out of brain so I’m going to stop for now.

So yesterday, while cathijosephine and m_c_t were borrowing my car to run errands, the muffler fell off. Oops! So I guess the sound I noticed the other day was not exactly a hole in the muffler after all. I'm very glad it happened after they got back to Quincy from Costco, but it's an expense I wasn't quite expecting.

Anybody want a slightly used 1983 Diesel Mercedes? Almost like new?

Awesome girlfriend! Well, you know plumtreeblossom, right? I don’t need to tell you how awesome she is. But I will mention that last night she gave me a gorgeous light PURPLE V-neck sweater. And it’s purple! And it looks great on me! Not only that, it’s purple!

(She also gave me a beautiful purple dress shirt, but unfortunately it’s size L in Twinks’, and I am not a twink. “There’s a big difference between gay boys and bi boys, and it’s about 80 pounds.” So it has to get exchanged before you can see how gorgeous I look in it. The sweater was also size L and fit perfectly.)

And she cooked me breakfast! She makes the best breakfast! She puts extra love in it. And bacon.

So when I trudged home from work, I knew I was going to have to dump my stuff and go out and shovel the walk and the driveway for forty minutes or an hour. Only when I got home, I discovered that cathijosephine out shovelling the driveway, having already cleared off the sidewalk. I grabbed a shovel and helped, but it was the difference between getting a nice little workout to warm you up and then going in and relaxing versus being wet and miserable and tired and overheated, and she had already done at least half of it when I got there. I have an awesome housemate.

Also happy to have darxus here tonight; it’s been nice chatting with him.

Weather, traffic, and my car’s engine permitting, I will get to see plumtreeblossom briefly tomorrow morning on her way to visit her family.

Life is really pretty good.

Had a really fabulous rest of my visit with ka9sqb and silverlibre! They rock. And I’m so glad plumtreeblossom got to meet them, and they got to spend so much time with her and cathijosephine. I have lots and lots more to tell about that visit; y’all should nudge me if I don’t get to it soon. Also, pictures! Had a few other things I wanted to mention, but I can’t brain today; I have the dumb. Oh, except I will mention that my driver’s side window no longer rolls up. It rolled down fine. I hope it doesn’t rain in the next few days.

Oops. You know that giant thunderstorm we just had?

My car windows and sunroof were wide open for it.

My drive to Methuen this evening is going to be, um, damp.

Awesome weekend at Arisia and other places with plumtreeblossom. Much seeing of old friends I don’t get to see very often. Car mishegas — my car is currently in the shop having the muffler reattached. Loved plumtreeblossom and joyeous’ performance in this year’s Red Shift.

Completely aside from all the fun things going on in the vicinity, I find just being in a hotel relaxing and refreshing. plumtreeblossom and I are thinking of doing occasional little mini-vacations close to home, where we don’t really go anywhere special, but find a hotel in the general Eastern Massachusetts area and have a night or two in a room that somebody else cleans, with a really soft bed and a big bathtub and no piles of stuff that needs to get done nearby.

Kind of tired by the end of the workday. Need to pack for Arisia. Take T home. Stop on way to have dinner. Arrive in Quincy Center. Walk home from T station.

Where car?

Oh. Drove to T station in morning. Left car at T station.

Maybe now is time to walk back to T station.

The disturbing thing is that this is not the first time I’ve done that.

I’ve had a wonderfully social last few days.

On Wednesday a bunch of us hung out with surrealestate to celebrate her birthday. It was a delightful gathering in honour of a delightful person! plumtreeblossom and I had a great time.

plumtreeblossom and I went back to her place afterwards, so I got to wake up next to my sweetie and have coffee with her. On my way in to work Thursday I got Grigori Yefimovich¹ inspected.

Thursday after work I met cathijosephine, and drove with her to xmelancholia’s, where we caught up for a while, cathijosephine gave xmelancholia some excellent socks, and I got to play with big huge wonderful friendly dogs (a mastiff and a German shepherd). Yay for doggie time! And yay for seeing xmelancholia; it had been too long.

Friday docorion had arranged to get group-rate tickets to see Handel’s Messiah performed by the Handel and Haydn Society at Symphony Hall (very near where I work). My typical inability to get anywhere on time was in evidence, but in a somewhat unusual fashion: I somehow managed to get there an hour early. Anyway, I crashed docorion’s dinner nearby and at the correct time, we were all back at Symphony and plumtreeblossom and the rest of the group congregated successfully. The concert was delightful, although I felt a little odd at something so liturgical. I had never been inside Symphony Hall before, and I loved checking out the décor. I’d have loved to see what the original paint job looked like (there was very elaborate moulding and detail work, but it had all been repainted in a neutral colour). I think we all had a great time. Thanks, docorion!

