Planning.

On top of the already busy holiday period coming up, I'm trying to get nights organised out with QC2 and FBS, D etc. plus possibly M and FP. D messaged me today asking if I'd heard from FBS, but beyond a quick chat a few weeks ago, I've heard nothing.

Ideally, I'd like to see DSC as well, but she's getting increasingly more difficult to get out and we don't talk as much as we used to now she's essentially given up on the internet.

A kinda KfW2-centric digest.

KfW2's fiancé has somehow gotten into his head that GB and I get along really well and, on more than one occasion, has suggested to KfW2 that we should get together, romantically speaking. Ignoring my rule/guideline about dating co-workers, I really don't see that it would ever happen - while she's a friend, there's absolutely zero in the way of chemistry between us and I'm struggling to think if she ticks ANY of the boxes for what I would look for in a girl.

KfW2 reported yesterday that her fiancé is going to spend time on our big day out playing cupid between myself and GB. I think he'll be wasting his time.

Since I introduced GB and KfW2 at my birthday, they've been quite friendly. GB has a habit of getting in with other female friends - GM has also hinted in conversations (as a matter of fact, not as a complaint or anything) that GB makes herself friendly with his girlfriends (and that's backed up by a quick browse through GB's Facebook friends list). I dunno where I'm going with this line of thought, but it was something I was thinking about yesterday based on a conversation I was having with KfW2 at the time and recollecting the night there was perceived cock-blocking with CH.

And finally, I was out last night for a work-related thing and a few comments were made regarding my friendship with KfW2. I was more than a little bit tipsy, so I don't know if the others were being snidey or if it was just a little bit of friendly piss-taking, but there were comments made about my presence at KfW2's wedding and a comment about the fiancé having to share KfW2 with me. I guess it's just testament to how close we are, though we've certainly not given off any signs that might confuse anyone unlike me and CH, for example.

Meh.

I think I've been in a bit of a slump over the past few weeks, but it's a general malaise, not something I can sit down and put my finger on as a cause. Obviously, if that's the case, then trying to figure out what I have to do to fix it is more than a little difficult.

I know that KfW2 has annoyed/disappointed me this week, and there's the ongoing disappointment with the two housemates, but I don't think that they're the root cause of my current slump. It might just be the onset of winter, or some other intangible reason.

I have lots to look forward to over the next five or so weeks, socially, so if I haven't snapped out of it by then, maybe that'll do the job.

Sometimes I think I expect too much from people...

I knew it was coming right from Monday, but KfW2 was asking me this morning if I would come down and meet her and her ex-team mates in the pub on the day we were meant to be heading out. I refused. I know one of them quite well, but the other two I only know to nod to and that's it. She tried to talk me into it and I left it with a curt "We'll see", but I won't go down. Part of that is that I don't like turning up to other people's things and part of me is trying to make a point. About an hour later, she was then talking about taking the original day out to put up her Xmas tree, so without actually saying so, the plans I had originally made have all been scuppered. Of course I'm disappointed, but more with the fact she's made arrangements with others when she already had arrangements with me. She did this before with CC's birthday and I just think it's a bit off.

In other news, MfW is making comments about the fact that our landlord "still" hasn't done thing things he'd said he would, three weeks after confirming them. This, coming from a man who still hasn't signed a lease that has been sitting 6 inches from where he eats breakfast for three and a half months.

FFS

MfW admitted today that he'd "found" the mailbox key in his car, after two months of implying that I'd lost it. And after taking a week off sick from work (he wasn't really ill though), the flat remains in no better state than it was seven days ago - floors un-mopped, bin un-emptied and housework generally un-attempted.

In addition, MfW is being a dick about our rental agreement that he's continued to ignore. The instructions on what to do are very clear and laid out in the letter by the landlord, but neither MfW or UF are seemingly paying it any attention and when they go to hand it in to the letting agent, it will be incomplete.

I'm continuing to move towards the idea of getting away from UF and MfW2 next summer when my tie-in period to the lease is up.

*sigh*

Last week, after a lot of discussion with KfW2 and CC, we arranged a day out. KfW2's fiancé couldn't make it due to work commitments and there were no other dates that suited, so we nailed down the day in question and made the necessary emails to everyone else, including GB and FP. As an addition, I had also agreed with KfW2 to go out with just her and me for a few drinks on another day. I enjoy my social time with KfW2 as we tend to get into more personal topics of conversation when it's just the two of us - more than we do when chatting in work or at lunchtimes.

Today, though, everything got shook up. KfW2 wanted to postpone our night out by two weeks, I think because her sister had asked her to do some (overnight) babysitting the night before our original day out and she didn't know when she'd be freed up to come out. As a knock on, the second day of just me and KfW2 was pretty much cancelled, as it was only a few days before the proposed rearranged day. It also turned out that she had arranged to meet up with a group of former team-mates for lunch that has now turned into an afternoon in the pub, the same day that we were meant to be heading out.

