"I had a dream I was moving forward,
 Floating gently to the sun
 Come to see my world rewarded
 A new day has begun"
    Great Big Sea, Feel it Turn

I've sat down to write something here several times in the last two weeks and came up blank each time. The truth is that life is really good: I'm busy, but not overworked or overloaded. There's a lot of things changing at work, but not necessarily in a bad way. I'm spending a lot more time dancing these days, but I also feel like I'm seeing my friends more. In short: its all good.

The hangup is something I'm not proud of. Simply put: all my single friends out here seem to be well on the way to shedding the "single" qualifier. Something about springtime and birds singing or something.

I don't really begrudge them their happiness: most of these guys and gals are really wonderful people and I've often wondered how it was they managed to remain single for so long. So good for them.

The downside? I guess its all causing me to dwell on my inability to connect with anyone. Leaves you feeling a little like the kid who always get's picked last in gym class.

So I cope the only way I know how: stay busy and hope that everything works out in the fullness of time.

Its not much of a philosophy, but its taken me this far.

Hooper"and then you got Darth Vader, the blackest brother in the galaxy, Nubian God."
Bankey"What's a Nubian?"
Hooper"Shut the f*** up!"
    Chasing Amy

So Valentine's Day...

I was planning on just sitting at home with some movies. I was halfway through Chasing Amy when I decided I couldn't stand how pathetic I was being. Plus that movie is depressing as hell.

I tagged along with Brian, Cindy, and Cindy's psycho-friend Krissy to Neighbors (Big gay techno club on Capitol Hill). It was a good time till I got nausious and staggered home to the tune of the occasional dry heave. Guess that third cheeseburger wasn't such a hot idea. I think I'm getting old.

So my friends are all buying places for obscene amounts of money. Friend "A" made an office on a $320K condo in Belltown on Saturday just hours before friend "B" made an offer on a $400K townhouse in Kirkland. That's a shitload of money. I mean just saying four hundred thousand sounds like a lot, but its even scarier if you say it as point-four million. *SHUDDER*

What else... I went dancing tonght and danced with a woman I haven't seen in a long time. So long that she said, "Now you're dating Lisa, right?" It caught me so off guard that I kind of snapped at her. "No, but we're actually coming up on the one-year anniversary of her dumping me." It was a stupid thing to say. We moved on and had a few good dances despite me being a bitch.

Grrr... I hate Valentines Day.

"You never see disappointment coming: it's an aftertaste"
    Parrot Fever

"My other ride is your girlfriend"
    A vanity plate I saw on Sunday

So in honor of Gwen I installed Mozilla's new Firefox browser on one of my work machines* to try it out. Man that's fast... so in recognition of this fabulous new toy here's something you search-engine fearing bloggers should read

Nutty weekend. Disappointing date Friday night. We were done in an hour and forty. Fortunatly I've learned to plan for this eventuality and immediatly went and met up with friends down at the Pioneer Square bars for some drinking and dancing. It was crazy. I saw somethings that I doubt I shall ever see again. At least Rajeev and Thibaut had a good time.

Saturday slept through the democratic caucaus(sp?), but I won $1.35 by finishing 30th out of 4000 people in a free online poker tournament. This accomplishment is made even greater by the fact that I was sitting in my underwear.

Saturday night Ted, Sybille, and I saw two great plays with some of Sybille's friend. Sybille's one friend... all I can say is Luftansa. Cindy knows what I'm talking about.

In the end I realized that I finished the weekend with one bad date and two small hangovers. Three of my friends had a lot more to show for (romantically speaking) from their nocturnal endeavors. Good for them. I'm reminded of a moth ago when I was at a nice bar on Capitol Hill with Brian discussing the problems of meeting people. We asked our waitress (who seemed to know a lot about bar life in general) what was the single most important piece of advice she would give someone on meeting people in bars.

Her advice? Don't do it.

"It's only cheating if you get caught."
    Al Bundy, Married With Children

I filed my taxes last night using TaxAct, which I used last year to great effect. It was definitly more involved this year, and I just figured out this morning that I screwed something up. Nothing big, but still... how much are you allowed to screw up before they come shoot you? Oh well, guess we'll find out.

So are yall familiar with a chain called Jillians? I know its a chain because we had one in Raleigh. Anyway, its a bar with pool, darts, video games... sort of a Chuck E. Cheese for adults. Anyway, like most of these places its got one of those "leave a business card for a chance to win a party for you & your friends". Well one of my friends won one of these so we got free food, free pool, and a bunch of tokens for a few hours last night. It was a sweet deal so everyone who showed up also dropped off a business card, and low and behold one of us won another one of these deals while we were still there.

Maybe we could turn this into a weekly thing :-)