Saturday plumtreeblossom and I got together with dan4th and dabunny at their place and ordered in Thai food and had a lovely time. Along the way, I learned probably three or four little facts about hockey, which at least doubles what I know about the game.

This morning (Sunday morning, although I guess technically I mean “yesterday morning” at this point), plumtreeblossom and I had a yummy and relaxed brunch at The Burren, and then I came home and resumed work on my plumbing.

My life is good!

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¹ My car.

So, I’ve had a lovely last week-and-some, involving all five elements (Water, Fire, Earth, Air, and of course Quintessence). plumtreeblossom and I have had some wonderful dates, including a trip to Waterfire in Providence with the wonderful lilbjorn and his partner and some friends, and my first (but not last) visit to Fire + Ice. (Waterfire was beautiful and romantic; Fire + Ice was yummy.) I got to get together with cathijosephine for the last in a series of free classical concerts outside by the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade. (I’m thinking that counts as Earth, Air, and since we were next to the river, more Water.) The concert included an excellent version of Beethoven’s Pastorale symphony, Handel’s Water Music, Respighi’s The Birds, and an interesting composition for orchestra and recorded whale song. And plumtreeblossom and I had a fabulous time at sunspiral and roozle’s always-awesome End of Summer party, where I discovered that somebody I work with plays guitar and piano. And I got to see merinslips and E. and elusiveat.

So I’d like to write a lot more about that, but what I’m going to write about instead is last night. My car has still been making funny noises when I turn the steering wheel since I took it in (for that and the brakes) a couple months ago. I called the garage up a few days ago and the person I spoke to said it almost certainly wasn’t anything to worry about since the mechanics wouldn’t have given it back to me without saying anything if it was a problem, but just to be sure I should bring it back for them to look at. Yesterday during the day that just wasn’t an errand I really felt like doing, and I almost skipped it. But I didn’t, sadly. I was delayed by Fenway game traffic near work, so I barely got there in time (they close at 7). The lot was very crowded, but I found a place to leave the car (blocking one of their gates, but that’s not a problem since they’re used to playing automotive Tetris) and filled out the paperwork, and they were nice enough to drive me to Davis so I didn’t have to walk the half hour to Porter.

As I was walking toward the taquería where I was meeting elusiveat, it occurred to me that I remembered thinking about giving them my car key, I even remembered taking it out of my pocket before having to put it back in so I could fill out paperwork, but I didn’t remember actually giving them my car key. Which was indeed in my pocket. And my car was blocking their access to many of the other cars they needed to work on. Oy. I called them, and the recommendation was to put the key in a tupperware container (which I didn’t have anywhere nearer than Quincy) and throw it over the fence and hope it lands near the office. So unfortunately I was a bit distracted while I was having dinner with elusiveat because I was worried about the key situation. (Sorry, elusiveat!) Had a lovely time catching up with her anyway. Then I discovered that the closest thing I could find to a tupperware container in Davis Square at that hour was a baby bottle. Took the T to Porter Square, and walked what turned out to be 35 minutes one way to the garage (talking a bit on the phone with plumtreeblossom on the way), tossed the key with its note in the baby bottle across the fence, and SCORE! it landed right by the office door, did not fall in a ditch, did not roll under a car, and did not break any windows! As I SMSed plumtreeblossom, I should join the NBA.

Then it was another 35min walk back to Porter Square for the train ride home. (Oh, did I mention that “due to switching problems at JFK/UMass, we are running with delays between JFK/UMass and Alewife”?)

An hour and a ten minutes’ extra walk is actually a really good thing, but maybe not when you’re not expecting it and you’d really rather be at home doing a little bit of cleaning and climbing into bed. I had other plans for that hour and ten minutes.

By the way, I really, really like my garage: ABJ Automotive in Somerville. They’re totally worth walking an hour for.

I just twisted my ankle pretty badly. It’s not hurting as much now that I have a bag of frozen corn on it (I don’t have any ice), but it was “I can’t put any weight on this” hopping around painful for several minutes. My housemates pointed out to me that I had left the car windows open in the rain, and I stepped wrong off the steps on my way out to close them.

(The car, by the way, is having brake problems, and I don’t feel like I should drive it except to the shop now. Poor timing, since I’m not sure I’ll be able to walk to the T station tomorrow morning.)

I’m sure I’ll be fine in a few days, but I’m a bit concerned about how I’m going to get around the next few days. Maybe I’ll be lucky and feel mostly better tomorrow.

Thanks and love to the wonderful plumtreeblossom, who called me when she heard what had happened and gave me advice (passing along stuff she’d picked up in the School of Literal Hard Knocks herself).

Wish I had a cane — I’ve got a walking stick, but it’s for hiking and has a point on the end and is not so good indoors.

I’ve got lots of happy userpics, because that’s when I take pictures. I need some unhappy ones. This is not the fun kind of pain.