Que sera sera

Right about now, I should be leaving the house to meet KfW2 for dinner and drinks. A "date" that I've been trying to arrange for ages and something I've been looking forward to for a long time. However, family stuff has gotten in the way and it hasn't yet resolved itself.

The expectation was that it could have been finished, or this stage finished, a few days ago, but it's just taking a long time to get to the point that my sister and I want to be.

KfW2 has been in touch daily since we decided to rain check. As much as her flakiness can frustrate me, when she needs to step up, when things get serious, she can be relied on.

Free failing.

Another recurring dream of mine last night: that I'd failed my university exams. It's always university exams, never GCSEs or A-Levels. And the dream's always the same: I know I've failed them, I was totally under-prepared and I have to sit there while my peers celebrate their exams.

The relief when I wake and realise that my university years were 30 years ago and I'll likely never have to sit an actual exam ever again is palpable.

When I have recurring dreams like this, I always remember back to FBS's house. She had a book about understanding dreams. On her bedside cabinet? Beside the sofa in the living room? I can't recall the exact details.

Apparently a dream about failing exams usually means you feel anxious, stressed, or underprepared for a challenge in your waking life. 

Plot twist.

Until yesterday, part of me had expected KfW2 to invite CC to our dinner and drinks. It was a gut feeling. I was getting the same vibes as I had done from a few years ago where KfW2 refused to commit to a time for dinner and when I tried to book something, options were limited.

When I offered her the choice of where to go and the times, she threw a huff and shared that she'd also invited CC, and we ultimately met for dinner at a restaurant near her house (20 miles away) and that was it - no drinks after or anything.

So, yeah, given her inability/reluctance to nail down a time for dinner, I was getting those vibes again. 

But then it turns out that I'd forgotten that CC's in Portugal with GB. A fact that I was only reminded about when GB posted on Facebook. Lots of pictures of food, no pictures of CC in a bikini.

So...

The decision was taken out of my hands... ish. KfW2 phoned and we chatted. I shared the news and she immediately offered to rain check. That was never in doubt, really. She might be flaky when it comes to nights out but she's understanding and empathetic, and that's why I value our time together, and alone, because when I do open up, she's always there.

Well, fuck.

The bad news that I was hoping to share with KfW2 at the weekend has gotten worse to the point where I might actually have to rain check the dinner "date" with KfW2 on Saturday.

Part of me thinks I should call her tonight and just do it, but part of me thinks that things could stretch out for a week or so and I really could do with a night out with someone who wasn't family. So that part of me is thinking that I give it 24 hours before I make a decision.

Finally!

It's only taken a week and FOUR requests, but KfW2 has, at last, told me when she's free this weekend. I've managed to book the restaurant and now I pivot to a different kind of stress. Will she be on time? 

Oh, and she's invited someone out to join us after food. They may or may not come out. Sigh. I'm really disappointed that she doesn't get it by now, that getting her out, on her own, is a big deal to me. It was only a few days ago that I told her I was really looking forward to this night out.

I have news to share. It's not good news, though it's not unexpected. But it's the type of news that, once shared, would make anyone feel guilty that meeting up, face to face, is this much work. It's news that she will want to know.

But, y'know, even with it all, I'm looking forward to it, to seeing her and having at least an hour or so to ourselves at the very least. 

What time is it?

One of the last things I wanted to accomplish today was to nail down a time for Saturday for meeting KfW2 for dinner and drinks. Regular readers will know that this is always an issue when do manage top agree on a date. KfW2 has a blind spot for this and I always have to ask several times for her to tell me what time she's free. Like really force it out of her.

I'm single and free all weekend. She's married with kids, so has a husband and the kids to work around. It's not like I can simply book something and she can work round it. For all I know, she wants a mid-afternoon start and a mid-evening finish. And I'd be all for that. But it could be a lunchtime thing (I hope not) or an actual evening thing (very unlikely).

I've already asked her twice and I am just off the phone, having left a voicemail, to make three times in total over the last six days. So that's three times in total I've explicitly asked her for a time. Sigh. 

Great success!

The good news is that I accomplished most of what I wanted to do today. And the stuff that didn't get done was because I can't find the paperwork or I'm waiting for other stuff to be completed before I can move forwards.

I'm glad. I genuinely thought, at lunchtime, that this was going to be a wasted day of annual leave, but three phone calls, two emails, a bank transfer and two-and-a-bit hours later and I'm wrapping up.

