I haven't left you for days now
And I'm becoming amazed how
You're quite affectionate in public
In fact your friend said it made her feel sick
And even though it's moving forward
There's just the right amount of awkward
And today you accidentally called me baby
--Who'd Have Known

I don't want anything more
Than to see your face when you open the door
--Chinese

Where does my time go? The weekend came and went and there was no post as I had planned. *sigh*

At least I am still alive. Maybe I should go back to just talking about the random everyday shit like I used to, and stop planning big ass posts? But I really would like to tell you all about my awesome girlfriend.

( Well, here are some quick highlights: )

While not quite the airport, the Singapore Expo is all the way on the east side of the island (but one stop away from the airport), and I have to be there tomorrow at nine the fucking morning to help with Expo Sale setup. It's like I jinxed myself because I am a fucking idiot.

I live on the west side! I have to get up at something like five in the morning! I don't go to sleep until three or four! I will die!

How ah? How?

On the upside, I am now confirmed, so yay! Confirmation comes after six months for my position, and this means I now have the full benefits package: the max number of sick leave, my holiday days have gone up, I can actually take holidays without just switching my off days around (like I did for Spain and going to the zoo that one day; more on that in the next post), and other cool things like phone bill reimbursement (because I am a buyer and I have to call and text suppliers all the time). It also means there is less chance of retrenchment, though it's obviously not impossible. I mean, I am the newest kid on the block, and it's usually last hired, first fired, but getting confirmed means all my hard work is being appreciated, and being appreciated at work totally rocks my meerkats.

I have been MIA for a really long time, mostly because I suck.

I promise I will post something with a lot of meat soonish. There will be Spain talk, there will be work talk, and there will be girlfriend talk.

...Intrigued?

Stay tuned.

So that's a long time without posting.

The book fair has ended, but some highlights:

After the forced day off, Friday and Saturday went smoothly. The crowds were big and my part-timers were awesome and all was good. Sunday night was the midnight shift, and so I was not supposed to work Sunday during the day. I tried really hard to sleep late into Sunday so as to be more awake during the overnight shift, but I could only make it to 1100. So I did some chores around the house before Nina came over to play Guitar Hero World Tour with me. Then she drove me to the convention center and I got there two hours before I was supposed to and helped out at the tail end of the day on Sunday.

Then tear down began. It was pretty great, actually. Nobody fell asleep, and I got to spend a lot of quality time with the crush. In fact, that's probably why I enjoyed the book fair so much: I got her all to myself for the the two or so weeks as she also worked it. We ate all of our lunches and dinners together, usually alone, and we talked a lot everyday she was there (she, unlike me, actually took her off days off and wasn't forced into any of them). We've also been texting pretty much everyday. Perhaps it's working with a bunch of horny teenagers, but the whole situation has felt like a young couple courting, even though it pretty much isn't (though it kind of is). It's been pretty great, though now I have to share her again, and I'm leaving for Spain for ten days soon, and I'm afraid whatever rapport we've built over the book fair will evaporate (though I am looking forward to going to the new store, as I will, for the most part, have her to myself again).

Monday morning, I came home and tried really hard to sleep, but it didn't happen. Instead I did some clothes shopping and then watched The Good, the Bad, and the Weird with muzzledroses. It's a Korean spaghetti western and it was awesome. Everybody should watch it, as Asian spaghetti westerns are always awesome.

I finally fell asleep after thirty-nine hours of no sleep, but only for five hours of very fitful sleep. I kept tossing and turning and waking up. I finally gave up at about seven and started getting ready for work.

It was my first day back at the store proper and whoo, there was a learning curve. For starters, I forgot where the Religion section was when a customer asked for the Koran, and had to hunt around a bit. Rosa was in a bad mood and it took me awhile to remember how to make her happy again (though I finally did, and kak spent the rest of the day in a relatively good mood). I did get to eat lunch and dinner with the crush again, though I will only see her two more times before I leave. The latter half of the day was certainly better than the first.

