I know I’m pretty picky about my hamburgers because, well, it’s one of my hobbies. We went back to Yakuza today. Last time we went we had a Kobe beef burger that was a bit bland, but was spiced up with yuzu and koshou. Matty G told me this was one of his favorite flavor pairings, citrus and spicy, but to me it was just two flavors that belonged somewhere else. The spice is for udon and the yuzu is for sukiyaki. I hate to be so picky, but it was like my sister said to me when I mentioned I was at Yakuza, “What, are you white now?”

This time the burger was pretty good but still not in my top tier. The burger wasn’t Kobe beef but an Oregon natural beef of some sort. It was tasty but the rare was fairly tough. The bun was a bit stale, and the flavors blended together better for me this time, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to go back. If someone else wanted to go, I’d certainly accompany them and get another burger. I would still want some fries, though.

I was tired at the gym today. I could list a host of reasons why I just felt tired and just a bit defeated, but the weather is approaching springtime and that always tires me out. I’ll just blame the spring and not every other guy reminding me how old I am and how life is passing me by.

Probably not much because I’ve just spent several hours trying to decrypt my mom’s handwriting so I can figure out what we donated to Goodwill last year. As you can imagine, it’s a bit of a mess. Not only is it in a foreign language, but my mom can’t even read her own writing. Yesterday was my blind panic trying to find all the fiddly slips of paper, and today is decoding some of them. Not all, mind you, since I gave up at some point.

Speaking of giving up, WASN’T I SUPPOSED TO BE ASLEEP BY NOW? Time to go lie down and see what my whirligig brain comes up with this time. Maybe something about going to Portland Closets. My fantasy life is awful tame lately.

Oh, and while the bears say I should cut all my hair off, two of my female friends suggested that I do not. I guess that means I have to get a normal haircut again. Now if I can only find the time.

Here I am, staying up too late. I started out fiddling around with lots of slips of paper, running around trying to figure out where the receipts for my window, insulation, and furnace were and then trying to decode the Goodwill donation notes I have. Half of them are in kanji, thanks to my mom. Ugh.

Of course I gave up about an hour ago, but now I’m not sure WHY I’m up. I just am. And when I go to bed my brain will still be going on about something stupid like being being chased by zombies or something. I mean, really, how the hell are zombies even supposed to SEE where I am? There can’t be enough electricity generated in that brain to do much more than shuffle around, much less eat. And I bet their jaws would just fall off trying to bite through anyone’s skull anyway.

Oh, there I go. I’m thinking about zombies ALREADY. Why can’t I just think about something more pleasant? About whether to get my hair cut as short as Joel always suggests. Or about washing my car. Or about fixing the upstairs laundry sink. And there I go with the house projects. Maybe if I just heat my brain up or something. I’ll have to thing about which way to adjust the temperature.

It’s all about the waiting today; at least it was a day off for me. I finished part of my plumbing, screwing it up and getting water all over the place at least once, but I was waiting for a laundry faucet to be delivered to George Morlan so I could finish fixing the basement laundry sink. Unfortunately, it didn’t arrive in time so now I have another half-finished project. I wish that was all I screwed up today.

At least I went to the gym and was able to come in DFL again.

Every time I think I’m done with painting, I’ll find some flaw that I want to fix. In fact, all I have to do is clean the paintbrushes like I learned in high school building construction (where Mr. Borquist beat it into our heads) and I’ll find lots of spots I need to touch up. I need to keep telling myself that it’s just a closet and it doesn’t need to be perfect. In any case, I finally finished painting (this round anyway) on Saturday.

Today I decided I better finish wiring up the light in the alcove (over my bed) and to do some plumbing in the basement so I wasn’t tortured every time I needed to clean up my painting or mudding tools. The plumbing supply didn’t have a laundry room faucet, so everything is apart and there’s no usable sink in the basement right now. I finally got the wire fished into the upstairs light. It took weeks of planning and hours of effort to get the five foot run of wire in the attic, but it’s finished. The bad part is that it’s very bright in my bedroom now when I flip the light switch.