I was supposed to be meeting Nerdy Girl this evening for a walk, but she's yet to confirm. It wouldn't bother me if she didn't confirm: I'm exhausted. Doing that stuff today was emotionally taxing. Though the weather's nice, so a walk would be pleasant.

Oh, and as I am typing this out, NG has rain checked this evening.

Shhhhh!

I did end up taking today off work, but I've not yet start the stuff I want to do. A builder has turned up to finish off the work that was started a few weeks back and he's creating a hell of a noise, so me being on the phone trying to sort stuff out isn't happening. 

I'm useless on the phone at the best of times, so having this distraction is something I could do without. Hopefully though the guy will be finished before lunch and I will have the afternoon to get the three or four phone calls (and other things) completed.

Who are you?

I didn't get the stuff done today that I was planning yesterday, but it wasn't due to laziness. Rather, I got sidetracked into doing some house stuff like prepping the garden for winter:, packing up the garden furniture, mowing and trimming the lawn etc.

It actually makes sense that I do the other stuff tomorrow because I might have to make some phone calls. The downside is that I might have to take tomorrow off, if I want to get everything done, because they're not the kind of tasks I can do in 5 mins if I get some quite time while working.

I did sleep well last night and woke refreshed this morning. I do recall a dream, or at least a bit of a dream that featured CAB. In the dream I was at a party, possibly at KfW2's house, and she introduced to me a friend. When I looked up, her friend was standing with his "plus one" who was CAB who, for some reason, didn't recognise me.

I don't remember a lot more about the dream than that, but it provoked a smile when I recalled it when I woke. And a little nostalgia about CAB, of course. 

Urgh.

I was quite drunk last night. I got a decent night's sleep, but struggled to get out of bed this morning. After indulging in some 'me time', I eventually got out of bed just before 11 AM. But I've been feeling muggy all day. I always do after a night out drinking.

I'm already looking forward to my bed tonight and having a clearer head tomorrow. I have stuff I need to do that requires concentration. 

Back chat.

I've posted before about my appreciation for women's backs and, by extension, women in backless dresses. So I was pleasantly surprised to see this picture of Desi Lydic around the recent Emmys. I think I've posted her before because when she does hosting duties on The Daily Show, she wears suits. And i love women in suits.

But this backless dress is doing things for me. I love the backless dresses that go all the way to the base of the spine - I think they're incredibly sexy.

 

 

Go me!

Years ago, one of my online hobbies (the one most frequently referenced on this blog), was writing consumer reviews. I got paid for it (pennies), but it was fun, there was a bit of a community (I 'met' A, F, K, USHW and others). Writing helped me order my thoughts and improved my written communication. At least, I believe the latter to be true. I guess only someone else can actually say whether it was good or not.

Regardless, it wasn't all consumer reviews. Sometimes it was creative writing (urgh) and sometimes it was opinion pieces. It's the latter that I want to talk about. I wrote a piece on artificial intelligence. It randomly popped into my head earlier, so off I went to find it. It's no longer available online, but most of my work was drafted in Microsoft Word and I still have copies of most of my pieces from then.

So the last edit date on the file is 11th October 2001. 25 years ago. And I have to say that it's fucking excellent. Well, maybe not excellent. My writing has improved a lot since then and I could be a lot more professional and clear if I were writing it today. But what is excellent are my predictions:

• Natural Language Processing
• Speech recognition
• Autonomous vehicles
• Image processing/recognition
• Chatbots
• Portable translators
• Programming assistance/debuggers 

That's not bad for 25 years ago, is it?

Safe to say that I am feeling quite chuffed with myself at this point. And I'm semi-disappointed that the websites in question no longer exist because I would be doing some serious gloating around now. There were a few members who claimed to be experts that were nowhere near as prescient as I was.

It's date time.

Today is an anniversary of sorts. It's the day I joined my current company. Well, it's not really. That was actually 2 weeks ago, but through some legal shit, they never counted the two weeks of training and I only signed my employment contract on this date. But this time twenty and a bit years ago, I was sent to the States to work for three months.

I remember telling F all about it - we were chatting regularly on MSN at the time. That was the trip where I met V. She was very excited for me.

I'd forgotten all about it until I got an email in work this morning from our HR system reminding me of the fact.

Oh, and it's also CC's birthday today. I sent her a message wishing her a happy birthday, but I am a little surprised she didn't suggest dinner.

Out and about.

