Le Week-end Commémoratif Et Plus

Those that know me can imagine what kinds of bad habits I've picked up now I don't have to go to work any more. I'm enjoying this time off way too much...

Money! I've taken the company up on their offer of part-time payment, which will stretch my severance until August. Keeping me on payroll keeps me in the country. A good friend -scratch that: "a very good friend" - has offered me a loan, should I still be jobless when the money stops coming in. It'd be a shame to give up and go home for the sake of a month's rent or two. I have a U.K. tax bill to pay, and I still need to go get myself a Social Security number here before I can get the rebate Uncle Sam's holding for me.



Last week I told myself that I would complete Supply Lines before finishing my resumé. But that model bi-plane still refuses to fly where I want it to and my resumé could still be more complete... Today I found cheat codes for Faster Gameplay and Destroy All Vehicles and I'm this [expletive deleted] close to using them, and I never use cheats on a game.

Kudos to Joe for an excellent poker party on Saturday. I talked babies, played PS2, drank Black Russians... I didn't actually play any poker, but I didn't lose any money either. I got to know Abbi and Eve a whole lot better on the "smoking balcony" next to my apartment. You know when you meet people in a group, and you always see them in a group, and you never really get to talk to them one-on-one? Well, we fixed that.

I got a little down on Sunday because Memorial Weekend is when most of the bad mojo went down with my ex last year. Bad memory baggage!! If "drunk dialling" is the universally recognised term for the ill-advised use of a cellphone late at night, what's it called when you wake up in a bad mood and fire off an ill-advised text message? I'd still be in trouble now, but at least we'd know what to call that particular sin.

Monday was Mr. Management's 7th Annual Memorial Cookout, though my first time attending (thanks to that prior engagement in hell last year). Many regulars left town since the lay-offs and were dearly missed. I played Horse (which doesn't mean the same thing here as it does when Prince sings it in Sign O' The Times) and Squint, both for the first time, and the pre-school crowd kept everyone on their toes.

Tuesday we all went back to work. Just kidding!