My plan to be drunk for Valentines day didn’t really work out, but I have too much odd crap to do tomorrow anyway, so it’s just as well. Now I’m trying to figure out how to empty out the water in the cold water pipes without flooding the basement. We’ll see how that goes tomorrow.

Well, I got part of my New Year’s resolution taken care of today. I got my passport card. The picture on it is hideous. I always thought I was better looking than that. Oh, well.

My mom thought I wouldn’t get any other St. Valentines Day loot, so she got me a cookie. Better than nothing, I suppose.

I always say that the workouts at the gym get a little hard when THMFIC goes on vacation. I think he wants us to remember who’s boss while he’s gone. I mean really, the day after Helen we see Tabata burpees? OK, so they weren’t exactly Tabata rounds. 30 seconds of burpees followed by 30 seconds of plank hold. I wasn’t able to do that many burpees and I was cheating on my plank hold that I foolishly started on the rings. This is my sixth day working out and I’m pooped. Also, I was trying Chip Conrad-style burpees and boy did my pushups suck by the end. I think I was able to do 77 “normal” burpees, but only 61 of the Chip burpees.

I really wonder if I’ll get around to drinking myself senseless on February 14. I’m using my closet painting and mudding to distract myself from any failures I have associated with that date and I really need to get that done. Plus the painting touchup in the bathroom. Plus the mudding of the weird swoopy wall patterns in the hallway. Plus the wiring of the second bedroom light. I have a lot of alone time scheduled for this weekend which matches nicely with my relationship status.

Burger club tried to go to the Carlyle for our last burger, but they were out. I think they’re out for good now. We ended up at Pause who has really good pub burgers though they overcooked mine a bit. Not as big a disappointment as other things in my life, so I’m not too worried.

So this is very gym-centric: I’ve been at the gym for five days straight as of tonight, and I usually only go four in a row. Even when I do four days in a row, I usually don’t go as hard as I’ve done this week, because last weekend was a Chip Conrad seminar and he has some serious workouts. I’ve been trying to take it easy this week, but I just don’t have any common sense. Today, when I got to the gym, I saw we were doing “Helen”, 2 laps around the building, 21 swings of a 24kg kettlebell, and 12 kipping pullups, repeated for three rounds. I thought I’d just limp my way through it, but of course I got out there on an easy run ahead of everyone else. Alex got ahead of me, but I was close enough that I had to catch up and pass him on the last round. Nick did his rounds in 9:08 and I knew I don’t run as fast and usually finish about half a minute slower on a good day, and today I finished in 9:37.

Really, since I know I don’t have the sense to slow down on my own, I should just stay home. I don’t have that in me either. Fortunately, Friday is my rest day and that’s coming up soon.

I actually did ask someone out and she didn’t tell me to get bent. But then she never did return any messages sent on the intarweb and didn’t say anything when I saw her next, so this is probably the nicest brush-off I’ve received. I usually get very blunt reasons why I’m undateable and I don’t need to hear about my failings. They’re clear enough to me, thank you.

There are two reasons I’m giving up on online dating. Or three. Start counting, since I’m not good at it. First is that I’m reducing my disappointments by just not trying. If you don’t try, you don’t fail. Besides, I’m trying for the old baseball analogy of three strikes and you’re out this year and I’ve had my strike for the first third of the year.

Second is that friends are treating me like dogmeat, so why should I let strangers do the same? I mean if someone sends you a text message asking you out to dinner, and when you see them at the gym an hour later they immediately say, “As soon as I sent you that text, I realized my stomach didn’t feel so good, I don’t think I want to go tonight,” and then they go out to sushi with their real friends and post that to Facebook, I have a right to feel a little like a chump, right?

