Today should have been a normal day and a normal night. I started out a little slowly at the gym because I’m pretty tired but I wasn’t doing so bad. It’s burger night, too, and I had that to look forward to. It was just two of us, me and MattyG, so I wanted to step it up and try the bar burger at Paley’s Place, but Matty wanted to step it down and go to Hopworks. I think Hopworks has the best pub burger in town so it didn’t take too much to convince me to change my mind.

But before we went, we found one of the coaches flat on her back on the sidewalk with back cramps. Her muscles were actually twitching! Fortunately she was finally able to get into her car and, the last time I saw them, her boyfriend was driving her to the hospital.

After our burgers (good as always) and right after I dropped off Matty, my sister texted me and told me her dog appeared to have a stroke! I went to Dove Lewis Emergency Animal Hospital where Deedle looked fine. I guess she’d peed and pooped in the lobby, but by the time I got there she was her usual self. Turns out dogs don’t have strokes and they think it was just old age leading to vestibular syndrome. It was sad seeing all the anxious people in the lobby, though, without their pets. We were sitting around with a silly basenji but everyone else had pets that were sick enough that they were in back being looked at while their owners waited outside.

On the way home from the hospital, I ran into my neighbors and gave them a ride home. Fortunately that was the end to my excitement for the day!

I just about dropped a 32kg kettle bell on my head. Twice. Once per arm. 32kg is like 70lb, or 43% of my body weight — at least the body weight that I’m pretending that I am right now. Oh the humanity.

I got to work late today because I was waiting for the closet people to show up. I know that sounds fishy, but really I’m just getting Portland Closet Company to put some very expensive furniture into my closet. I’ve been wanting some closet gadgets since I saw them in Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. You’d think I’d fixate on something else in a movie of that sort (that I got for $5 online somewhere) but that’s really not the worst thing I could get out of that movie.

My co-worker told me my strategy for long-term investing in my retirement account — putting everything into an index fund and leaving it the hell alone — wouldn’t work because I’d be checking it all the time. How little he knows me. I’m really quite content to just look at my statements once a quarter and say, “Huh. It went (up or down).” I should be more concerned about my investments, but I can’t be bothered. The more I poke at it, the lower it goes.

I suppose I should be more worried about my weight. I thought I’d put on five pounds but it seems that might have just been temporary and from all the drinking I did this weekend. I usually weigh myself in the morning, after I’m good and dehydrated, and I was up on Sunday after five whole hours of sleep and I think I was still quite pickled from the previous night. Today I seemed to be back to my usual 163-ish on my questionable bathroom scale and that’s what I was expecting. No need for a diet; bring on the cheeseburgers!

I suppose TurboTax is my only choice on the Mac but it sure is buggy. Turns out to file your taxes you have to do some really odd things sometimes, but at least I succeeded. Taxes done, hooray.

Honestly, I think I just used up any ability to write by replying to a friend who found me on Facebook. That and the hideous workout at the gym today. I have decided to think that I have done a 225lb front squat today, though in reality I think it was only 215 or 220. I’m just going to pretend, because it makes me happier than reality. Maybe not the best way to live but then we all have to find some way.

And with that I better hit the hay and abandon watching the rest of the third Pirates of the Caribbean. Why didn’t someone warn me it was so freaking long?

I’m pretty predictable on Friday nights, which is why my neighbor called me up and asked if I wanted his spare ticket to the Trailblazers game where they were solidly beaten by the Celtics. The other neighbor who was supposed to go was stuck in surgery. I can’t believe my luck; I had incredible seats and was in the row behind the Blazer’s CFO. I’ve never been to the Rose Garden and I’ve actually never been to a NBA game. Last time I was at an actual basketball game was probably to see A. C. Green play in high school.

It was a beautiful weekend, but I spent a lot of time inside finishing my taxes. I didn’t even do any work on the house, though I did talk to Jay the Contractor about a couple of things. I also sent an email to Portland Closets but that hardly counts. There are a whole lot of things I need to do, but taxes are taxes and it’s nice to have them out of the way. There’s no surprise there, a guy who is reliably at home on a Friday night finishing his taxes a little early.

I know I’m pretty picky about my hamburgers because, well, it’s one of my hobbies. We went back to Yakuza today. Last time we went we had a Kobe beef burger that was a bit bland, but was spiced up with yuzu and koshou. Matty G told me this was one of his favorite flavor pairings, citrus and spicy, but to me it was just two flavors that belonged somewhere else. The spice is for udon and the yuzu is for sukiyaki. I hate to be so picky, but it was like my sister said to me when I mentioned I was at Yakuza, “What, are you white now?”

This time the burger was pretty good but still not in my top tier. The burger wasn’t Kobe beef but an Oregon natural beef of some sort. It was tasty but the rare was fairly tough. The bun was a bit stale, and the flavors blended together better for me this time, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to go back. If someone else wanted to go, I’d certainly accompany them and get another burger. I would still want some fries, though.

