2007-04-13 - 10:15 p.m.

It's that time again- night before I start another cycle at work. I had quite a productive day today, which included grocery shopping for my would-be dinner, but instead I had pizza down the road with Nathan. Plus a couple of beers and 3 games of pool. I think it's important for me to realise that while it is good that I plan ahead and try not to eat out too much, I shouldn't be so uptight that I can't make last minute plans to have something to eat down the road with friends just because I had organised something to cook for dinner.

Back to my productive day today. On my first day off I organised for an electrician to come by this morning and fix a dodgy light fitting in the lounge room (merely organising an electrician made me feel like Wednesday was productive)- he came by at 9am, which was definitely a good thing as I won't have the "can't go to sleep before my first morning due to sleeping in too long today" syndrome. In fact the only thing keeping me up now is that there's a rerun of Wednesday's "Chaser" on at 11pm.

After having some breakfast I went down the road, cashed a cheque and closed a redundant bank account. Last night I did my April finances and with my yearly bonus (which is always paid in April even though it's for the previous calendar year) I was able to completely pay off one of my credit cards, and put a sizeable amount towards the other. I also went to Newtown to buy some CDs to celebrate my bonus pay. It's been ages since I've bought a CD, let alone a bunch one a whim based on one song or reputation. So today I bought Cold War Kids (they sing that song that goes "I promised to my wife and children/ I wouldn't touch another drink as long as I lived"), Dappled Cities (aka Dappled Cities Fly- I bought that one on the strength of the song "Holy Chord") and Grinderman- a stripped back (numbers-wise) Bad Seeds, which I have a feeling is going to be reminiscent of the Beasts of Bourbon if anything (I haven't listened to that one yet). I also bought Volume 2 of last years series of The Chaser.

As well as all that I dropped into flight centre and got a loose itinerary for a trip to San Fran via Singapore in December, which is likely to cost me about $3000 including tax, though I can save $400 by leaving a couple of days earlier (of course that means extra nights of accommodation). Jo and I are also thinking of taking a trip somewhere while I'm over there- maybe the Caribbean, Mexico or New York (I'd like to see New York decked out for Xmas, but it will be freezing and Jo has already been there twice, including once at that time of the year).

I also went for a long run today, just eclipsing my last record in terms of how far I ran. I'm probably up to almost 7kms, or about 40 minutes.

Skipping back a bit, the last cycle at work seemed to go painfully slow. It was a contrast to the last few cycles which seemed to fly by. It probably didn't help that I was sick- I only really kicked that properly I couple of days ago. First day- Thursday 5th- nothing worth writing about. Stayed home, bed early, slept well, up at 4.30am. Friday 6th (Good Friday) Lucy moved a bunch of her stuff in, parents in tow, but she didn't stay that night as she was working in Castle Hill the next day. Saturday 7th I left work at about 2pm, drove to Pagewood to borrow Alex's van from Paris to help Lucy move the big stuff. It was a bit scary backing it out of it's tight parking spot, but by the time I was on the M4 I was at one with it. It was pouring rain, but we did pretty well, and Lucy and family did a spectacular job of transforming what we moved into a girly bedroom in no time. Lucy didn't stay that night either, owing to an Easter Sunday family outing, and I went down the road to Mel (Jo's brother Pete's girlfriend)'s housewarming. Had about 4 beers but got addicted to part 1 of Rage's 20 year retrospective, and didn't get home until aout 4.30am, 24 hours after I woke up on a very long and full day.

Sunday I quite deservedly slept in, went to work, and Lucy was properly moved in and asleep when I got back just after 12.30am. I was up before 10am being social with my new flatmate, given that we probably wouldn't see each other for the two following days. I reorganised the pots and pans while Lucy alphabetised her CDs. Monday and Tuesday were just another two work days really, but it's been a while since I've been as glad to see the end of a cycle as I was on Tuesday night. Easter is notoriously painful for shiftworkers- all the usual things go wrong but there's nobody around to fix them. By the end of it you just stop caring which never makes a good supervisor. I'm hoping I go in tomorrow with a refreshed "can do" attitude. I'll let you know how that goes.

Wednesday I slept in until 1pm, called the Electrician, went down the road for Pho, read some the book I've been reading since I had he chance to plunder Lucy's collection ("100 Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez), went for a medium sized run with Nathan and then settled in at the pub for a few beers and some pool. Kellee joined us not long after, we ran into Jules and Dan, and then we met Lucy up the road and got some takeaway Chinese BBQ (including duck tongues, which I'd been dying to try once I had a few more people who were game).

After some stuffing around working out who was coming, and what mode of transport we'd be taking; Nathan, Kellee, Lucy and I caught a cab to Erskineville to watch Bernie for the first time in ages. The support was an English guy who I thought wasn't bad, and somehow I had enough to drink to wake up at midday on Thursday feeling hungover. That's about all that happened yesterday. I wrote a bit in my pen-and-paper diary, read some more, had some dinner, but that's about the size of it.

And I've already gone through my productive day today. Time to make myself some lunch for tomorrow (in lieu of leftovers seeing as I didn't cook tonight in the end), watch The Chaser and go to bed.

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