Cheers.

In the middle of the afternoon, earlier today, and I was struck by a, well, I dunno what I would call it. It felt like a combination of memory, a daydream and a craving. And it was over a warm summer's evening, it's around 8 or 9 PM and I'm at a bar with friends, sitting outside, just having a chill beer and enjoying good company. It's a foreign vibe, though not necessarily requiring travel.

I want one of those now, so, so badly.

*yawn*

Gawd. I've had no sleep. Well, maybe about three hours, but I am already running on empty and I am literally just out of bed. My eyes are sore, I can't think and I just want to go to bed.

Thinking back.

I saw a couple of pictures on Reddit of Anna Kendrick and I got real CAB vibes off them. I know I've mentioned a certain resemblance before between CAB and AK, and that's true. AK is much thinner, but the vague shape of the face, the nose and the smile plus being a brunette all bring back strong CAB memories.

And while I am getting the vibes from these pictures CAB never, in the time I dated her, wore a skirt nor did she ever show off any cleavage. She was a  501s and t-shirt girl. She would have totally rocked showing off some cleavage though. She definitely had the assets for it.

Ponder.

KfW2 still hasn't confirmed next weekend yet, and typically, I now have a potential clash with a work event. I'm undecided. I want to be more social, but it would mean going out with Stalky Guy, and I'm still more than a little angry at him for his behaviour last time out.

I did ask Quiet Girl if she was free to attend, but she's got prior plans. I do think I need a third to come out to buffer myself and Stalky.

Heart Eyes.

 IMDB informs me that it's Jessica Alba's birthday today. So, have some pics.

Sigh.

Last night's night out with D, FBS etc. was very enjoyable. Opinionated Guy only showed briefly and I think the night was more enjoyable for it. I can take or leave him, but I think both D and Friction Guy actively dislike him. He's not part of our WhatsApp group, but that's his choice. FBS keeps him informed when we're arranging a night out.

I got a couple of great hugs off FBS, the first when we met and the second when the conversation turned to me and I shared the stuff that's been going on since last August. FBS was straight in for a hug.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I woke this morning with FBS on my mind. Specifically the period when we were hooking up. We did a lot of hugging and cuddling in the  lead up to us fucking for the first time, but it was the hugging and cuddling that was on my mind when I woke.

I really am touch starved.

Yes!

Optimistically, I might have something arranged with KfW2. We've just had a quick phone call and she suggested this weekend, and her kids were immediately "yeah, get Ruuude down!" However, I'm out with D, FBS etc. and they tend to be very drunken affairs and I'm beyond doing two late nights in a row these days.

But she quickly suggested the following week, and I was straight on for that immediately. She has to confirm that she has nothing planned, but if not, I'll head to her house one evening. I might even stay over, who knows?

But the important thing is that we have something tentatively arranged, the conversation has been started.

Scrub up.

Visits to the dentist are not the greatest way to start your week, but I took advantage of the decent-ish weather and walked there. It's just short of a mile and a half. And, y'know, women in scrubs.

My recent plan has been to try and get a short walk in before work in the morning. Nothing huge - whatever distance I can cover in about 15 - 20 minutes. From what I recall from my challenge with Random Internet Woman in November, and my own time this morning, that's roughly a mile.

The idea is to leave the house for a bit plus get some exercise in.

The suspected plantar fasciitis has eased a lot recently but, as I discovered as I reached the dentist, not totally gone. But the fact that it is easing is a huge positive.

Dance to the music.

Back in the day, I spent a lot of time in what would become known as CB Pub. FP, G and a lot of others from school would regularly have nights out there, especially if there were bands playing. One of our favourite bands played Blues Brothers type music and they were very good.

In my late teens and early 20s, I saw them a lot. Then they disappeared and I saw them infrequently. They were the band that BW and I went to see when I met CAB. They were the band I was watching when I met R2. They played at AM's wedding. I took FA2 to see them a few times and she was both impressed and annoyed that she got me to dance. Impressed that she liked me dancing, annoyed in that I didn't do it often.

Anyhoo, this is all preamble. Guess who's playing CB Pub in two months time? Yup. Now, who can I go with?

Coincidence.

Every now and again, the company I work for puts on a bit of an event to encourage people to come into the office. There's usually a free, themed, lunch. And to be fair, it works reasonably well. Today was one of those days.

I managed to chat with a couple of ex-colleagues. "Ex" from the perspective that we've both moved on to different teams and no longer directly work together. One of those was SSCW. We must have spent 20 minutes, just chatting and catching up, interspersed with some banter. There's always banter with SSCW, it's just how we spark with each other.

Back home, I sat on the sofa with my dinner just a few minutes ago to continue on my semi-frequent rewatch of How I Met Your Mother. Season 5, Episode 10: "The Window". I'm pretty sure I've blogged about it before. Ted's date this episode is JoAnna Garcia Swisher, and I've definitely pointed out the similarity between her and SSCW. So this post isn't really to draw attention to that, but more to comment on the coincidence of seeing SSCW today with this episode being the next one I was due to watch.

Hah!

Years ago, when I was doing the online hobby, I had a reputation of being... a dick. Obviously, that's not my take on it. I'd be analytical, probably to a fault. Some people appreciated it, a lot of people didn't. Egos were bruised when given the slightest criticism.

I'm not going to lie, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the indignation when I got private messages from them, demanding to know how to increase my rating of their work. I did not, however, do it deliberately. The work was rated according to my own rules within the guidelines of the sites I visited.

