It has been… a good week… socially. I am saving up my work moanings to be posted at a later time because saving up my manifesto in a little notebook is a lovely way to vent some frustrations about the behavior here. But I digress.

Monday and Tuesday were chore days. Target run, dry cleaning, laundry, tidying, recipe management, trash runs. All the stuff that sucks but is totally necessary. As a result, there are now bare areas of my apartment that haven’t seen light in ages and I’ve tossed out quite a lot of my past that fell into that “I’m saving this, but I never look at it” category. I did save all my queer, campy, tacky buttons however I tossed all the beads.

Wednesday was a little Witches of Eastwick happy hour with Moose, Michael and Fredo at Cobalt. I never thought I’d make Cobalt a regular option for happy hour, but their drink prices aren’t too bad and fortunately, or not depending on how you look at it, the main bar isn’t all that crowded most nights and happy hour goes from 5-9pm! After a few drinks and many laughs, we moved over to Annie’s for a nosh and then made our way home.

Thursday I met up with Kyle so that he could introduce me to the wondrous food item that is Phở. I saw it pop up all over when the craze first hit the states, I’d just never been. The neon signs always seemed to indicate that it was a soup of some sort, but that’s all I could sort out. We met at Cleveland Park Metro and went over to Nam-Viet Pho-79, a place that I’d seen many times but kinda glossed over. The phở was delicious and I also had their seafood fried rice with shrimp, squid, scallops, lump crabmeat and spices in jasmine rice. Amazing dish and plentiful. I’ve got leftovers awaiting me at home tonight.

read on for further adventures into northwest…

This wasn’t the winning entry in Project Rooftop’s Superman: Man of Style contest, but it’s my favorite by Kyle Latino. Love the aviator jacket and scarf on a flying hero. Also fun is this entry by Charles R. Rouse-Rodriguez. Superman isn’t exactly a technology/science hero, but his details are flawless, “Why does Superman need a jetpack if he can fly? — Because it’s badass, that’s why!” There are some fun steampunk and silly Superman designs as well. The posts at Project Rooftop aren’t constant, but I always love them.

At the office today I’ve realized that “I’m not here to make friends,” is a good mantra and it’s suiting me well. I’m not mean or nasty, just present. I do my tasks, eat my lunch, surf a little and head home. My good co-worker friends are either in the office very infrequently, or don’t sit near enough to really socialize (which is a good thing since we’re here to work) and that’s fine. I can socialize in my off-hours, which is something else I need to work on, but one thing at a time.

This morning it also really hit me that I really miss league bowling. I left my last league out of support for a friend that said he’d find us another league to bowl in. That never happened and I haven’t really seen that friend in ages anyway, so I wonder if I should look for one that has in-DC carpools available. Why can’t any of the bowling chains find a good spot in DC to build a real alley. To quote an entitled gentrifier, “We really need” a bowling alley!

When you arrive at your “work” stop and the moment you step off the car another train pulls in that would take you back home… doesn’t that seem like a sign that you should just take it? Go back home, sleep in a bit more and start the day later on your own terms.

Unfortunately this morning I was spotted by a co-worker also on my train, so it would have been difficult to get away with.

I said it was gonna be a bad week, but I didn’t expect it to be quite so stacked against Monday. I’m really glad I don’t have Force choking TK abilities. Of course if I did, I’d probably also have hordes of loyal Stormtroopers to clean up the bodies.

It’s not going to be a fun week. We’re short staffed due to people taking well-earned vacations, unfortunately one of those is the team lead, which leaves me in charge this week. As mentioned before, I don’t really care for that responsibility. Unlike some co-workers, I’m not completely averse to responsibility at the office, but I’ve found that you can either manage or do tasks, you can’t do both at once. Thankfully it’s a short week, which I seem to have to be constantly reminded of, so it won’t be all so bad. I’ll still be glad when the weekend is here, and I may be partaking of a happy hour or two this week.

It could be worse tho… I could be trying to shift $2 million condos two blocks away from the zoo. I don’t imagine walking out of one’s penthouse to see the sunrise and hearing the sounds of monkey love from nearby are a selling point.