Well!

Managed to finally get out last night with FP for a few beers and some chat. It was a very quiet night in the city, but it was still a good night. FP's been off on long term sick leave because of a back problem, but was due to go back to work on Feb 1st. I think that's on hold now for a few days, which means there's opportunity there for weekend beers.

I spoke to USHW last night too, which is a drunken, squiffy haze. I remember giggling a bit, flirting a bit and just having a nice time. It was fun. I think the booze helped a little by making me less concerned about privacy and stuff and, well, she started it.

I've just ordered some stuff off of Threadless which is my first time ordering something from America, so I hope everything's OK and I don't get stiffed by the tax man. Oh, and I hope I get the sizes right, too! I bought some A&F stuff when I was in America. I'm a small large (if that makes any sense) in UK sizes, but A&F's XL t-shirts were a little "neat" for my liking. We'll see what happens. If everything's crap, the exchange rate means I'm not paying a lot of money. I wonder if Threadless have an international returns policy?

I've also arranged to see QC1 for lunch this week, probably Friday. I haven't spoken to QC1 in a 1-on-1 situation in quite a while. I used to have this massive crush on her, but we're simply friends now (and I don't think she even knew about my crush, though we did snog a few times). Anyway, i'll be great to catch up.

I also am seeing my sister this week. I'm going to take her out for dinner one night and in return, she'll act as my personal dresser when I go shopping for a new pair of spectacles. I always need a female point of view when buying important things like that (or expensive clothes or shoes). You catch the drift. I'm terrible on my own when it comes to paying out good money for clothes. I've made some terrible fashion disasters over the years. QC2 always advised me to buy jeans that "show off your arse because it's great". That's why I like having a female companion when I go clothes shopping.

Saturday

Well, last night was a bit up and down. I tried to get FP out for a few drinks (part of my New Year's plan for getting a better social life), but typically he wasn't able to commit (or not) until fairly late on. In this case, it was after 7:30 PM before he finally decided he couldn't make it. This is annoying as he tends to do this a lot and a lot of things have to be his arrangements. For example, if I suggested we meet in the bar at 8:30, more often than not, he'd find some excuse to disagree and name his own time. So, anyway, that left me sitting in last night which isn't a disaster, I just hate the fact I was looking forward to hitting a few bars all day and was denied at the last minute.

I entertained myself by having a delayed SMS conversation with F. That was fun. She was at a party, getting drunk and being very rude. I got a drunken phone call fairly late where she giggled a lot at me and relayed some funny stories. It was probably a revenge phone call as I'd called her last weekend at 2 AM as I staggered back to the hotel from the bar we were drinking in at the stag weekend I was on. She was in bed at the time! But, as I said, it was fun.

I also had a Skype call with E. It seems that her boyfriend, the one she'd left here, was being a moron. E's situation is complicated. E's boyfriend, from what I can tell, has finally ended his relationship with his live-in partner (and father of his children), but is still living under the same roof. A few drunken texts and voicemails over the past few days have suggested that this ong-distance relationship is not for him. He was basically asking for a pass out so he can go and get laid. E's had enough and probably around now, is sending an email to him just calling the whole thing off. I'm not sure how E will cope. She's a strong minded girl, but she did have real feelings for this guy. I might give her friend a call over the next few days and see what's up. E's an attractive, sexy girl so I'm sure she'll get all sorts of offers once she's sorted her head out.

So, Saturday evening started out poorly, but was very interesting by the end of it.

Oops.

I had typed out a post at work on Friday (I was bored), but typically forgot to email it home to myself for posting (I don't have Blogger access from work). Bugger. Anyway, it went something like this:

Played football today. Strained my hamstring again. It seems to me that each time I've played football since we started our lunchtime matches in work, the hamstring has been a problem every couple of matches or so, which means I typically get a game or two before injuring myself and then having to sit out for a fortnight or so before repeating the same old thing. I do a lot of warming up and stretching, so I've no idea why my hamstring is so fragile. I think it calls for a trip to the doctor's to see what's up. I'm sure if I were still going to the gym, GC could tell me where I'm going wrong and how to fix it, but I still haven't been down to renew my membership. It's looking like a nice day today... perhaps I'll have a walk down later and sort it out.

