March 10, 2002 — A dazzling red glare

It was a cold Sunday.

I woke up to find only one email waiting for me (even though I’m expecting several). The one I did receive was from the person I need to send a money order to so that all debts will be paid regarding those hosting accounts that weren’t canceled in time.

I opened the Windows98 calculator program and figured out exactly how much the money order would end up costing me in Canadian dollars, and then how many hours of making smoothies that would equal. It was a depressing start to the day. I hate when it ends up costing me money to do people favours.

At the same time, though, it was never even a question of not sending the money order — the person who setup the accounts for me in the first place was doing it as a favour to me, so I certainly don’t want him to have the same complaint that I often have.

Or maybe it will all even out yet.

It was a slow day at work, and I was able to close the store and leave earlier than usual because we finished most of the closing checklist well before closing.

Unfortunately, I forgot my tips in the tip jar. Hopefully someone will save them for me — that’s an entire subway token we’re talking about, after all. But I’m not holding my breath.

In other news, today was day seven of the beard project. Or the bad facial hair project, depending on your stance in the matter. Either way, I look kind of silly, as far as I can tell. And while Laura says I look “rugged,” but no one’s actually come out and said that it looks bad. Since it’s mostly a joke, I think I’d be happier if it looked more ridiculous so that no one could think I was taking myself seriously through all this.

Regardless, I think it’s doing pretty well after only seven days of not shaving.

Kerry thinks the whole thing is quite hilarious and won’t let me shave until she’s seen me. But she doesn’t think I’ll be able to shave while I’m staying with her, so this could lead to some problems.

(While we’re on the topic, it turns out that Cuff the Duke will be playing Kitchener this Friday night after all, so I’m going to try to tag along and visit Kerry in the process. I’m also trying to arrange a drive to Waterloo after the Converge show on the twenty-second in Hamilton. Hopefully one of the two will work out. Otherwise, we might not be able to see each other until after Easter. But I’m trying to be optimistic.)

Speaking of Easter, I still have no idea how that’s going to work. My parents haven’t told me which days they’ll be visiting relatives, and I think it might be too late to book days off work. I’m only realizing now that I kind of expected them to call on Saturday and that they never did.

I didn’t visit my extended family at Christmas, so I really hope something works out this time. And that my sister is able to come along. (She wasn’t able to at Thanksgiving because she had to look after the family pets back in Richmond.)

I miss my sister. I spent some time tonight looking through some older ICQ conversations that I’ve had with her; they tend to be pretty funny in general, and my worried and uncertain comments from a couple of months ago about how things would go with Kerry made me smile. The excessive use of “whatev” and a wide range of insults directed at Nathan in old conversations with Caitie also brightened my day.

Right. So that was a pretty random and useless journal entry. And I’ll be the first to admit that I have an ulterior motive for posting two journal entries in one day. But I can’t tell you what this motive is without giving things away and making the entire act completely pointless.

Mostly, though, I just like to feel a bit mysterious, and this is all I have left. Sad as that is.