And now, I still cannot sleep. Alamak... There might actually be something really for reals wrong with me. Maybe I'll see a doctor... after Spain.

The book fair continues apace, with books being sold, me falling in love with all my part-timers as they are awesome kids, and me continuing to hate HR like you wouldn't believe. Bitch is gonna get cut, I tell you what.

Today, however, I was forced to take a day off and was actually banned from entering the building by my boss. Wah lau man! So, I spent the day room hunting. I looked at a few places on the west side of the island, as that's what was available for viewing on such short notice.

The first place was near Yew Tee MRT and with a nice Indian single father and his two boys. The place was nice, but the asking price of $550 a month is a bit steep for the kind of dingy place he's offering he's offering, though he does have Internet already.

The second place was extremely near Choa Chu Kang MRT, and it's really nice. It's $600 a month, and the Chinese auntie will do my laundry and ironing, so it's almost like a serviced apartment, though there is no water heater and she has some weird rules about electricity usage. The broker lady said the auntie would probably install a water heater though, since I seemed really hesitant about taking cold showers (shrinkage!), but I would have to provide my own Internets. However, hers was the only place with aircon in the room.

The third place was a bit farther than I'd like from the Bukit Batok MRT, with an Indian man and his mother for $500 a month. They were also nice people, and the guy was very straightforward about everything (for example, if my computer causes their electricity bill to skyrocket, he will charge me for it, which makes sense and is totally fair). Here i would also have to provide my own Internets.

Each place comes furnished with a bed and closet space, as well as a fan and window. As it stands, I think the Chinese auntie is the best place, but Iskandar said he had something for me that he would tell me about tomorrow at work, so we'll see.

I went back to the book fair in the evening after I was done room hunting (not to work lest I be thrown out on my ass), and was told by my staff that my boss had come in and accused them of hiding me from him (he went so far as to call for me on the PA). He also promised them money if they threw me out when I did come in (which they didn't because I am an awesome manager and they all love me).

The kids are pretty great and I love talking to them. They're all sixteen-to-twenty year olds, and so behave like horny teenagers. The staff gossip mill is abuzz with who likes who, who's hooking up with who, and so on and so forth. It's like I'm in high school again (incidentally, this totally includes the full-time staff as well, as the part-timers have crushes on the full-timers and vice versa, and the part-timers have figured out which of the full-timers are into each other). We full-timers plan on taking them all out once I come back from Spain as they have all been doing great work (regardless of what that cunt in HR says) and because they're all pretty cool people that I kind of want to keep hanging out with (even though I'm an old man; they think I'm cool; I've never been cool before).

Adam and I have been giving the fellas pointers on how to approach girls, flirt with them, get their numbers, and how to take rejection when it invariably comes (mine are better than his even though I have very little game). I think the best lesson I've given so far is to work the law of averages: flirt with a lot of girls you find interesting and/or attractive, as only one, maybe two or three, will actually be interested back, and then you can pick from those (or take them all out if you have the money, time, and they know there are no strings attached) and not be too hurt by being rejected from all the others.

...We may be screwing these kids up for the rest of their lives. Only time will tell.

Other than the not working thing (seriously banned from the building), these have been three pretty good days. The next three-four days will be busy as hell, and I like that. As much as I bitch and whine about work sometimes, I enjoy the long hours and the consecutive shifts. It energizes me and makes me feel pretty great, though I understand this is probably because I don't have much of a life outside of work right now. Once that changes, so will my workaholism, and then my boss will rue the day he didn't fully take advantage of me working long hours everyday for free when he had the chance.

