2006-10-23 - 10:45 p.m.

So today is the second of my three days off- the second lot of three days off since I got back. I had a productive enough day- slept in until midday because I needed to, had a bath, watched a couple of episodes of Buffy, did the grocery shopping an then went for a walk with Nathan. Cooked dinner at home, which I'm aiming to do all of this week (as well as trading in my afternoons at the pub for walking) and started cleaning up my room a bit. Oh, and paid some bills. And somehow managed to give Steve the Bpay number of my old (now cancelled) credit card- I hope the money doesn't actually leave his account else it's going to be me who suffers.

Up until today (and I know I've already mentioned this) I feel like I was still in some sort of holiday mode, despite being back at work. Eating out too much, going to the pub too often, just spending too much in general. But I'm determined to have a week of moderation this week (well, I might do something for my Friday night changeover but I'm undecided).

Yesterday I was up at a very reasonable hour, and went to Yum Cha in the city with some of the old Entertainment Centre gang. Namely Steve, Terry, Bek, Wendy and her new(ish) boyfriend Ross. The day still managed to pass pretty quickly- after a beer with Terry Steve and I went back home and it was after 2pm. By a little after 4pm I was at Nathan's house and we went to see a movie ("The Departed") with his friends Cam and Bec. The timing ruled out another dinner at home and instead I had some good (but pricey) sushi train. When I got back I hired out "The Da Vinci Code" (with my free birthday rental voucher), which was about as ordinary as I expected it to be. Note that I did like the book however, I'm not too cool for something so popular.

I can pretty much skim over my three afternoon shifts (unless I want to get into work politics, but I think I'll leave that for another entry or my pen-and-paper diary)- which takes me back to Wednesday night (changeover night). The plan was trivia at the Townie with Erin, but of course that wasn't enough for me. After Erin and Ruth left (I guess it would have been about 11.30pm), I went across to the Zanzibar, introduced myself to a couple of random people, and then went to Dyke night at the Sly Fox. Sure it was all a bit of fun, but in a way it just highlights that I'm not feeling entirely complete at the moment- if I can't be satisfied with a moderate night and I resort to drinking until 2am with people I've only just met. I guess I've done that before when Jane has been at home but that's beside the point. I feel like it's time to grow up. I feel like if it wasn't for this whole America thing I'd be seriously thinking of marriage within the next two years. I guess it could still happen (don't worry, I'm still adamant about an Australia wedding, but if the time really was right some of the planning could be done from overseas). But really, I can't think about anything beyond getting a job over there right now- that's a daunting enough task all on its own.

Going back to Tuesday 17/10, I think that to me was the ultimate sign that I wasn't dealing well with being at home by myself again. The day before I had been to the pub with Nathan, Kel and Steve for some beers and pool, and there was no issue with that, but I was pretty keen for a night at home by myself including dinner. I didn't want to sleep in the afternoon, so that I could go to bed at say 9pm and get straight to sleep. By the time the Simpsons finished at 6.30pm I couldn't bear the idea of killing time until 9pm (with nothing on TV and no motivation to do something like write in here or clean my room) so I called Nathan to see if he wanted to come around and watch a DVD. In the process we decided to have Pho down the road first, and when all was said and done and the movie was over it was about 10.30pm.

And that pretty much wraps up the last cycle. Next time I'll get through the cycle before.

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