2007, the year so far.

I had hoped that 2007 would get off to a flying start. I had a new job to look forward to, I'd made a decision about an online dating site (after AGES of deliberation), my social calendar wasn't looking too shabby and I was in a position to get back to the gym. All in all, I had enough to keep me busy for the first month at least.

Except, I started the new year with the most horrible cough/cold that left me coughing up blood and, strangely, dehydrated and run down. I'd played a football match the first week back at work on top of the cold, only to get injured (a couple of muscle strains). These, in turn, made me postpone the online dating thing until such time as I was in good enough shape to leave the house, should any potential dates come about. A couple of social engagements were put on hold because of the cold/cough.

The new job thing is annoying. For the first time since I started with this company a few years ago, work's starting to get to me. It's the training for this new position, I think. It's just so mind-numbingly dull and sitting reading from a screen all day long with this illness is not my idea of fun. I'm reading an awful lot, and while the topic isn't terribly difficult, I feel as if I'm not retaining anything and I'm finding motivation quite difficult.

It's only within the last few days that I've started feeling normal again, so we roll around to the online dating thing and the gym thing. I'll try to nip down to the gym before the end of this month to renew my membership (it doesn't lapse, but change in work policy mean our firm has changed its agreement with the gym regarding corporate membership). I'm actually looking forward to the gym again. I took a few months off to play footy instead, but I found myself getting injured far too often. That never happened at the gym.

The online dating thing, I'm not so sure about. Coming back from a weekend away, I took a peek online last night, only to see a familiar face pop up in my list of potential matches. She's my friend's ex-wife's close friend. Why this actually makes a blind bit of difference is beyond me, but I am now having second thoughts. I haven't seen her in years, but I met her in a bar a few weeks ago. She's easy enough on the eye, but she's someone that's attracted more by money than by personality which means our personalities would easily clash if we actually spent any time together. Plus, there's the fact that her friend was cheating on my friend, which I can't condone (although hypocritical given the flirting between USHW and myself and what could have potentially happened).

Still, it's early yet. There's still plenty of time for 2007 to shape up to be a good year.

AWOL and back again

OK, so I've been away from the PC for a little while due to a furniture related incident. However, that incident has been resolved, so I'm back, comfy and ready to post.

Since my last post, there's been communication between USHW and myself. I don't think I worded my last post exactly the way I wanted to, but the gist of what I was feeling got across, if not the exact point. USHW did hit the nail on the head though when she surmised that a problem was my privacy. I guess that was my real problem and the core of the concern I was having. All the other stuff that was bothering me wasn't really bothering me that much, but my privacy being compromised was something that really did effect me, though it did take a while to identify that.

Now that I've actually found out what was bothering me and that USHW has told me what's safe and what's not in terms of getting in contact, maybe we can actually start talking again... and flirting. Maybe.

Onto other things, this weekend is our monthly work's bash. Pretty Blonde will be there (or she's listed as going), but I won't. I'm off on a stag weekend this weekend, weather permitting. I'm kinda disappointed because I do have a good feeling about the PB thing due to the amount of eye contact we make of an evening, but I still haven't had the opportunity of approaching her outside of the work environment yet. I remain cautiously optimistic about this one though.

So, one post and I'm off again. It'll probably be Monday at the earliest that I get around to posting again because of this stag weekend. I should report on that and I've got a few other things on my mind that I'd like to unload.

Shoulda said this a while ago.

I suppose this is a post that's been a long time in the making. It's something that's been on my mind a little for quite a while now, but brought to the fore over the past few weeks with USHW's Xmas card and comments by OH, my subsequent questions here and a brief chat with USHW.

