I went to the gym today and it was more difficult than I thought. My abs felt kind of puny and I couldn’t do the exercises like I was used to. It was a weird feeling afterwards, realizing it was Tuesday since Monday was a sick day for me. Tuesday means it’s Wage Slave day! And this week’s episode was about our friend Melissa’s character. They even filmed part of it at Sean and Melissa’s house.

The gym might have been a slightly bad idea, but rehydrating like I usually do was a much worse idea. My stomach was cramping even worse than yesterday. I’m hoping that’s all over now, because I have to go to work tomorrow to see what surprises lay in store for me. It keeps my job interesting and it’s also why they pay me.

I got up this morning and my stomach felt funny, funny enough that I called in sick. It didn’t really clear up all day and I even took a short nap after lunch that lasted until 4:15. I can’t sleep that much unless I’m really sick, so I figure this was the day to take off. My intestines are still giving me the gurgly warnings you don’t want if you need to leave the house.

So, other than that I really have nothing. I just got off the phone from a friend complaining that his eHarmony date said she’d be busy for the rest of the month, and it’s only the 3rd of this month. I suppose I have no suggestions other than to GIVE UP NOW. I just watched Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and it’s made me a little sad so I thin I’ll wait to give him my opinion.

I should probably use some tricks from revisionist historians and just tell myself that everything on my list was whatever it is I did today, and I think I did do at least one thing on my list. However, having a headache and napping is what my list would have been otherwise. I had lunch with my sister and Megan at Cafe Nell, where I made some disparaging remarks to someone who said, “Obama has changed us into a socialist nation.” Yeah, if that’s the case, where’s my government check? One I can live on?

Megan’s up trying to box up some of the things in her grandfather’s house and I think they have the opposite problem that my sister and I have about the inheritance. I think we’re all convinced that the stuff my dad bought was fairly cheap and junky and so there is no real value to any of it, just sentimental value. After you’ve seen thousands of things with minimal sentimental value, you just want to chuck most of it and send the rest to Goodwill. But Megan’s stuff looks better than that, unfortunately. There’s going to be a lot of sorting in her future.

The thing that was on my list was to put together one of the kits my sister got me from Japan. I had this this Gakken Analog Synthesizer that just needed to be screwed together and it was fun for about fifteen minutes. I”m sure I’ll play with it later, but for now I’ve made enough annoying blips and bloops out of the thing. I also moved some furniture to allow the contractors to access the attic space, and I returned my neighbor’s hand truck (finally). In any case, I guess I did do something today.

I’m trying to remember how I found out that a friend from the gym was moving today. He’s over 30, so he’s past the point of asking friends to move. Most people in their 30’s should just pony up the cash and pay someone to move, but Orion is a student without much money. I offered the use of my brother-in-law’s truck, which he thinks probably saved him $70 in U-Haul fees. On the plus side, Orion didn’t have all that much stuff and we probably could have crammed ALL his stuff in the pickup. On the minus side, my brother-in-law’s truck is a beast without air conditioning and it was a lot hotter today than I was expecting. I also wear long pants when I’m helping someone move, so that didn’t help matters. I thought it was especially hot in the truck and when I got to my sister’s house to return it I was kind of in a daze and locked my keys in the trunk of my car. Later, my brother-in-law informed me that the the heater hoses in the pickup fell off and hot air was pumping into the cab.

We couldn’t find my spare car key. We could only find my valet key, which would let me into the passenger compartment of my car and let me drive but wouldn’t let me into the trunk, where my only know car key was located. When I got home, we searched the house to no avail. I finally called Hillsboro Honda, but their service department just closed for the day. I called Beaverton Honda (which is closer anyway) and they suggested ways of taking apart pieces of the car to get to the trunk-opening cable. They also told me that they could cut me a key that would let me into the car and the trunk, but wouldn’t start the car because that required a special chip. I drove out to Beaverton and they cut me the key for free!

I made it to my evening’s plans, Rogue’s Bones & Brew. It’s a mini-brewfest (very small) which also had almost a dozen barbecue establishments competing against each other. I must admit I’m a bit of a racist because even though my first consideration was against establishment that didn’t show visible smoke and my second consideration was against establishments that said “it’s all in the sauce,” my final judgement was for the establishment that had only African-Americans manning the booth.

I was rewarded for my racism, as my second-choice establishment wasn’t nearly as good (I tried both).

I planned on eating until I ran out of money or until I was full. Unfortunately, I was full pretty quickly.

I walked a woman (one of my fellow gym rats) home since it was on my way, but I’m not sure what it says about me that it wasn’t until after she got inside that I thought about going for ice cream. Instead of asking her to go, I called my mom and asked if she wanted any. A pint of Alotto Gelato to go, please.