It being a Monday, the fair was quite slow as far as customers were concerned, so we got a lot of restocking done. Art, business, fiction, interior design books all got put up today, as well as anything else we were running slightly low on. The part-timers continue to be pretty awesome, as well as just generally fun kids to hang out with, and I'll be very surprised if any of them fuck up their bonus at the end of the event. I'm pretty sure I'll have 100% bonus giveaway here, no matter how much that cunt in HR bitches at them. In fact, I've alerted most of them that if she starts in on them, they are to direct her to me, because I can bitch back while they cannot. Obviously, if she's legitimately bitching, I'll reprimand them, but she hasn't legitimately bitched yet, so I don't foresee this happening.

The Marketing ladies and I have made up, as we had another signing event today, and they totally didn't yell at anybody. So yay there. Plus, that one is still super cute, and I'd rather not be fighting with her.

During one of our restocking runs, I picked some flowers for all the ladies working with us, 'cause that's how I roll, and they all seemed very appreciative, so yay. I like making ladies feel nice, which is probably why I flirt so much with them, even when I have no intention of pursuing them. I've always felt flirting to be a harmless action in which I try to make girls feel nice about themselves, and some of them sometimes need that. And every once in awhile, they flirt back and make me feel nice, so nice feelings all around. Plus, it's just fun as hell.

Everybody I've spoken to about my mom totally wants to meet her, and they all want me to convince her to visit orready. So mom, come on out here already. Meishan wants you to teach her how to cook real Mexican food (and her kitchen is damn nice), and all the rest of my co-workers just want to meet my kickass mom because you're so kickass. This includes the crush, who just thinks you're the bee's knees and the main reason I turned out as awesome as I did. I happen to agree with the crush (and not just because I'm crushing on her; you really are that awesome). In conclusion, come visit as soon as humanly possible. Take some of that ridiculous amount of time off you've been squirreling away and cash it in, and then come out here for two or three weeks. I will parade you around as the epitome of awesome mom-ness, and you can cook awesome Mexican food for people (we'll even try and make it halal so the Muslim kids can partake of it too; don't worry, I've been reading up on this and it's not all that hard), and we'll take you out so you can eat all the delicious food found in this country, and all the nice beaches and nature-y stuff you love so much. It'll be awesome, so seriously, hop the next plane (actually, you should probably wait until after the New Year, as I'm super busy right now). The trip isn't all that long, and you can get some knockout pills from the doctor to avoid feeling the plane ride (I recommend diazepam; it's what snipers use to steady their nerves).

And now, this amazing song:

The book fair has been fucking nuts. I've been pulling thirteen-to-fourteen hours a day with about four-hour sleep shifts in between, very little smoke breaks, and I may or may not be ready to pass out at any given point during the day. They do sometimes play decent music, so at least I don't feel a need to fall asleep on my feet and instead dance around like an idiot. At least we're doing good sales, or so I hear. Also, my part-timers have been, to a man, fucking awesome. I've had absolutely no major problems with any of them, and I foresee them all getting their bonuses at the end of this thing. I have been having problems with some of the HR and Marketing staff from the HQ, who are just pissing me off for no reason at all. It seems, our sister company really dislikes us. I assume it's out of jealousy as we are way cooler than them. Regardless, my boss told them off about picking on me and my staff (both full-time and part-time), and they've backed off somewhat. We'll see if this holds, 'cause I'm about ready to punch a specific HR lady in the throat.

The crush and I seem to have us an understanding. I can go on crushing on her, and she may or may not be crushing on me back (she will neither confirm nor deny), but the flirting continues unabated, and I most likely have a snowball's chance in Hell of making this work out in my favor what with the long-term relationship she's in (regardless of whether or not she's crushing back; after all, it's just a crush). Regardless, I am having fun flirting with her, and she seems to be having fun too. Also, she may or may not be reading this LJ right now, so let's keep the racier comments to a minimum, hey?

I am looking forward to the club-party thing on the 26th a lot. I have already told all the ladies who end up going that I will be dancing at least one dance with each of them, and that I can't actually dance worth a damn. But attempting to move my body to a rhythm is a lot of fun, no matter how ridiculous I look, and doing it with a partner is even better. "Low" is of course reserved for my pretty bird Rosa as it has become our song (or at the very least, I have made it our song).

