March 8–9, 2002 — Partial to life without

As I’m sure you’ll be shocked (shocked!) to hear, I didn’t succeed in finishing getting everything online by Saturday night as planned. I didn’t really even try. It was too nice a day and I wasn’t terribly enthused by the idea of spending much (if any) time in front of a computer.

But wait! We’re skipping the joys of Friday, and we can’t have that.

On Friday, I actually did manage to get some work done on the site before heading to the smoothie bar: I can now post journals without worrying about the punctuation or paragraph structure being thrown off, which is a huge load off of my mind. And off of yours, too, I’m sure.

And then I went to work.

There were a couple of people with guitars at work when I arrived. The first song they played while I was there was an Oasis cover; this did little to endear them to me.

It turns out that my boss had given them free sandwiches to stay and play for awhile. Which they did for a couple of hours, taking a break when the fire alarm went off (for reasons that were never explained to me). Nathan and I stayed inside during the fire alarm and did dishes; I wore Kleenex ear plugs, and it wasn’t all that bad once I was used to the dull ringing noise in my ears.

Then the fire alarm stopped and the guitar-playing fellows returned. My boss told them to play one of their own songs that they’d played earlier, and then she came over to me. “This is a song about Jesus. What did you call music like this?” she asked. “Christian rock,” I replied, shuddering to myself and trying to hide my obvious bias. (While I was in Amato’s the other day, MuchMusic was on, and I saw a computer-animated Creed video; I concluded that Creed had ruined Christian rock for everyone and that I no longer need to feel guilty about writing it off. With Jars of Clay remaining as a possible exception to the rule.)

In the end, they were a lot more musically talented than I’ll ever be, and they had good voices, but I don’t think I had the proper mindset for live music when I arrived at work. Work goes faster when there’s nothing to distract me from drone mode, after all...

Nathan and I finished our shifts while our boss took the Christian rock duo next door. One of the two eventually came back, unable to deal with the atmosphere of a restaurant in the heart of the gay village. He asked me if I was straight, and congratulated me with a complicated handshake when I said that I was. He seemed rather relieved and proceeded to show me pictures of a naked girl in an email that he’d received from a porn site.

Nathan and I eventually finished cleaning and left. I went straight home and talked to Kerry on the phone for awhile. (Probably for too long: She was late for work the next day because she slept through her alarm.) Then, sleep.

Saturday was a fairly lazy day. I got all dressed up for a trip to the grocery store shortly after waking up (and after finding that there wasn’t much food that I could eat). Immediately upon stepping outside, I realized that I was overdressed and went back inside to shed a few layers. I was almost uncomfortably warm wearing just a hooded sweatshirt. But it was still a very nice feeling.

Encouraged by the warm weather, I ran a few errands and ended up back at home by the middle of the afternoon.

I should’ve tried to accomplish something, but I just read instead. Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk, mostly. I should really finish reading all of my unread books before I move onto Johnston’s, but it made sense at the time.

The weather became violent while I was reading. The wind was pushing sheets of raindrops into my window and it felt like the end of the world.

Johnston and I left for Jeff and Amy’s house when the rain died down, and there were fallen tree branches on the sidewalk that we dodged on the way to catch a streetcar. The fallen branches weren’t much of a surprise given that I had watched a recycling bin blow down the street during the height of the storm, but they still remind me a little bit of the ice storm that hit Ottawa a few years ago. So it’s notable to me.

We stayed at Jeff and Amy’s house until everyone but us was ready to leave for an indie rock club night (of sorts).

Then we went home. I sent some email and talked to Kerry on the phone again. Part of me wanted to stay awake and to read, but I decided against it.

There were problems canceling a couple of hosting accounts that I had setup, so that’s apparently going to cost me $150 or so. Ideally the people associated with those accounts will help me out with it, but I have a feeling I’m going to be stuck paying it. Luckily some other money that I’m owed that I thought was lost forever will be on its way within a couple of weeks. So I should still come out ahead.

I hate how concerned I’ve had to become with money and budgeting and silly things like that. I barely make enough to live off of at my current job, though, so it’s something of an issue.

And having to spend almost a week’s worth of wages to cancel accounts that I’m not using anymore is never a good feeling.

I should go to work.