Now, this wasn't all done arbitrarily... she did ask if it suited and I made it clear that I was happy to rearrange the first day out, but that I still wanted to get her out to the pub for a few drinks possibly on the original day (she didn't actually explain WHY she wanted to re-arrange until a few hours later), and I'm sure she noticed that I wasn't particularly happy about all this re-arranging, though she hasn't yet said anything. I reckon it'll click in a day or so's time and she will ask if it annoyed me. She's done that in the past and she is pretty good at reading me.

It did, and she will be told this, not least because I had already started making plans around these days out, but because I hate making plans that are finalised with several people only for one person to want to change them with spurious reasons. I understand that it's her sister that needs the favour, but in my head it's not a life or death or last-minute thing and she'd already made arrangements with others and that's not on in my opinion.

Things could all still work out as she's said she'll try and work out if she can come out on the original day, but I got the feeling from talking to her that she wasn't really feeling it.

Challenge accepted!

A week or so ago, I was challenged to stop whining/complaining/talking about my fitness and health and do something about it. I've made plans before, but I'd always fallen over because I'd had grand schemes about putting together a series of meal plans that would help any weight loss and that by having these meal plans in place, I could safely nip off to Tesco or Sainsbury's and do my shopping, safe in the knowledge my pre-planning would mean I could always cook up something healthy and by having a lot of these meal plans, I'd never get bored eating chicken salad 6 days a week.

I've never completed that plan, so any token effort at doing more exercise always fell flat on its back as I'd learned that diet is far more important than exercise, plus I like booze too much (well, the boozing that went along with socialising). Trying to collate that kind of nutritional information is a lot harder than it seems as there's loads of it and it can all be very contradictory.

So, here we are again... another post about wanting to lose weight and get fitter. I have reasons this time beyond simply thinking that I should - KfW2's wedding, the corresponding trip away in the sun and a 10km run that I've signed up for next Spring.

I should start now, but the Christmas season is almost upon me, so any thought of cutting out the booze or going on a diet is pretty pointless, so I have come up with a two stage solution:

Stage 1 (pre-Xmas):
100 Pushups
200 Situps
Some Planking exercise
Reduce portion size of food
Go to the gym when possible

That's stage one and should see me through until Xmas. There's not a lot there that can go wrong and it's more about bedding in good habits than looking for results. Sit ups and push ups I can do in the house without any special equipment and should get me in the mindset of setting aside an hour a day for exercise.

Stage 2 (post-Xmas):
Go to the gym regularly and make it a routine.
Change diet to eat more healthily and avoid fast food and junk - possibly formulate a diet plan.
Cut down on the booze, at least for the first couple of months.
Start proper training for the 10km race (I can do some in the gym, but there's no substitute for road running)

And that should be enough to get started. Hopefully, if things are going well, I can look at the post-Xmas plan and tailor it accordingly to something a bit more ambitious if things are going well.

More house stuff.

Our postbox key has been missing for nearly four months. Typically, all I get is my wage slip and anything work-related - everything important is sent to my parents house where I pick it up every week or so. However a while ago, the postbox key went missing for about 6 weeks until I happened to come across it in my laptop bag by accident.

So, I 'fessed up, but made a decision that someone else could check for mail, given the amount of incessant complaining that MfW did about it.

When it went missing a second time, of course, MfW was straight on at me, despite my protestations that I'd not actually used it since I found it again. Every few weeks, MfW would ask again if it had been found, which it hadn't. I'd always suspected that MfW had lost it - he does have a fairly good record for being forgetful, and I can point to various incidents like leaving the fridge door open, leaving the patio doors wide open, leaving the iron on and quite a few others, and that's only in the last six months. UF was out of the picture because, well, he pretty much does fuck all around the house, so the chances of him checking the mailbox for our place is pretty much zero.

Yesterday, when I came home from work, there was three months worth of mail sitting on the kitchen table and the mailbox key was in its rightful place in with the rest of the communal keys in the hallway. Go figure.

In addition, despite asking the housemates to sign the lease that we've had since the summer, they've done nothing about it. When the landlord phoned me yet again last week to chase it up, in a weary tone of voice I told her to chase up MfW and UF as they were the weak link.

When talk to UF about it earlier, he said it was all in control  that MfW had already signed and he was going to do it on Sunday... except MfW had only signed one copy, not both, and hadn't followed any of the instructions that were set out in a clear and understandable way in the landlord's letter.

These people are meant to be intelligent, for fuck sake.

Social season starts

I did no work today, I think it's safe to admit, but my social diary got a lot of action. KfW2 and I arranged a few trips to the pub, MM messaged me on Facebook and asked if I would go on a blind date with a friend of a friend of hers (I can't as I am already booked up that night) and I was in contact with CH about our next work event which is due to happen in about two weeks (she has a prior engagement and can't make it, but was strangely touched by how disappointed I was by that).