I am also, of course, looking forward to the Spain trip that begins on the night of the 28th. I am looking forward to it a lot. Unfortunately, this means I'll be away from the staff for about ten days, and I've been away and will continue to be away from most of them until the fair is over. I will miss them terribly, but I hope to make a bunch of new friends from around the world at this thing, and then come back, rested and energized, and ready to help open up a brand-new store with Rosa and her half of the staff.

So, book fair, Spain, and new store. And that's all before the year is out, people. I am a busy fucking beaver.

The rest of the set-up went a-okay. Everything (mostly) totally got done by Wednesday night, and I of course was smelling like ass by the end of the fourteen-hour shift we all pulled in the ridiculously hot and un-air conditioned convention center.

All that was left for today was cleaning up our area and re-pricing some incorrectly priced books. Then, at one o'clock, the five of us (three full-time staff and two part-timers; three ladies and two fellas) walked over to Hotel 81 to change into our fancy clothes. If you're not from Singapore, you don't know what Hotel 81 is. It's a chain of hourly hotels, for things that are done in an hourly fashion (use your imaginations, children). It worked out perfect for us as we needed two rooms for only two hours, but when the hotel staff saw the five of us come in, they were slightly worried, especially since both our part-timers are sixteen. Regardless, we showered and got dressed (though the ladies took forever, as they are wont to do), and I got to show off my mad ironing skills by ironing Ras' skirt for her while she showered (skirts, incidentally, are the easiest things in the world to iron). When we walked out of that hotel, we walked out in style, big pimpin' and ready for the world (and ready to wow the VIPs).

It turns out, this is the first time that our particular chain of bookstores has a) finished set-up before everybody else and b) stacked our trash, cardboard, and overstock in the loading bay the nicest. We totally rock, and I kept reminding everybody that the reason this was so was because this year, they had me running the show (not really lah, but I like taking credit for things that no one individual can really take credit for).

The VIP portion went pretty well, as we basically just got to stand around looking awesome and talk to each other while VIPs came around and periodically looked at our books. We were obviously the best dressed employees on the floor, as everybody else had to wear their uniform, which consists of jeans and a company embroidered polo. Luckily, our two part-timers speak Chinese (my two full-timers are Malay and I, of course, am Aztec), as most of the VIPs were from Shaghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong. They handled the brunt of the conversation.

Unfortunately, there was no makan until after we left the convention center at about 1900. That sucked a lot. I was super hungry by the time that rolled around. I did down two red bulls and a coffee during the day, though, and only two cigarettes, which was amazing. Ras, Siti, me, and our female part-timer went for dinner and talked. Apparently, the ladies' room at Hotel 81 may or may not have had some bodily fluids on the their bed. The part-timer (who has been nicknamed Agent 129 by Ras as she spent S$129 on a dress for today) is unintentionally hilarious, as she constantly made non sequitur comments about these fluids during dinner. Siti keeps saying Agent 129 has a crush on me, and it may actually be true, but the girl is sixteen and I feel like a cikopei even talking about it. Siti says I should go for it since all my previous girlfriends have been at least a year older than me. She of course didn't know about the inherent legal problems with such a set-up until I explained them to her, nor the inherent ickiness factor of the whole thing. I don't want to be that guy (though the girl is super cute).

Yes, today was tiring and mostly food-less, but it was a lot of fun. The book fair opens to the public tomorrow, and I predict it will be a much less fun day... maybe. Maybe it will actually be super awesome. I honestly can't tell anymore. There will certainly be less talking time, and I will certainly wig out at some point, especially since the no smoking except on your break rule will be in full force (it was somewhat lax during set-up), but I can't tell what will energize me and what will annoy me about this book fair anymore. Hopefully, everything will be peaches and cream, and my meerkats will be duly rocked.