I was tired at the gym today. I could list a host of reasons why I just felt tired and just a bit defeated, but the weather is approaching springtime and that always tires me out. I’ll just blame the spring and not every other guy reminding me how old I am and how life is passing me by.

Probably not much because I’ve just spent several hours trying to decrypt my mom’s handwriting so I can figure out what we donated to Goodwill last year. As you can imagine, it’s a bit of a mess. Not only is it in a foreign language, but my mom can’t even read her own writing. Yesterday was my blind panic trying to find all the fiddly slips of paper, and today is decoding some of them. Not all, mind you, since I gave up at some point.

Speaking of giving up, WASN’T I SUPPOSED TO BE ASLEEP BY NOW? Time to go lie down and see what my whirligig brain comes up with this time. Maybe something about going to Portland Closets. My fantasy life is awful tame lately.

Oh, and while the bears say I should cut all my hair off, two of my female friends suggested that I do not. I guess that means I have to get a normal haircut again. Now if I can only find the time.

Here I am, staying up too late. I started out fiddling around with lots of slips of paper, running around trying to figure out where the receipts for my window, insulation, and furnace were and then trying to decode the Goodwill donation notes I have. Half of them are in kanji, thanks to my mom. Ugh.

Of course I gave up about an hour ago, but now I’m not sure WHY I’m up. I just am. And when I go to bed my brain will still be going on about something stupid like being being chased by zombies or something. I mean, really, how the hell are zombies even supposed to SEE where I am? There can’t be enough electricity generated in that brain to do much more than shuffle around, much less eat. And I bet their jaws would just fall off trying to bite through anyone’s skull anyway.

Oh, there I go. I’m thinking about zombies ALREADY. Why can’t I just think about something more pleasant? About whether to get my hair cut as short as Joel always suggests. Or about washing my car. Or about fixing the upstairs laundry sink. And there I go with the house projects. Maybe if I just heat my brain up or something. I’ll have to thing about which way to adjust the temperature.

It’s all about the waiting today; at least it was a day off for me. I finished part of my plumbing, screwing it up and getting water all over the place at least once, but I was waiting for a laundry faucet to be delivered to George Morlan so I could finish fixing the basement laundry sink. Unfortunately, it didn’t arrive in time so now I have another half-finished project. I wish that was all I screwed up today.

At least I went to the gym and was able to come in DFL again.

Every time I think I’m done with painting, I’ll find some flaw that I want to fix. In fact, all I have to do is clean the paintbrushes like I learned in high school building construction (where Mr. Borquist beat it into our heads) and I’ll find lots of spots I need to touch up. I need to keep telling myself that it’s just a closet and it doesn’t need to be perfect. In any case, I finally finished painting (this round anyway) on Saturday.

Today I decided I better finish wiring up the light in the alcove (over my bed) and to do some plumbing in the basement so I wasn’t tortured every time I needed to clean up my painting or mudding tools. The plumbing supply didn’t have a laundry room faucet, so everything is apart and there’s no usable sink in the basement right now. I finally got the wire fished into the upstairs light. It took weeks of planning and hours of effort to get the five foot run of wire in the attic, but it’s finished. The bad part is that it’s very bright in my bedroom now when I flip the light switch.

My plan to be drunk for Valentines day didn’t really work out, but I have too much odd crap to do tomorrow anyway, so it’s just as well. Now I’m trying to figure out how to empty out the water in the cold water pipes without flooding the basement. We’ll see how that goes tomorrow.

Well, I got part of my New Year’s resolution taken care of today. I got my passport card. The picture on it is hideous. I always thought I was better looking than that. Oh, well.

My mom thought I wouldn’t get any other St. Valentines Day loot, so she got me a cookie. Better than nothing, I suppose.

I always say that the workouts at the gym get a little hard when THMFIC goes on vacation. I think he wants us to remember who’s boss while he’s gone. I mean really, the day after Helen we see Tabata burpees? OK, so they weren’t exactly Tabata rounds. 30 seconds of burpees followed by 30 seconds of plank hold. I wasn’t able to do that many burpees and I was cheating on my plank hold that I foolishly started on the rings. This is my sixth day working out and I’m pooped. Also, I was trying Chip Conrad-style burpees and boy did my pushups suck by the end. I think I was able to do 77 “normal” burpees, but only 61 of the Chip burpees.

I really wonder if I’ll get around to drinking myself senseless on February 14. I’m using my closet painting and mudding to distract myself from any failures I have associated with that date and I really need to get that done. Plus the painting touchup in the bathroom. Plus the mudding of the weird swoopy wall patterns in the hallway. Plus the wiring of the second bedroom light. I have a lot of alone time scheduled for this weekend which matches nicely with my relationship status.

Burger club tried to go to the Carlyle for our last burger, but they were out. I think they’re out for good now. We ended up at Pause who has really good pub burgers though they overcooked mine a bit. Not as big a disappointment as other things in my life, so I’m not too worried.