Third (aha, I knew there was more than two) is that I reactivated an account on Match.com and they’re sending me pictures of women who match me somehow. They are all large and in charge. I mean, really, I figure Match wants my money and they’re sending me the best of the bunch and the people on Match are posting their best pictures to try to get dates. I hate to be such a superficial SOB but holy hell I wonder if I’m just seeing the casting call pictures for a remake of Le Bossu de Notre Dame. Or maybe I’m just getting pictures from a mug shot database. I know I’m being picky, but if I’m going die alone anyway, it doesn’t matter a goddamn bit, does it?

So there you have it. The dating pool for a guy like me is pretty frigging small and shallow, more like a puddle, and I think the puddle is completely drying up. It’s just as well, my imagination for is flagging. I mean, I just got a bonus and some money back from my Costco credit card and the only thing I’m thinking of spending money on is a Roth IRA and I’m not even sure I’m going to live long enough to see any of it. Maybe I’ll buy some Hummel figurines and some Ed Hardy shirts.

I was supposed to get one of my last Carlyle burgers tonight but I got stood up. It wasn’t a big deal, but I’m still counting it. I thought about going by myself, weighing the the hedonistic benefits of a delicious cheeseburger with the health benefits of a nice leafy salad, and I picked the salad. I’m not really sure why, because delayed gratification has to have some sort of gratification at the end. Being fat, dumb, and happy requires a certain commitment to the calories that I’m just not getting lately. Oh, well, I had to scrub the toilet anyway. Oh, and do some work. It probably says something when I’d rather scrub the toilet than do work.

My friend described himself as one hoodie away from being the Unabomber today, but he’s married and has twin babies so I’m pretty sure he’s not able to hide himself in his own dungeon. I’m pretty certain the Unabomber stayed away from technology so I’m in no danger of that either, but I think if I just got some anime I could be an otaku. Sounds like a lot of work and kind of expensive, what with the trips to the maid bars and all.

A sinus headache is no way to start out a day, especially a day that included the second half of a two day Chip Conrad seminar. The seminar included a lot of why and not just a lot of what, and it was a bit much for me. I know why I do the things I do and I don’t really care that much about why others do what they do. Well, I do care, but I don’t care enough to listen to a guy for several hours about his philosophy on Powerpoint slides. Ideas are fine, but trying to wrap it all up with a pretty bow just kind of annoys me. If I wanted that, I’d go to church. It’s worth listening to Chip Conrad to get to the good bits, though, and he’ll even tell you to listen to lots of things and throw away what doesn’t work for you.

I think I was rude to a friend of mine this morning, who told me I looked good the other day. The problem is, I didn’t believe her. I never believe anyone who tells me that because I only hear things like that from people’s grandmothers. If you’re not 40 years older than me (and that’s getting hard to do nowadays) I’m not used to hearing anything like that and I may not have the proper reaction. I should have said, “Thanks,” but I said something snotty instead. I was also suffering from a sinus headache at the time, which I mentioned previously. I’m more used to hearing, “You’re old,” (heard from several people at the gym this week and repeatedly from the guy who owns the gym) or, “Those are the stupidest looking glasses I’ve seen,” (heard several times at work since the start of the year), but not a lot of compliments. That’s the world of guys, I suppose, but I think I’ve been on a downhill slide lately. Nowhere to go but up when you hit the bottom, but the bottom could be a long ways off.

It is fortuitous that St. Valentines day is on a Sunday before President’s day as now I have a plan in place for the proper celebration of such an auspicious event. For most it would be a secondary plan of record, but for me it is my main plan which is very unlikely to be derailed. I now have enough booze in the house that I can spend the 15th of February (the aforementioned Presidents’ day) quite hung over since I can’t imagine what I’d do on St Valentines day besides drinking myself into a stupor.

Like I said, it’s a plan and I haven’t rated it on its validity or efficacy, but I am doing a dry run tonight watching music videos on YouTube.

I wonder which makes me sound more gay, watching George Michael videos or starting to like Cher?