scotm

I've had a week and a day off and I have slept so much!!

Despite last night itself not being great for sleep, I am starting to wonder if I have actually caught up on sleep.

Because a strange feeling has overcome me this evening and I think it's...boredom? I am used to keeping myself busy after dinner doing chores, reading, or just trying not to go to sleep until bedtime.

But now I've done enough stuff for the day -- went to the gym with angelofthenorth, had a shower, fetched the now-empty recycling bin and put it back where it belongs, walked Teddy, put groceries away when they arrived -- and I'm not that tired.

Is...is this when people do hobbies??

My alarm went off this morning (only at ten, but I needed it) to make sure I was up in time to walk Teddy before his humans were away for their Christmas lunch.

I thought I was the first person to make it downatairs this morning but while I was just getting to the bottom of the stairs I was already greeted by angelofthenorth already in her usual comfy chair saying "Merry Christmas! Do you want some bucks fizz?" (Which is basically a pre-made mimosa. Luckily I'd been reminded of this recently by being offered it after the ceremony at the wedding we were at a few weeks ago; I'd been able to ask D then to remind me what it is.)

It's a lovely Christmas morning: chilly but not cold, usually pretty sunny, and dry.

It had been a week or so since Teddy and I had seen each other so we were both very excited to do so again.

On our walk, we saw a young probably-dad-type person heading to the recycling bin in front of his house with an armful of cardboard, the boxes already broken down. We grinned a greeting at each other.

A few houses down, a woman in pajamas and a big scarf was just trying to nip out to her car in front of the house, but since Teddy wants to say hello to everyone (human or dog) and assumes every human wants to pet him, so I couldn't drag him past her before she gave in and ruffled his ears and said "Merry Christmas" to me.

As we were leaving the park, I noticed we'd just been joined by two kids with the kind of lightsabers that make the noise when you hit them against each other, and a little scotty dog that I know is called Biscuit because they were getting told off/called over when they were ignoring the humans to say hello to Teddy.

I got home, opening the door to the lovely smells of angelofthenorth already well into the process of cooking our amazing Christmas dinner.

I wrote and sent (luckily could retrieve in time!!) an email to them from my erik@ address, rather than the Gmail address I've had since 2004 and use for bank stuff and parent stuff and... that's about it now.

I have never even started to do such a thing before, I don't know what happened here! I'm feeling fine today, so for my brain to be so addled is very weird!

Luckily (??), emails sent from the erik@ account from my phone often bring up an error message that means I have to fiddle around a bit to get them sent, and when that happened this time my blood ran cold and I quickly deleted the email altogether. It never got from "outbox" to "sent" so that should be okay!

But sheesh what a near miss!

It was an email about my birthday present too so very obviously from me, I couldn't say it was just spam or something.

Thanks for the nice comments on the previous entry. They, along with just writing it out in the first place and D holding me tight (normally I am the big spoon but he did a great job at it last night!) helped me have an okay night.

D had asked me, after we turned the lights off, if there was anything I wanted to do today -- the family had no real plans beyond making the homemade vegan wellington for my birthday dinner that D's sister had suggested and I'd gotten excited about before I remembered quite how much work it was last year, oops. But D and I helped and it felt a lot less of a production this year.

Anyway, before that we had no plans and I thought it might be nice to get out of the house and see something of Birmingham. We didn't actually make it as far as the city centre but the local high street allowed D to browse charity shops while I got a long-overdue haircut (I went from the longest hair I've had in quite a while to the highest skin fade I've maybe ever had, so it feels like a dramatic difference!), and we went for a very nice birthday lunch.

My birthday present from D might still be trapped in DRM hell but he told me what it is, and The Feminist Art of Walking by his old pal Morag goes very nicely with the birthday present I've already gotten from angelofthenorth, of short walks/hikes around Greater Manchester. I also got a bookshop.org voucher from D's mum, which can be added to the one that comprised the other part of my birthday present from Miriam, so I have to decide what to get there too, which is so fun.

Weirdly, my birthday also marks a year since Gary died. It feels so long ago but also I can still conjure him so clearly in my memory, and there probably hasn't been a day all year that I haven't thought of him. I still miss him so much.

I've had a much better day, and I'm looking forward to being home tomorrow.

This morning I mused that today is in that liminal space where I cannot yet eat the cheese we bought for Christmas but there are mince pies on the countertop and I could have one for breakfast.

I did have one for breakfast. (With a slice of regular cheese because mince pies are too sweet for me on their own and taste really good with strong cheese.)

D and I are off to family Christmas celebrations tomorrow, so I signed off work this afternoon for the last time until 2026!

In the three previous years I've had a white collar job, I've never taken this long off, I've always worked a little between Christmas and new year. I kinda like it for catching up on stuff when work is quiet and people leave me alone, and long stretches of unstructured time isn't good for my mental health.

But this time, I'm so ready for this. This year has been so long.

(I know myself well enough to expect that I'll be horrified on the 27th of December when I have a whole week ahead of me with nothing to do. But I can worry about that when I get to it.)

I'm a little sad to be missing queer club's Christmas party this evening, but my carefully planned after-work itinerary fell apart almost as soon as I made it, when my friend L texted and asked if I could come over because he and his husband (also my friend) were having a bad mental health time thanks to the DWP (they are both disabled).

I almost literally dropped everything and left the house, because L isn't the kind of person who gets in touch spontaneously, has the energy for social stuff, or can ask for help easily, so for him to do all these things felt like a big deal to me.

It felt kinda weird to leave in what felt like an emergency and arrive only able to offer hugs and silly, distracting conversation. But I'm assured that it did help. And I'm glad I could do it, I like them so much. It was a good use of my social spoons for the evening.