Good.

The past few days have been more good than bad. And that’s totally saying something. But I had Saturday off! And this is huge, as it’s one of only a handful of Saturdays that I haven’t worked in the past year. And I don’t work this Saturday either! It’s amazing! And knowing that I had Saturday off, I spent the time pre-work on Thursday and Friday running around and getting all my errands done. This way my days off (Sat and Mon) would be totally my own.

Of course, having Saturday off, I wanted to make sure I put Friday night to good use. So I called up one of my ladies and we headed to our favorite pub for a bevy of bevvies. Pretty much all  of my friends went to see Louis CK on Friday night. This was a show that I was originally supposed to go to. And had been oh so very excited. But as the splitting of ‘our’ posessions went on, I completely forgot about those tickets. But I figured that it wasn’t the worst thing. And as I assumed he was going to the show, I thought little else of it. Until, that is, we ran into some friends post CK and they mentioned that he had not gone to the show. Now maybe the tickets were never purchased in the first place, maybe he sold them. I  don’t know. But if he had them and chose not to use them… well, let’s just say I know one girl who would have bought them. Le sigh.

(Louis CK – Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy)

But back to my story. We visited and laughed and stayed out very late. After L’Act closed, a few of us came back to my pad and hung out until about, oh, 4am. And we all know how easy it is to just wake up and go the following morning. Morning. Ha! I spent half of Saturday in bed. But it was followed by a beautiful drive and a trip to Ikea. Not half bad.

Sunday was just pure chaos. I completely forgot the alarm code for the shop and set the alarm screaming moments after I unlocked the door. Then some randome stranger walking down the Ave asked if he coudl touch my hair. Despite my firm ‘No’, touch he did. Ew! But then that was followed by coffee with an old girlfriend from highschool. Which was delightful! It was one of those visits where it doesn’t feel as though ten years had passed since our last conversation. Things just fell smoothly into place as though we had spoken only months ago.

But yesterday totally took the cake. I slept in a bit. Went grocery shopping. Made gingerbread dough. Went for dinner with my fam at my absolute favorite restaurant. Rolled out my dough and baked awesome wildlife shaped gingerbread cookies. Then I finished (at least I think it’s finished) a painting that I’ve been working on for the last week.

I’m experimenting with texturing my canvas and then painting over that. This was the first foray into the glue/tissue/paint combo and I like it! I want to add some buttons onto it , but I’m not sure where and worry it might take too much focus away from the main image.

(Burning for Daylight)

Not the greatest shot of it. But good enough for now. And the part of the bird inside the red isn’t white, it’s a shimmery silver. All in all, I’m pretty pleased with this one.

And tomorrow brings me five hours of time and a half and a second first date!  It’s interesting, because I’m definitely not in a place where I’m ready to meet someone that I really like. But I’m enjoying meeting people and hearing their stories. I’ve always been a pretty social person, and I’m having so much being social in a new way!

Date.

Have I ever mentioned how cool my little brother is? He happened by where I work this evening just as I was closing up. We were chatting about his accident, and his latest lady. He asked waht I was doing tonight, and I reluctantly told him that I had a date. And while I won’t go into details as to how this fella and I met, tonight was “first date” night.

Let me share some details about me first. I hate meeting new people. I get nervous, and when I get nervous, my hands shake. A lot. And I become convinced that you can actually see my heart trying to beat out of my chest. And my brain suddenly can’t figure out what to say. There’s also the whole debate over what to wear. I have a lot of great individual pieces of clothing that I love, but they don’t really mesh into a great “this is who I am” outfit.

So I got my brother to drive me home and then sit there while I frantically tried on outfit after outfit. And y’know, he gives really good clothing advice! He’s willing to take the sibling relationship out of it and tell me what honestly looks good and what message it conveys. Wit his help, I settled on this:

.first date threads.

Not the greatest photo, but time was short. I settled on my favorite boots, my new short grey skirt and a blue cowl-necked shirt wtih (gasp) a belt over top. I’m not really a belt over the shirt kinda gal, but it looked good!

And the date? Well, it wasn’t awkward, the conversation flowed (possibly spurred on by the beer we drank) and he made me laugh. Was there a spark? No. But it was great to get out there and realize that I can still do this.

What was funny was the fact that when I looked around the bar, I saw some of my friends! So I’m sure I’ll have to share stories with them later, but that’s part of the fun, right?

All in all, I’d say it was a success.