I haven't really written anything much of what I've this week. Skip over this if you don't like these types of entries. As I noted earlier this week, my memory isn't what it used to be, so I need to record.
Sunday - Movie night. Two movies were watched. I watched only bits of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Parenthood. Mostly I hung out in the kitchen so I could schmooze with Deirdre, who I love dearly. She's busy and I'm busy and we don't get the time to hang out with each other that we probably should. Then again, friends don't have to be together constantly to remain close friends. Which is a fact that seems to baffle a lot of people about my friendship with Jason. People seem shocked if I am not out with him or I tell folks we haven't talked for a few days. The rest of the kitchen people are pretty cool too. Scot & Shannon, Manda & Aaron (it was Aaron's birthday and he was getting attention, woo hoo!), Kelsey, and a few others wandered through.
Monday - Shopping. We had other plans initially, but my shopping friend and I rearranged stuff. We visited the Broadway shops, at at Chutney's, and then headed down to Pacific Place. I would rather have just gone somewhere and hung out, like Shilshole or Alki or Greenlake or something. But the weather started getting rough... yes, Seattle's famed drizzle began. With my apartment being the wreck it currently is (no can show to people!), I consented to more window shopping. I got to go across the sky bridge between Nordy's and Pacific Place for the first time. A pretty humdrum accomplishment, actually, but there are just lots of Seattle things that I have never done even though I am a Seattle native. So now I can cross one more off the list.
We didn't actually window shop the entire time. One of the things I love about her is she reads probably almost as much as I do. Different kinds of books, but she reads. As you know, Pacific Place calls itself home to a Barnes & Noble store. After most of the other stores in the mall close, the Barnes & Noble remains open. So we wandered around the children's book section for a while where she shopped for gifts for her niece and nephew (I think). I read a cow book to her. She didn't buy it for them though. I think she should have cause it appeals to both little boys and little girls. Well, and 32 year old adult males apparently too.
One of the children's books on display is a new book by Neil Gaiman. She had read a newspaper article on adult authors writing children's books, and had wanted to purchase this one. I think Stardust, another Neil Gaiman book, is a wonderful read. So I wanted to buy a copy for her. Unfortunately B&N did not possess a copy in the store. While wandering through the SF section looking for it, she remarked how disappointed she had been by the SF she had read previously. I think much SF these days is crap, especially a lot of the big name authors who writer interminable series that drag on long past the point of being interesting. Even my formerly favorite author, OSC, has begun to do this. Throw in works by Anne McCaffrey, Brian Herbert, Mercedes Lackey, et. al., and you have an A to Z of crap writing. Possibly once good, they have degenerated into mindless unchallenging drivel. One of the reasons I love China Mieville so much. But I digress. I wanted to get her a good SF book, so we pulled The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell off the shelf and bought it for her. I might have to re-read it and post a review. For now though, she says she is getting into the book which gives me relief. I kind of felt like I was putting my literary taste on the line with the recommendation. While I know someone who is a heavy SF reader would likely enjoy the book, I am not very familiar with the bibliophile's reading tastes.
Tuesday & Wednesday - Very little. Cleaned out my walk-in closet. I have a closet large enough that Jason asked if he could move in there. Seriously, as in not a joke he wanted to move in there. I still have to vacuum the room, but my goal is to either find a way to move my desk in there, or get a different desk.
Thursday - Helped my HTML student learn all about how the web works. Again, we ate. We seem to do a lot of eating and shopping. Next time I want to do something else. The eating and shopping is enjoyable, but we must avoid the ruts in life! Actually, no shopping this evening. After a tasty Mexican plate of enchiladas, we headed to her place to stare at a computer for hours. First task, fixing her ezboard icon so it won't get stretched out. Which reminds me, we never finished that. Couldn't get any of her image editing software to set transparency correctly. Also showed her how to reduce the size of the photos she has on CD. Then it was fun with HTML for a few hours. I didn't expect to be able to show her much. Mostly, I wanted to explain how a browser takes an HTML file and renders it for display. Cover what tags are, and a couple of common ones. Recommended a book for her. I know I'll have to spend more time with her later on to actually build a page... but that means I'll spend more time with her. Lastly I helped her fix her LJ friends list security levels, so she can hide personal stuff if she wants. I still didn't show her how to use it as a read filter though.
The nice thing about all this is I very rarely have a chance to show off what I do. I'm pretty good working with computers. I write software for a living. But most of the time, talking geek speak causes people's eyes to glaze over. Including mine if I have to listen to it. So I mostly refrain from getting in depth about what I do, except in journal entries on occasion. So it was pretty cool too be a guru to her for a few hours, especially when it wasn't about fixing a printer driver or something that I can do but isn't really something I am interested in. Building web sites is. I get to be all studly. Basically, I find more and more ways I feel good when spending time with her. Not a bad arrangement.