And so to today. I'm semi-active on Reddit. A few months ago, someone posted a short story that I described as being off-topic. I rated appropriately and moved on. The author commented a little while later, disagreeing with me.

And today, they posted another link. this time, it wasn't a short story. It was a blog post. And the blog post was 1000 words trying to justify their original posting. The author didn't try to engage with me directly, nor did they try to engage with the community. Nope, they wrote a blog post on their own website that was littered with links to their other work and dressed it up as a muse on creative writing.

And that immediately took me back 20 years to the online hobby days.

If you don't have skin thick enough to take the criticism, don't post your work online. And that'#s an issue I see regularly with content creators these days just spamming Reddit with links to their websites or YouTube.

Lookalikes

I've settled down for an afternoon of football on the telly, and it strikes me that the presenter, Kelly Cates, gives me serious QC1 vibes.

Ah FFS.

Grrr. I sat indoors yesterday, bemoaning my inability to get out and exercise when the weather was lovely, and today I'm sat indoors and bemoaning that I can't go out and mow my back garden because the weather is rubbish.

I will, though, spend the time trying to source someone to come and do some work. I have a fence that I want built, that would instantly improve the look of my garden that I've been meaning to do for years.

Heel and oh!

It's a nice day here, weather-wise. I'd love to be out for a walk. I want to get into a routine of going out before and after work and doing a short 20-minute or so walk. It's not just the exercise (though when I was doing Random Internet Woman's challenge back in November, I really did feel better once I'd gotten a few lunchtime walks under my belt), but just the act of getting outdoors.

So, yeah, I want to get into that routine.

But I can't shift this plantar fasciitis. I've had it about a month now and it's showing no signs of going away. I did do a 2-mile walk on it with Nerdy Girl, but I'm reluctant to do something more regular. I have, over the past few days, started massaging it (I had completely forgotten I'd ordered a massage gun from Amazon in October). hopefully that speeds up my recovery.

I've got my eye on a new fitness tracker too, once this PF goes away.

Going out out.

Today was a day in the office. Nothing to report apart from bumping into D on my way home. We were going in different directions so we only got a few seconds to talk. Our night out is arranged with Friction Guy, D, FBS and presumably Opinionated Guy. It's two weeks tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it.

I've not heard back from M. I'll probably have to take the lead on that one as well. A job for tomorrow, I think.

And getting a conversation with KfW2 is becoming increasingly more frustrating. I have, at least, spoken to her more recently than CC has.

Yummy.

CC sent a message.

"Dinner?"

"Yup"

And off we went. Now I'm full of sushi and hot and sour soup. Yum. And while dinner is itself not a reason to post, it was more that CC was surprisingly good company. Ordinarily, I would get angry as she would go into lecture mode, but not today. And she was all the more pleasant for it.

And another thing...

I'm still livid at the Stalky Guy situation from last night. I don't know if he has social anxiety issues, but if he has, the way he behaved last night is still wrong. Join the group and just settle in, and chat if you want to.

He's just so closed-minded about... everything really.

But I meant to post last night that I think QG admitted her age, which is something that I've wondered about a few times. It seems that she's closer to my age than I had thought. I'd assumed she was mid-to-late 30s, but she's older than that.

Nothing really other than an interesting titbit of information.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Fucking hell. I've never been more embarrassed in my life. Work night out. Stalky Guy turns up, and we walk to the venue. We meet Quiet Girl. We meet other people from work. Stalky Guy takes three steps back from the group and talks at me. Not with me, at me.

"FFS. Get in here." I point at the circle of people.

He refuses.

I won't go into details, but this lasts three hours. I'm trying to talk to QG and the others. But SG pipes in with fucking insular nonsense that no one else will get and pertains only to us.

QG wants to talk to me but SG won't let up. It's like he won't engage with anyone but me. He hogs my attention.

I am really fucking angry at how immature and puerile SG is. I've never seen a person so socially clueless as he is.

On the plus side, QG and I did get a chance to talk and we had a great time. SG can fuck off, though.

Don't touch.

Despite suffering what I think is Plantar Fasciitis, Nerdy Girl and I still managed to walk nearly 3 miles. Then we capped it by nipping into CB Pub for food and a chat. And chat we did... until nearly 10 PM. it was great seeing her. I don't think we've seen each other since January. We covered a load of topics, but the one that's worth commenting on was NG's theory that there are new generations of older stars that look alike.

The only example she was able to give was Kiera Knightley being an older version of Daisy Ridley. I seem to recall suggesting something similar in an old blog post where I also suggested that E's Sister vaguely resembled one (or both) of these women. If memory serves, it was one of the rare occasions when USHW agreed with my lookalikes.

So I regaled NG with stories of how E used to threaten violence against anyone hitting on her sister when she came out to the pub with us.

What to say.

Two semi-random thoughts popped into my head today. The first is that I still haven't messaged Random Internet Woman since she shared that email wasn't a good medium for her. I have been meaning to reply, but a combination of illness that hung around too long (Covid, I think) and family stuff meant that I have been super-distracted.

While I have no real plans, at the moment, to continue conversing with her, I don't want to ghost her in this way. I should, at least, just drop her a message and explain.

The other was a memory of F from, I think, around 2004. She was ill, though she never shared what that illness was. Serious enough that it would involve a hospital visit and, I think, surgery. She had gone to a lot of trouble to write a load of letters to various friends and family, and that included me. She never shared what was in the letters though suggested that she might eventually, one day, share it, just to amuse herself. She never did, but every now and again, when the memory pops into my head, I wonder what was in it.