Work was busy, but in a good way. All book fair people got the day off today, but I of course went it because I am a workaholic. My boss is worried that I will burn out, but when I remind him about the Spain trip, he says I should actually stay overnight too. My boss is pretty awesome.

I got to do the schedule for the first time today. I scheduled everybody's off days for the next four weeks (excepting managers and CSEs), and it was a pretty easy, until I finished and everybody was all "Wait, I have PHs to claim and I already asked to switch these days off and blah, blah, blah." Bastards. You couldn't have said all that earlier?

Rosa made me drink this terrible Chinese herbal tea which is supposed to help me get over this cold. It better, 'cause it was really foul, and if I drank it for nothing, well, I'm just gonna have to get her back in some way.

As mentioned before, Thursday we finish setup at 1500, and then have to be back dressed to the nines at 1600 to glad-hand all the VIPs (which include the CEO of the company, the Minister of Education of Singapore, and a television crew from Hong Kong). Unfortunately, one hour is not enough time to go home, shower, dress up, and come back for anybody, including me, and I live the closest. However, there are showering facilities in the mall, but we need to get special passes to use them. Elf is working on them (hopefully), otherwise, we'll all just have to be smelly after we change, and that won't impress anybody.

In my extremely long twenty-five years of life, I have learned absolutely nothing about women. This isn't relating to anything specific, it's just a fact I have realized today. Girls are weird, they do strange things that make no sense with or without context, and they rarely explain themselves, if ever. They're kind of like God that way, only much less benevolent (flame away, ladies :D ). Unfortunately, I love you all too much to ever give you up, even though my life would be a lot easier if I was gay.

( And now, the playlist I am listening to all the time right now. )

Today was a much less stressful day, thank God. We were super busy, and had a lot of customers, but way less technical problems than the previous three or so days. Unfortunately, I missed Sam's birthday dinner at Nina's, and I feel bad about that. I hope they all had tons of fun while I slaved away at the store.

I only smoked six sticks today, which is some kind of small miracle, frankly. Tomorrow should be a relatively nice day too, to be followed by the craziness that will be the book fair starting at eight in the morning on Tuesday. Whee! Hopefully, my sci-fi orders come in tomorrow, and I can help shelve them with glee.

The crush and I talked all day, as we were both at the counter area. She said I was cute. She wore pink today. I may be backsliding. Dammit. Hold it together, boy!

There are still kids in NY that are surprised when I tell them my marriage is effectively over. That's kind of weird to me, but I guess not everybody obsessively checks Facebook and LiveJournal like I do.

Yeah, I guess that's it. Not a very eventful day, I know, but still. I've gotten in the habit of doing daily updates, and it feels weird when I don't do it.

I am fully aware that I stay out much too late and that I am spending too much money. It's time to slow down on both those fronts, as I am still fighting off that cold that has gripped me for two weeks now, and funds are getting low and it's only the ninth of the month.

I didn't even write a list of things to do in my notebook these past few days, ( so I'll just recap as best I can: )

1. Don't be late to work after three hours of sleep: Fail. Stupid MRT.

2. Sign separation papers: Fail, but not my fucking fault. And I am super pissed about this, so I will say no more until I calm down some except that I ended up smoking half a pack and downing a screwdriver at 11:50am just so I wouldn't take it out on customers or my staff.

3. Don't eat lunch inside the office: Done. I convinced Kaizal, Nazhar, Siti, and Iskandar to eat out on the rooftop of the mall with me. It was nice and breezy, and not at all cramped like inside the office always is.

4. Start planning James Bond for tomorrow night: Done. So far, it's just me and Yvonne, and if it stays that way, we'll probably go to dinner and catch an earlier showing at the best theater in town since she doesn't work tomorrow and I technically get off at seven. If more people join us, then we'll catch an 11pm-12am showing at one of the nearby theaters and skip dinner since the kids don't get off work until 10:30pm.

