"there's something wrong with being copied in a memo, in the form of a big ugly demo..."

So I'm spending Friday night in. This is perfectly ok because, one, I could have gone out dancing with friends tonight but pansy-ed out (because I'm tired and broke) and two, because I've got stuff going on both Saturday and Sunday nights. (Actually, when I put it that way...I should probably be being productive tonight...hm, nah...) So instead I will recount a tale of my Saturday previous.

I get excited about little things. I'm not sure if this is inherently who I am, or someone I became at some time in my life for purposes of coping with said life, but I do know by this point it is essential to my being. There is this bar in town that has all sort of goodies in the ladies' room, including body lotion, spray-on deodorant, hair spray, peppermints, and (free) tampons. Now let me tell you--when you have dry skin, as I do, you very much appreciate when a business is intelligent enough to put lotion in the bathroom. Washing hands and then not putting lotion on in the winter is rather uncomfortable. =( So suffice it to say, this place already had my allegiance. Well, I was prevented from being a hermit last Saturday by a couple of work buddies who were going to this place for dinner and drinks (including the dude responsible for the introvert/extrovert quote in a previous post). I hadn't been to this place in a while, and was happily surprised by the newest addition to the restroom luxuries:



Washcloths to dry one's hands with! How awesome is that?! There was a little sign on the paper towel dispenser saying something like "restroom amenities provided by staff. soiled cloth hand towels in hamper, paper towels in trash". Drying one's hands with cloth is a lot less rough on dry skin than paper towels, so this is just a dream come true for me. Plus, my little inner hippie is very impressed that they are also cutting down on their paper waste.

Besides the washcloths, the rest of the evening was very lovely, also. It's nice to begin to feel less and less like a hermit. My work buddies were glad that I seem to have finally come out of a months-long funk and am being sociable again. A lot of people have had a lot of really nice things to say about me in the past week. I don't really know why all this positivity is converging on me all of a sudden, but it sure is well-timed, I'd say. There were also a couple not-so-nice things said about me this week (evidently I'm an even worse judge of character than I realized, or more accurately, I'm even better at deliberately ignoring my character judging abilities than I realized...), but the balance of it all is still positive enough to prevent me from getting down. Even though I'm somewhat in a holding pattern this first part of the year while I wait to see where the second half will take me, I'm quickly discovering there is still enough friendship in this foreign land to keep me from crashing into the Hudson.