Weekend nice and relaxing. Friday managed to get a report out which had been quite stressful waiting for last minute updates. Went home and decided to spend a night in. Ended up playing a new version of the boardgame Risk. Some of the housemates played it for the first time last weekend (when I was bedridden) and it took them EIGHT HOURS to work out how to play. But they still enjoyed themselves, so we played again. Don't think I held them up learning along the way, but they thought it should only take 4 hours this time. It took us SEVEN HOURS to finish. Ridiculous. Okay, to gamers, seven hours is probably negligible, but for us novice gamers... Well, surely we can manage six hours next time.

Saturday I revelled in eating normal food again. Ran errands in the morning. Then hung out with the housemates at home. They were mostly having a quiet Saturday night, as most of them were going to the Big Day Out on Sunday. I went for another Tsunami Fundraiser dance to some enjoyable breakbeat. They had episodes of Transformers projected on big screens above the dancefloor. Was a bit distracting to try to work out why Optimus Prime was fighting a dragon, or what the motivation for the Jabba clone was for capturing both Decepticons and Autobots. Kept forgetting to dance. Was quite soft and left by 3am, but was a good idea to leave I think.

Sunday had a leisurely morning as everyone else ran around getting ready to leave for a Big Day Out. Was a lovely day, sunny and clear and not too warm. Went to a going away bbq in the arvo in Edinburgh Gardens. Was a bit sad because I get along with Qat so so well, and we've so been meaning to hang out more since I moved here two (!) years ago, but we just haven't managed, and now he's moving to the City Beneath The Mountains.
4:50:00 PM

 
More drinking and late nights.

Little sister (L) arrives from Sydders.

Drinking and boardgames with full house:
6housemates + 1sister + 3partners = 10 people in house.

Sunday Vic Markets, bit of shopping with L. Unusual tiredness. Legs actually aching like I'd been dancing all night. Go home unreasonably early and start napping.

Headaches, really sensitive skin, aching muscles, fever, and finally voluminous emesis. Apparently have food poisoning. Scale of death to 100, feel about 20 (although am probably ~60).

Convince self am feeling better Monday morning after finally breaking fever about 2am and force self to go to work because have meeting Monday arvo. Feel crap all day (feel ~40). Get stomach cramps plus previous symptoms. Leave after meeting. Definitely feverish again (~20). When I get home from work I collapse in bed and look at my bedroom ceiling which is wallpapered with blue paisleyish patterns. They start moving. Twisting slightly clockwise, then anti-clockwise. Ceiling begins to breathe in and out. Flowing. Rippling. The blues intensify, the darks go darker and almost black, the paler blues turn white. Then the whites turn black while the blacks turn white. Pulsing negatives. Occasionally the colours return, and waves of blues flow past and under the pattern. Mesmerising. Except perhaps for the background nausea and occasional cramping.

Force self to work Tuesday because report due end of week, which I have to hassle people for info for, and have to work around public holiday for. Hit the Gatorade hard. Drink three bottles. Hope I can finish required work by lunchtime. Don't manage to get home till 4. Seem to be feeling better though, headaches less frequent, and cramps too (~50). Electrolytes must be replenishing. Try normal food (miso soup, salmon teriyaki on vegies and rice), tastes great. Manage to make an appearance at friend's Non-Oz Day Party that night. Was hoping to dress up as towel-head/refugee. Brought own towel. But didn't get around to it. Home earlyish. Apparently stomach lining still healing. Actually manage to get some sleep.

Wednesday was thankfully a holiday. Felt much better (maybe ~75, probably actually ~95), although still cramping. Went and saw The Incredibles with L. Nice cool cinema. Then home for a relax (and scrabble with Loud). Then Hottest 100 BBQ at Dan's. Drop L off at station to take shuttle to airport (thankness, no aircon in car, much too hot to drive out to airport). Then drop off at Fleur and Neiman's to catchup. Feeling almost normal.