The fallout thing has always bothered me. It's something I've always said and my stance hasn't changed. However, OH did get wind that USHW and I shared a bed. He did read some rather lusty MSN conversations between us and despite the fact that USHW and myself did behave ourselves (which is quite impressive given the amount of booze we both had that weekend AND how much each of us was gagging for a fuck), there did end up being (IMHO) quite a lot of fallout.

It meant that USHW gave up a lot of her internet hobbies in order to try and make things right again with OH, which had the knock on effect of USHW going incommunicado for a while. I'm still not sure, but I do hope it was worth it.

Since then, I'm afraid to say, there's been a certain amount of discomfort concern on my part when USHW has been in contact (or vice-versa). Why is this? I guess it's a privacy thing. Knowing that OH had been reading USHW's chats, blog etc. in the past, I'm reluctant to go beyond being distant-but-friendly with USHW in case he starts again, or in case OH is sitting beside USHW as we converse across MSN. There's one method of communication where I'm fairly certain OH doesn't have access to, and I've been a little more like myself on there, but even then, I'm still not 100% myself because of this concern.

I think the message in the Xmas card was a turning point. I don't think it's simply 'concern' any more. I think I am actually uncomfortable about it now and while I have barely restrained myself in the past from... well, I'd better not say, now there's no chance at all of posting anything untoward, I think.

What does this all mean? I'm not sure. It does mean that USHW and I will never get back to how our original conversations would go, which were often extremely sexual in nature and often simply a series of questions and sometimes flirty. Maybe our conversations will simply have to raise themselves from the gutter and we can talk about "proper" things instead of describing in detail what we'd do to each other if we ended up in a hypothetical week in a hotel room together (a point that a recent flirty conversation had practically reached before fading away). Maybe that's a good thing, though?

This is probably something I should have mentioned to USHW a long time before now and directly to her instead of one-sided on my own blog, but to be honest, I wasn't sure WHY I felt uncomfortable. I hope that if/when she comes by to read, she understands. I'm sure she will… after giving me a good kick to the nuts, that is.

[This post has been updated as I've had time to sit down and really consider what I've written. The original post was made in a bit of a hurry because I wanted to say something at least.]

Weeeeeeird.

I meant to post this a few days ago. It's something that's been bothering me for a little while now.

I posted a few weeks ago about getting an Xmas card from USHW. That's not unusual... USHW's sent me cards before. What was confusing was that this time, OH had countersigned the card.

Why's that weird? Well, go back to any of the posts in April 2005 and this one here to see why that's weird. All it's done is prompt lots of questions.

Bye bye 2006! Hello 2007!

So, 2007. Not a great start admittedly as I stayed in tonight. There was a distinct lack of urgency with my mates about heading out tonight, which is disappointing as I'm a really big fan of the New Year and would loved to have been out tonight. I didn't want to get landed with the organisation of another night out. I did one on Friday and it was a huge pain in the arse and one of the guys, BW, had accepted responsibility for tonight. We were apparently going to an outdoor concert which was called off at lunchtime due to the weather, though BW didn't actually get around to making alternative arrangements until 7pm. Daft bastard.

Still, back to work on Tuesday, with a new position in a new team and a pay rise and lots of other good things to look forward to, plus the dating site (I've still not made up my mind totally, but A has been giving me a hand with my profile, just in case) and Pretty Blonde is still very much on the cards (still assuming we see each other outside of a work environment).

I've sent my quota of text messages to those that would appreciate them, including as sneaky one to V. I realised a few months ago that the number I had stored for V was probably wrong and that I suspected that previous text messages were never delivered, but I hope that's been rectified now. It's just a matter of waiting to see if she replies or even if she remembers who I am seeing as it's now about two years since we last spoke. Actually, come to think of it, I'm not even sure she'll reply... when I returned from the States, I sent her a present to thank her for her hospitality while I was out there and never got any kind of reply in return. Shame.

It's late now, and I was kind of hoping for an early night, so bed time for me.