I spoke with Ideas Girl today. She's part of our social committee, so she knows what's going on, what's being organised etc. Sadly, we're not having a Christmas party. We haven't had one since pre-Covid and I haven't been to one since, I dunno, 2016 maybe? But I quite liked the idea of getting dressed up again and putting on my suit.

And there's no work thing this month. Well, there is, but it's not our usual trip to the pub and it's on a Saturday night. Quiet Girl said she didn't know if she would go, but I'm already booked up. It's the same day that I'm taking KfW2 out for dinner.

Speaking of that, we've finally chosen a restaurant. It's one of KfW2's favourites, which I knew, but we try and go somewhere new and I couldn't think of anywhere. I might have posted before that KfW2 rarely makes decisions about these things.

All we need to do now is figure out a time. I'd prefer to meet late afternoon and maybe go to mid/late evening rather than an afternoon start and dinner time finish or a late start and late finish. But kfW2 is the one with commitments, so I've asked her. 

Feeling off.

I've been feeling off over the past 48 hours or so. I'm struggling a little to make sense of it. I'm definitely feeling overwhelmed, and that's being fed by the house stuff that I need to do and the logistics around that. 

The family stuff hasn't helped and it's ongoing - it'll take up some of my time today and tomorrow for sure. I took all last week as annual leave, but I don't feel recharged in the same way that I did with a week off at the start of July. There's other stuff going on as well, but I can't identify what it is or how to process it.

There might be an element of work stuff, but work's OK at the moment. It's just a general long-term worry that I have.

And the result, when I'm feeling this way, is that the loneliness kicks in. At least part of it is a need or desire to talk to someone. Someone close to me, but not family. Talking to my sister doesn't really scratch that itch. The night out with KfW2 will help, as long as there's no mucking about. And I haven't ruled that out and it's still 2 weeks away.

Not quite the Friday evening I had planned.

Sadly, I had yet another evening of indulging my appreciation of women in scrubs. Thankfully, it wasn't anything hugely urgent or life-threatening, but no-one wants to spend 5 hours sat around A&E waiting for a doctor to come "soon" to give you information about an elderly relatively illness.

And as cute as the nurse was who was attending to my relative, she was unable to offer anything concrete in terms of information or time scales. I left the hospital after midnight with no further information than I had when I first arrived at 7PM.

In fact, he wasn't actually seen until just before lunchtime today. That's over 12 hours lying in a bed in A&E before he was seen by a doctor. That gives you an idea of how serious the illness is but also how busy A&E was (or maybe how poor the A&E processes are that it took 15 hours for a 5-minute diagnosis).

Out and about.

FBS messaged last night. Not specifically to me, but in the group chat with D and Friction Guy. So we could potentially have a night out in October.

That means that before the end of October I could have about 4 nights out. Next Friday, I'm out with my sister at a pub quiz. the following week, I'm out with KfW2. Potentially there's a work night out at the end of September, and if not, a near-guaranteed one in October.

Plus this planned October night with FBS etc. 

I'm looking forward to them all. 

Weird.

I'd say that 90% of the work is now done. And that's all of the work internal to the house. Some bits and pieces to finish off outside, and that'll be this stage of the work done.

For some reason when the last guy left the house about an hour ago, the stress just left. I don't know why. I didn't feel that stressed. I mean, yes, I was stressed (I have posted as much about it this week), but I thought only a little. 

And horny too. Is that weird? Is there a link between stress and horniness? Literally, the second the guy drove off, the stress left and I got horny as hell.

There's still work for me to do: the entire house needs cleaned, vacuumed and mopped. While it wasn't as messy as I'd expected, there's still a fair amount of dust and rubbish generated. I also need to move some furniture around to compensate for my lack of usable space in the kitchen. But I can't be bothered with that right now. Those are jobs for tomorrow and the weekend.

Celeb-a-like

There's a woman who pops up in my online dating apps every now and then. She's attractive, has a great figure but isn't really doing anything for me. I swipe right every now and then, but nothing's ever come of it. And even if we did match, I'm not sure I'd progress anything. She gives off "high maintenance" vibes and that is sooooo not what I'm looking for.

But today's perusal of social media and up pops attractive comedian Ellie Taylor (you know where this is going, right?) and slap me silly if doesn't look like the online dating woman [in this particular photo]. I think it's the dark eye makeup that's doing it. The online dating woman seems to wear that all the time (at least in all her posted photos).

Ellie Taylor is a fine looking woman.