Between now and the end of the year, I can guarantee that I have at least one social/pub engagement every week... and obviously more will arise as the time goes on. I'm kinda looking forward to it as well!

Time wasting.

Someone, UF I think, has put the washing machine on. I've been out of the house all evening and only returned at near 11PM and it sounded like the cycle had only started half an hour previously. I am now seriously considering moving out when our lease next expires because I am fed up of both UF and MfW being lazy and selfish around the house - the door slamming and late night noise is more annoying than the lack of housework, but that's still a reasonably big bugbear as it is, never mind the fact that I'm the one that has to chase them up for everything.

So, I'm not going to get any sleep until the cycle ends, so here's a post I meant to make earlier, but never had the time:

Years ago, around 2004, I used to spend a lot of time on MSN chatting to various people - F, A, K and others. K and I had met a few times - at gigs, she came over to visit with a mutual acquaintance, I met her a few times in London etc. when I was there and she was good fun to talk to. We eventually ended up fucking one night, ish. It's a long story and I may have explained it before, but I'm not sure. Anyway, one night that I can remember, K suggested that we were flirting. I disagreed, citing that flirting was all about sexual chemistry and that I didn't see us as being in that place (and it was true... until the night we had sex, I genuinely hadn't given it any thought). 

Well, I was swapping messages with JB earlier. We've not spoken in a bit, but she popped up today and we chatted about Xmas, presents and stuff, she "demanded" that I buy her a party dress while I was teasing her about going on a date (it's a joke between us) and then we talked about Xmas party plans and how if she didn't go on the date, I wouldn't buy her an outfit and she'd have to turn up in her underwear. Halfway through the conversation, for some reason, the conversation with K popped into my head (hence the rambly introduction above) and the notion that JB and I were flirting. 

I've said it before, nothing will ever happen (well, never say never, but I can't see it) and if it does it'll be physical - she's cute, but she's far too high maintenance for my tastes.

More (unexplained) dreams.

I used to be quite friendly with a cute blonde girl who was in my class at school. Apart from Sunday School (yes, yes, I know), we didn't see each other out of school, but we had decent banter and I knew her brother (who went to a different school) from other stuff I did during the week and weekends.

Apart from one night in the pub, about five years ago when I was out with my brother-in -law, I've not seen her in 20 years... and I haven't spoken to her in that time which made last night's dream all the weirder.

We were both at a party, chatting away, but I spent the entire time trying to make a move on her, of which she was oblivious. That was pretty much it as far as I remember... there was no actual ending where I managed to pull her or she rejected me, I think I just kinda woke up.

Memory like a sieve.

A while ago, I was having a fairly explicit conversation with a friend of mine. We were discussing the contents of a website that contained (amongst other things) two lists: a list of sexual positions and a bucket list of sex. One of the things on the list was to have sex with someone young enough to be your son/daughter. Bearing in mind that I'm way beyond the wrong side of 35, that's not taking me anywhere near anything illegal should I ever act upon it. (In fact, as an aside, after having this conversation with my friend, I did actually go out and do just that a little while later).  It's never been a huge turn on/goal to fuck someone that's much younger than me, but when I did mention this to my friend, I did have someone in mind: one of the staff at my favourite pub. She's early 20s, cute, brunette, has a great rack and a wicked sense of humour. There's always a lot of perving going on when she's on duty (and especially as the beer flows).

Last night we were in that pub for MfW's birthday, myself, S, UF and another friend were there with MfW's new girlfriend. The cute bar girl was on duty and we duly had our usual quota of banter with her, but she's now pregnant. Not that being pregnant is a bad thing or particularly shocking, but I'm nearly sure that when I last saw her about four weeks ago, she wasn't seven months pregnant as she admitted last night. My memory is shocking.

It was also lookalike night as well - when "perusing" the totty, there was a lovely looking girl who was very reminiscent of Gabby Logan (same kind of figure  face shape etc.) that UF and I were admiring. We left that bar before we could make any contact though and went to a nearby club where I got chatting to this stunning blonde girl that I had started to chat to and dance with before realising that she was actually married. She reminded me a lot of Elizabeth Banks, but she was great fun and I haven't danced as much in a long time.

When things get interesting, they get interesting.

In the lead up to GB's birthday night out, I was swapping text messages with CH. I'd made a point of deciding that I wasn't going to show up at 5PM like everyone else. I was going to leave it until 6:30 or 7PM before showing up - I had the day off and was chilling out (and kinda recovering from two nights drinking too), but then CH asked when I would be there, so I gave her a rough time.

I was approximately 15 minutes later than I had said to CH, and she had started texting me pretty much as soon as the time had passed that I'd said (even though I'd said that it was only a rough estimate).