5. Watch Obama's acceptance speech on the ol' YouTube: Done. I was underwhelmed. The man usually talks a great game (and he is an excellent orator), but this speech lacked his regular oomph. I expected awesomeness and instead I got meh. And I still can't get excited about this.

Final tally: 3 out of 5 = 60%. Not my fucking fault.

Whoops. But I had a really good reason to not do this last night:

1. Don't be late to Bookfest meeting at HQ: Done, barely. HQ is at the other end of the island, but I had planned to get up early and take the MRT over and meet Adam and Iskandar so that we could then take a bus. But I got up late, and making myself pretty always takes some time, so I had to take a cab. I picked up the kids and ran off to HQ, and got there with 20 minutes to spare (so we had time for makan).

The meeting itself was pretty much just about how to deal with the part-timers who will be doing most of the heavy lifting at the fair. Since most of them are young kids, HQ expects a lot of milling about problems.

2. Start PR status stuff: Done! I passed off the employer sheet to my super cute HR girl at the HQ and started in on my side of the paperwork. Hopefully, Singapore will love me enough to let me stay without a time limit (my current employment pass runs out at the end of August in 2010).

3. Rock my pink shoelaces: Done! I bought some shoelaces the other day so that I could rotate the bland white ones my Converse All-Stars (I will never tire of saying that) out. One pair is hot pink with little stars on it. I dressed up for the meeting (slacks, button-down shirt, tie), but kept my Converse All-Stars on (see?) and put the pink laces on them. It's always important, no matter how corporate your job is and how stifling the dress code is, to work in a little individualism into the wardrobe.

4. Put up the 44th President display with all the Obama books: Done. It was Rosa's idea, but I helped out a lot (we even took a field trip to Geylang for red and blue fabric). It looks pretty awesome and I should really take pictures of these things once we're done putting them up.

5. Watch the Manchester United match at 3:45 in the morning: Done. Jhan, Kaizal, and me went over to Ridwhan's shop to hang out and wait for the match to start. I stayed up with Whan and his friend Ruslan to watch the match. The other two pussies went to sleep between the hours of midnight and when the match started. I stayed up and talked to Whan and Lan about all kinds of shit, and then we woke up our two sleeping beauties and headed off to catch the game. Before going to bed, though, Jhan was on fire and just kept hammering on Kai and Whan with clever quip and retort after clever quip and retort. It was pretty great.

The match itself was okay, but I wish that maybe Man U could have scored a few more times what with the three thousand shots on goal they had. Seriously, Celtic FC had some kind of fucking force field in front of that goal or something.

After the match, I took a cab back to the apartment and crashed for three hours. Hence why this wasn't posted last night.

Final tally: 5 out of 5 = 100%. Ah! Too good!

( Obama )

Why the hell am I still awake!? Stupid hyperactive brain...

1. Have a good night's rest: Done! I slept eight hours last night for the the first time since my marriage broke up. It was mostly due to whatever the hell I had yesterday, but still, a good night's rest is a good night's rest (obviously, this isn't carrying over at all).

2. Start working on those sci-fi and mystery titles you've been sitting on: Done! I put in two rather large sci-fi orders and one small mystery order, which kind of worried me at first, but then I remembered the sci-fi section was actually kind of bare because of all the returns we'd recently done, so we should have plenty of space to shelve that shit when it comes in. Yay, Charlie Stross! Yay, William Gibson! Yay, Philip K. Dick! Yay, Dashiell Hammett!

3. Start re-reading Love Roma: Done! I finished the first volume, and if anybody hasn't read this before, do it rickytick. It's girly, and cute, and hilarious, and best of all super sweet. After Yotsuba&!, this is my second favorite manga ever (speaking of which, I should probably re-read that soon too).

Yes, I'm a huge girl. Deal with it.