Thursday meet Narelle and Nora for lunch and try eating normal food again, sushi and soup. Yummy. Get quite a lot of work done. Home relaxed night in.

Today - again, managing to get some work done. Weekend soon! Feeling ~99! Yay!
9:35:00 PM

 
So tried to get to bed at a reasonable hour last night to get up (again) at 4am, got woken by text message at 2am saying "keep sleeping plane cancelled call you tomorrow sorry". Heh. So after that (and after turning multiple alarms off), slept till 7ish, which was much better. Apparently new flight lands this evening and connecting flight leaves 4 hours after and he's just going to wait at the airport :P Poor thing, hope not feeling too guilty about our mutual mess up. I recall he *did* tell me he was arriving Wednesday at that party over west a couple of weeks ago, but I did ask that he email/text me proper details rather than just leave a voice message telling me only the time and airline.

Thought about going to airport just to say hi - at least it's at a reasonable hour - but we're meant to have people over for dinner tonight :(
6:22:00 PM

 
So today I got up 3.5 hours earlier than usual and what do I have to show for it? You guessed it - NOTHING! Well okay, maybe I get a minor blog entry out of it, but that's all. How do you do this you ask? You get up at 4am, go to the airport to pick your friend up, wait by the baggage carousel for their flight to disembark and collect their luggage, wait until the masses of people clear and the luggage stops coming to realize your friend hasn't arrived, wonder if they've missed their flight, text them, call their mobile, leave a message, wonder if they walked straight past and are trying to wait in the carpark, get them paged over the loudspeaker system, try and call them again, speak to them and find out their flight is the next day.

Narrowly avoid getting caught in vicious loop of annoyance (at self, at friend, at stupid world, at self for being annoyed at friend and at stupid world, ad infinitum), and only get into work a tiny bit earlier than usual.
1:43:00 PM

 
Thanks for all those useful suggestions for where to start. I might start with arriving back from Out West last Tuesday. Think the plane movie was boring, can't recall. Landed about 5pm-ish. It was rather warmer than West (38 degrees). Managed to make it home. Housemates did a bbq for me. Gave them some interesting free random crap from West which I think they appreciated. Started drinking. Ate way too much (at our new dining table loaned by Nora). Wed night went to the going away of one of Loud's friends - can't remember what blognym I've given her... Had a good time, met her rather amusing family and everything. First days back at work have been okay, still a few people away on hols, so not too hectic. But had big meeting on Friday which was a bit stressful and not as useful as I'd hoped.

Friday I went and had a good dance. My first for ages. Didn't manage whilst Out West at all! Friday was a Red Cross tsunami fundraiser at The Prince in St Kilda, and it was breakbeat (i like) and drum and bass (don't mind). All proceeds to Red Cross. Met up with Lain and Egg and Haclev and his friend Koko beforehand, and with Nutso inside. Had various friendly people of varying levels of weirdness intro themselves to me. After all my crew had piked, another crew were rather amusingly forceful about ensuring I was having a good time ("it's my birthday today and my birthday wish is that you dance hard and have a good time until 6am"). Was satisfyingly tired when I got home.

Slept until people started calling me way too early (11am). Including one from Hyper, who's planning to get back here end of this week. Who was at Spencer St station a bit earlier than expected, wondering where he lived now, and how to get there. Offered to pick him up, but luckily he turned me down since I was still asleep, and I gave him directions which turned out to be correct and he turned up a bit later! Yay! So (after a shower), had massive house catch up. Started drinking the wine we had cellared (well, almost, one was from 1996!). Saw a few photos. Went and got some more wine. Went to dinner at Nepalese Restaurant. Got trashed. Started on beer. Boardgames. Etc.

So slept in yesterday, had massive house brekky, then did massive grocery shop. Sat in backyard and read paper on the lawn in the sun. Then went and played games with Xena and others (Odin's Ravens - got thrashed, Mu - trick-taking game didn't lose quite so badly). Was fun, and I was almost awake by the end of it.
9:36:00 PM

 
where do i start?
9:39:00 PM