Monday and Tuesday are blah days. I eat too much food and just don't feel like much of anything. When I get home from work on Tuesday I get in a reasonable session with the weights and turn off all of the phones. I don't want to talk to anyone.
On Wednesday I run 4 miles before work, try to eat carefully, and lift weights after work. Besides the fact that I have to sit in meetings all day Wednesday, I start to feel a bit better.
Despite slight but measureable rain in the Long Beach area, Thursday is a bicycle commute day as I try to get in extra exercise to feel better (emotionally and mentally). There is nothing like the acid rain pounding your face at 20 mph to provide nature's most refreshing exfoliating experience.
Thursday after riding home on the bicycle I start in on mowing the lawn. I'm delayed first by a neighbor who wants to talk about the neighborhood and moving and stuff. And then I'm delayed when the emergency stop bar on the lawnmower breaks. Well, it can't be fixed rapidly, so I wire the lawnmower up so that there is no emergency stop anymore and finish mowing the lawn. When I'm finished I have to cute the wire that I used in order to get the lawnmower to stop running. Another little repair to be performed this weekend.
There are phone calls with Person C_T (60 minutes) and Ruby (35 minutes) as well as attempted phone calls (and voice mails left) with Joe and Person J_VKPI on this Thursday evening.
Friday is a fairly productive day at work and I'm out the door just after 4:15pm. Ont he way home I'm in a shade of a hurry and I wind the motorcycle up to 103 mph on Del Amo before I have to brake and turn to get to my street. As I'm turning I see Person A_M in the school playground with his kids. I get in a good session with the weights and then go for a long walk. A quick shower and two chocolate chip cookies and nonfat milk gets me out the door. Before I know it I'm finished shopping at Babies R Us (the same Babies R Us that Person M_P and I shopped at a couple years ago). And though it is very early, I start making my way towards West Hollywood to meet up with everyone. I take the 605 to the 105 to the 710 to the 5 to the 101. Whew!
Over the course of the evening I hit 4 different clubs. I start out at one that is sorta empty and I grab a RedBull and 7-Up and relax. There are a few people staring at me as if they want to talk to me, but I just follow some good advice: Keep watching the multiple 42 inch plasma displays of fractal-produced videos, don't establish eye contact, and ignore them. It works - there is no significant conversation. Next I hit the herd/clone club, get a wrist band (to get in free later), and leave because the club is empty. I go to the club that I usually like, get a wrist band, and get a diet Coke. The music is very good here for a Friday night - no hip hop at all. I relax, I wander around, I grab another diet Coke, and avoid offers that are coming my way. By 11 pm I head back to the herd/clone club and note the trash music that they are playing - hip hop, top 40, and Britney Spears. Gosh, is there no accounting for taste? I see Person W, who I have not seen in a long time, and we make brief greetings. When Person C_T calls at 11:30 and says that his group is just getting off the 101, I tell him that they ares till 30 minutes from getting into the club. He disagrees and we keep an eye on the passage of time.
By 12:01 on Saturday morning, 30 minutes after Person C_T has called, we are getting past the doorman and getting our wrists stamped for Person L_M's favorite club (for tonight anyway). Present in our group are Person C_T, Person L_M, Person E_M, Person N_L, Person S_V (who has just broken up with her boyfriend of 6 years), and myself. By the end of the evening Person S_V is hitting on a number of men and women - she has drank a lot and maybe she is trying to forget about her ex-boyfriend. Person L_M sees a recent dating partner at the club kissing another woman and she is upset. I know how she feels because I went through this with Person N_V while we were supposedly together. But this last club is kinda fun even though the music is trash (from 5 years ago, from Britney Spears, and other top 40 junk) and I'm getting tired from the week's activities. Our group of 6 is the last set of people to leave as we exit at 2:10 am - 10 minutes past closing time.
After I leave the group of 5 to get their valet-parked car I walk across the park to get to mine. There are quite a few people in the park at 2:20 am just frolicking around as they head for their cars or delay going home. I bypass a guy going in the opposite direction and smile as I always do - just wanting to be friendly. Before I know it he has turned around and is walking enxt to me asking my name. I'm in a hurry to get home so I just say, "My name is Ray but I'm in a hurry to get home so maybe I'll see you another time". I keep walking very rapidly and I know that this will deter the guy and that I will not, in fact, run into this guy again. (Though sometimes life has strange coincidences.) I rush on home taking a few entrance/transition ramps at twice the posted speed (or more) and am dropping off to sleep at 3:08 am on Saturday morning.
On Saturday morning I'm out the door near 7 am for the aquarium ride. I crank along even if I'm missing some sleep and end with a good ride. I head to the baby shower of Person J_Boeing near noon. There are a number of interesting people and I stay around for a couple hours before taking leave. When I get home I start in on the once-an-hour abdominal strengthening/stretching exercises as well as trimming the roses, cleaning up the backyard, and fixing the lawnmower. (It isn't a permanent fix, so I keep the handy wire attached to the lawnmower.) And then I relax. Phone calls from Person C_T, Person J_VKP, and Joe are handled with a ,"No, I'm not going out tonight".
On Saturday night I check my lottery tickets and find that I have won again. I have matched three numbers for a win of $9 or $10 (depending upon the exact set of winners for the drawing). I'll get more tickets on Monday. As I only had about three hours of sleep the previous night, I am turning off the light (after reading in bed for a short time) at 9:45 pm.
On Sunday I'm up early to get out for the aquarium bicycle ride. I drag a bit, but it is a good ride. After grocery shopping I read the newspaper and relax a bit. Near 1 pm I am boarding a metro blue line train to head to downtown Los Angeles to meet Person C_T. Person C_T picks me up, we park his car, and start wandering around for the next three hours. We take pictures, look at architecture, discuss the periods when the buildings were built, avoid stepping on homeless people sleeping on the street, and duck our heads in a number of shops. I point out to Person C_T the heroin junkie shuffle that two people have. (The heroin junkie shuffle is a kind of walk that junkies have where they drag their feet along the ground because it is too much effort to actually pick the feet up.) As Person C_T and I are walking along a guy says to us, "Don't go down that way because it gets nasty". But we continue walking.
And Person C_T asks me, "Why are we walking this way when we aren't supposed to?"
To which I answer, "Because we're not supposed to". We, of course, step into the King Eddy Saloon and walk through a number of the older hotels including the King Edward, the Baltimore, and the Alexandria. As opposed to other people who have gone on a similar trip and complained about the winos, junkies, homeless people, and the corresponding smells, Person C_T only complains that we didn't spend enough time together this weekend. Later I catch the train home, watch the Italian MotoGP race for motorcycles, take out the trash, and prepare for another workweek at Northrop Grumman.