Sleuthing Distraction

I wonder if it's the weather. The sun has come out, it has warmed a bit, the clocks have changed. In about two weeks time I go to the States. In the meantime, my world seems to have exploded with activity the way the world wakes from winter slumber. Except there is no rhyme or reason for all of these things to intersect.

So instead of tackling my obligations in a focused and systematic manner, instead I allow myself to indulge in my comfortable patterns, and I procrastinate. The Internet is my primary procrastination tool. It offers no end of interesting tidbits and gizmo's to keep me occupied. When I can't find anything new I find that I cycle through the same pattern of sites looking for a change like a record with a scratch. Repeat repeat repeat.

I'm not saying this with judgement. It's just how it is. Most of the time I accept it is how I am. I don't particularly like it. I find it wasteful and frustrating to be honest. But I am older and resigned and I can fight the tide as much as I can change my person. At least I recognize it.

But this is not about that. Because I was bored and avoiding my work and had finished my regular Internet haunts and was not interested in the cycle of checking I needed something else to do. Something that would hold my interest for the moment. So I sleuthed. I have not done this for a while. Well, not really. I suppose there are people I check up on with some degree of regularity. I don't think of it as sleuthing much. But I just indulged in some proper sleuthing and as is usually the case when such actions are fruitful, I have found something interesting.

I decided to see if I could track down my first ever boyfriend. He has a rather common name, though not as common as some, enough to be a problem in respect to simple searches. We met when we were both at University, albeit in different Universities in different states by a computer. Oh the early days of green screens and chat rooms! At any rate, we met in person a few times. But like most early loves it did not last. We were out of touch for a while and then he contacted me. He had moved to an area not so far from where I was then living. We met up twice I think. I don't remember much from that time. I was living with someone I was not dating but was in love with. My life was soon to turn upside down and inside out. My meeting with my first love again is just a smudge on an otherwise overwhelming image of my past.

And so we lost touch again. I remember trying to get a message to him. Trying to track him down and being rebuffed. That was it. I moved again, and again. It's probably been about ten years now. Possibly more. I think I've looked him up occasionally without much luck. I haven't done it for at least a year, probably longer. But I decided to give it a go. And I found him. I found his LinkedIn and his Facebook. He works for Time Warner, he lives in North Carolina now. I wouldn't have recognized him had we passed on the street. I wouldn't have recognized him if we were sat facing each other at a table. Funny huh? But I knew him as a skinny young man. And most men fill out by the time they hit 30. Not that he's big, he's just... unrecognizable to me.

Strange I suppose. Why did I decide to look him up now? Not sure. I suppose that dating is on my mind. I have not one, not two, but three dates in the next seven days. None of which were initiated by me, all of which are with different guys. Like I said, I think there is something in the weather or maybe it's the water, or perhaps it's a bit of both. Thinking about meeting new people. Tempering my expectation. Thinking about the past. Yes, this is how it must have led me to the path. Subconscious to be sure.

I am someone who likes knowledge. I like answers. The Internet is possibly the worst thing that could have happened to me. It allows me to pursue whims and follies. It's too easy. I think sometimes I need better boundaries and limits. Maybe then I would be more focused. It's probably not true though. I would probably just then watch an awful lot of television.

I didn't have a big purpose in writing this here, I just wanted to note it in passing. I suppose somehow it means something to me, I just really couldn't tell you what.

Marching Through March

So things are a bit better than they were. I had a few major deadlines pass, and having met them, a large chunk of work that was stressing me out has finished. There is still a lot more to do and the pressure isn't entirely off, but I'm feeling a bit better about things.

Yesterday I received my first 'blog book' made using Blurb. It took me a while to put 2005 together and the final book was around 240 pages. But I can't speak highly enough about the quality and printing. I was so impressed- it came and was even better than I thought it was going to be. It's inspired me to start on 2006 immediately. It makes me so happy to be able to have all of my blog writing in one place.

In fact I'm so impressed with this that my new plan is to make a cook-book out of the vegetarian dishes published by Ottolenghi in the Guardian. I've started grabbing the recipes already. Some of them are the same that are in the cookbooks but most of them are different. I think this would make a great gift for H and also S and perhaps T. The only problem is that unless I make each dish myself, I'm not going to have the right photos to go with each recipe. So I'll have to think about this. I have a couple of ideas but I'm not sure.

In an hours time I'm going to meet up with C to get some weed. I'm almost out of brownies so I think I'm going to make another batch. They're much better than smoking and obviously last a long time. I also got some for G so I can give that to him the next time I see him, with an ever so slight mark-up to reduce my purchase a bit. Win win!

I've booked tickets to the states for April for 3 weeks so that will be nice. I need to do some shopping while I'm there so will need to be incredibly strict about this one suitcase thing. I'm tempted to go buy one larger suitcase seeing as I hate the one I have currently anyway. I don't know. I'll think about it. I think what I'll do is travel with minimal clothes, buy some clothes and wear them there which means I'll need to go shopping quickly. But that's hardly a burden. I guess every 2 years I need to get jeans. It takes me that long to wear through them. I don't think I got jeans last year, but it's hard to remember, maybe I did?

In other news, life is mostly work related and not very social in the sense that 2011 appears to be a no-boy sort of year. I did mess about with the other couple that one time, but I'm not even counting that. On the plus side, my every other week movie and date night with T has worked brilliantly. Two for one pizza in Cambridge on Mondays provides a good reason for socializing with different people. And I try to fit in seeing other people as well. On Thursday I had really lovely evening with Ms.Woo in Islington. These things make me happy. Regular sex and a boyfriend would also make me happy, but at least these sorts of activities I can arrange on my own.

I realize this entry has been a bit nonsensical. My mind is just working that way at the moment. I'm sure I'll have more important and significant things to say some other time.