When I arrived, I did a lap of the bar, socialising with those that I needed to (teammates etc.) before sitting at the table with GB, MF and CH amongst others.  Eventually, CH and I got into a conversation of our own that covered a wide variety of things including (if I can remember this correctly) CH mentioning that it was predicted that we wouldn't get along. I think people thought that by introducing us, there'd be a lot of friction - the both of us are strong personalities in our own way. However, that wasn't to be the case and we hit it off immediately.

GM and CC were also there and they popped in and out of our conversation from time to time, but for a good while it was just the two of us. Plus, I think CC was shocked at some of the conversation topics. Between visits we were talking about breasts (CH's), boob jobs (CH wants one) and giving your partner a blowjob while he's driving (CH did it, GM and myself have never been on the receiving end and CC never did it). CH is very forthright at times and will quite happily talk about anything at all. At least, I've never heard her being reluctant to talk about anything.

Eventually, it was just CH and I at the bar, doing shots and talking. During the conversation, CH actually asked me to kiss her. No snogging or anything, just a peck on the lips. I was happy to oblige, but I can't help but feel that this is not normal, platonic behaviour and with the night in general being a work thing, I do have to consider the office gossip grapevine to a certain extent.

S then turned up, GM came over, CC popped by and we all had a bit of a laugh. CH then got talking to another friend of ours while I ended up talking to CC, S and GM. I was standing with my back to CH at this stage and, like the last night we were out, she indulged in a bit of surreptitious arse grabbing which I'm sure no-one else saw.

Later, CC asked me outside and proceeded to question me about GM. It's a crush she's had for a while now. KfW2 hinted about it months ago - that a friend of hers (who she wouldn't name) - had a huge crush on GM, but GM is a man who's not single for very long. I answered her questions as best I could, though I did make it clear that he was younger than she thought and that his relationships didn't last very long. CC then asked me about CH... she implied that we seemed to be very friendly. My answer was that CH was married with three kids which seemed to satisfy her curiosity. It's not a proper answer to her question, but she was drunk, so hopefully she'll not give it any more thought.

While it's not an issue to me, I've often just considered that CH and I have great chemistry - but I have great chemistry with other women that's purely platonic - KfW2, DSC etc. We hit it off the very second I sat down at the table with GB during that one coffee break two years ago and while I don't see us as being proper friends (we only see each other at company events and swap the odd banter text message). However, over the past few nights we've been out, I think CH might have something less than platonic going on. I don't think she'll ever act upon it outside of the arse grabbing and the odd peck kiss, and if she ever does, then I'll deal with it then. It's something to be aware of, but  nothing to be worried about, if that makes sense.

No title required

Had a few drinks with G last night, catching up and swapping news. G's probably my oldest friend and I should probably be in contact more often than I am (I really only swap the odd email or meet up when he's in town).

He might be coming out tonight, and it would be good if he did. It's a shame that KfW2 isn't coming out cos she's mentioned wanting to meet a few of my friends in the past. She's already met FP and his wife and thinks they're ace.

Early-ish start to the evening too, so I get to do a bit of chilling out with my day off before hitting the pub.

Meh.

My dad is involved with the running of a charity and they're having a fund raiser tonight. I'm not going though, for two reasons: first, I don't particularly agree with how my dad runs the charity (lots of little things that stop the charity from really going back to its roots and being much larger than it currently is) and second, G is home and we've tentatively agreed to meet up. He should be in contact any time now and we'll arrange a time and place for a few drinks.

I don't know where I'm going with this...

...but I am slightly tipsy and have been somewhat "blonde" all day, so my thought processes are all over the place.

I was talking to KfW2 today about fancy dress - more specifically her penchant for dressing up. She was complaining that it had been ages since she had last done it and that if she had been going to GB's birthday celebrations this weekend (as she had hoped to do), then she would have definitely worn her favourite fancy dress outfit and that she hasn't done enough dressing up since getting together with her now fiance.

Now, as I may have stated before, KfW2 is a (in my opinion) stunning brunette and as I am only a lowly male, you can, as the Americans say, do the math: cute female, brunette, fancy dress.

Now, CH sent a text earlier asking if anyone else was going in fancy dress to GB's birthday, but I said that I didn't know. CH wouldn't care if no-one else turned up in fancy dress, she's confident enough to do her own thing (something that ticks boxes regardless).

So for a small window of opportunity, it looked as if both CH and KfW2 were both going to turn up at GB's in fancy dress. Camera time, methinks. Or was going to be... until KfW2 had to pull out cos of an in-law family commitment. Damnit.

Still... JB and her cute mate are turning up in fancy dress. Perv time if nothing else.

Oh, so that's where I end up when drunk tipsy posting: I end up looking like a pervert. Bugger.