4. Don't get too into election coverage, as you won't know anything until tomorrow morning anyway: Fail! Why do I care so much? I don't even have a horse in this race. Stupid historic election where I had to choose the lesser of two evils (again!). But you know what? I do hope Obama wins, if only so my boss won't scream and whine for the next four years (at least). He reeeeeeeeally hates McCain and Palin. Like, a lot.

...Another quick check of CNN.com confirms that I still know nothink! *sigh* I do miss you New York kids, though, as this would be a lot more exciting (than it already is, I mean) if we were all hanging out waiting for the end of the world together.

Final tally: 3 out of 4 = 75%. Steady as she goes, baby...

( Other stuff )

1. Fuck up those problem suppliers something fierce: Done. Two of them came to pick up their returns, and I flat out fucking yelled at one of the other ones to come in already. This one supplier that I yelled at has been ducking not only my calls, but my merchandising manager's too, and enough was enough. They got the message though, and they're coming by Friday to grab their stuff. And if they don't, I'm going to their HQ and I'm punch people in the throat until somebody comes by and picks up those goddamn returns.

The other two are coming in sometime this week too, but they haven't been ducking any of my calls, so I'm not so angry at them.

2. Put in my graphic novel order: Done. I'm replenishing a bunch of Vertigo titles, and once the supplier gets back to me, I'll have the merchandiser's create more Vertigo titles in our system so that I can order them too (things like Alan Moore's Swamp Thing and Grant Morrison's Invisibles).

3. Start working on those sci-fi and mystery titles you've been sitting on: Fail.*

4. Go see Russell Peters live: Done. Oh man, he was hilarious, and I kind of wish I had sat nearer to the front so that he could have made fun of me too.

Final tally: 3 out of 4 = 75%. Why do I have so few goals all of a sudden?

( * )

1. Play basketball with some of the work kids: Fail, but it totally wasn't my fault. Jimmy suddenly had a family thing to do, and Jhan decided to instead talk to his family more once Jimmy bailed. We'll reschedule for a later date.

2. Eat dinner with the girls: Done. muzzledroses, a friend of hers from her Korean class, lucentstreak, and I went to a Chinese place in Chinatown (surprised?) and ate some awesome food. We had some xiao long bao, some gyoza, some other fried dumpling of some kind, three noodle dishes, and some dessert. I swear to God, these girls are gonna make me super fat if they keep taking me to delicious dinner places. We also made tentative plans for dinner next weekend, so look for me to complain about how much I ate next weekend as well.

Before that, lucentstreak and I hung out at the store where she bought some books. Then we headed over to the Long Bar for some pre-dinner drinks before muzzledroses picked us up, and I got to see lucentstreak down a whole Cosmopolitan in less than a minute. It was kind of amazing. However, the Long Bar still overcharges for their drinks.

3. Go out with some work kids: Done. We just went downstairs and had drinks at the bar in the mall. It was Adam, Chris, Huda, and me bullshitting and drinking. It was fun, and we've made tentative plans to do it again next weekend, only this time I think it'll be at my place for cheaper, as both Adam and Huda have some bottles of vodka hidden at their places that they plan to bring over (I also have a bottle here, though it's less hidden). We might even get some Rock Band in. Who knows, the future is fishy after all. Huda might even convince me to go clubbing at some future date. I know, crazy right?

4. Do not smoke: Fail. Fuck it, I'm not quitting. There's too much stress in my life right now, too much to worry about. I had like five cigarettes today. I bummed two off of lucentstreak (but it totally wasn't her fault, as I kind of insisted), and then I went out and bought a pack and smoked some more. The crush will just have to be angry with me, and then maybe I can move on to greener pastures already (where I may be able to actually graze a little).

...I will nonetheless feel like garbage tomorrow when she yells at me for it.

Final tally: 2 out of 4 = 50%. I really shouldn't count the basketball thing, but whatever.

1. Go to work and finish yesterday's thing: Done... mostly. I had some graphic novel orders to do, and I was hoping to finish yesterday, but the whole Halloween thing really put the kibosh on that. So, I came in today to finish it off, and I mostly succeeded. It will definitely be ready by Monday.

2. Go to Christopher's house for Scrabble: Done. This was actually pretty fun. Ro and Meishan were there too, and even though I got my English major ass kicked (there was some Boggle as well that I totally sucked at too), I enjoyed myself a lot. Christopher's house is full of comic book character busts and statues (it was like being on the second floor of Midtown Times Square again) as well as pictures of half-naked (and sometimes fully naked and fully erect) men all over his walls, so that was a fun time.

He did lend me his Ex Machina trades so I could re-read them, as well as the first season of West Wing and Boomtown, so that'll be fun.

3. Bid farewell to Jae. Done, see next entry.

4. Go out with the kids tonight and take Jae out: Done. Originally, we were supposed to go watch a movie, but then we decided to just grab dinner. But then they couldn't decided where to eat dinner, and so whining and craziness ensued. We finally decided to just hang out at Glutton's Bay, near the Esplanade as it's the nearest place to makan. It turned out okay in the end, and we all had fun bullshitting. Jae's last day was today, as he's moving on to be a social worker or volunteer of some kind. Dude's a Buddhist and he's parlaying that into actually being a really good person, so good for him. I've talked to him about this a few times since I found out he was leaving the store, and it's something he really wants to do, and something he's wanted to do for some time, so more power to him.

Adam, Nazhar, Siti, Huda, me, Jae, and Juliana hung out, ate good food, and talked (and Juliana even smiled a few times; I swear, the girl's got some kind of smile inhibitor attached or something). Fun times.

5. Do not smoke: Done. No cravings or anything today. Slightly easier without Kaizal begging me to smoke.

6. Read all of the Ex Machina trades tonight instead of sleeping: Done. I am the awesome.

Final tally: 6 out of 6 = 100%. Woot.

1. Dress up for Halloween: Done. I went as Clark Kent, as it's easy but awesome. Lots of people at the store took pictures, and they will no doubt upload before I will, so I will link once that happens. Most of the rest of the staff just kind of put on a mask or something, but Kaizal went all out with a Johnny Depp-Sweeney Todd costume that was awesome (and the best of the bunch) and Nazhar got a Mr. Bean mask and an ill-fitting suit and Bean-danced his way through the day. Rosa came in as a fallen angel, Eugene as a wizard, Eva as a witch, Yvonne as succubus, and Siti as Freddy Krueger. All in all, a pretty good turnout, though very little work got done as everybody was busy snapping pics and posing for the cameras (however, if Christopher reads this, I'm totally kidding; we got so much work done today).

2. Go out tonight if invited anywhere, even clubbing (*shudder*): Fail. I was invited out, predictably, for clubbing, but I was feeling pretty tired by the end of the day and so declined. Plus, clubbing. *shudder*

3. Do not smoke: Fail. Kaizal is a bad influence. He bugged me for about an hour about wanting to go smoke and finally I relented, bought a pack, and smoked a stick with him. Then the crush immediately smelled the smoke on me and I got in trouble for it, and so gave the whole rest of the pack to Kaizal, who I will not see for the next four days. So, tomorrow, we start over, and no bad influences.

4. Call up those problem suppliers again to pick up their returns: Fail. One of them actually called me, but I totally forgot to call the rest of them. There is always Monday.

5. Buy new headphones (good ones this time): Fail. My last two pairs of headphones have crapped out on me pretty quickly (usually the left ear goes out followed by the right a few days later). I need to get headphones that will last longer, and that means maybe spending some cash I kind of don't want to right now.

Final tally: 1 out of 5 = 20%. Oh man, so much fail. I'm kind of glad the goals stayed at five. I don't think my ego could have taken a lower percentage.

( Other stuff. )