and we're back.

i'm starting to learn that mondays are going to suck no matter what. i have all these awful reports due, all the work that accumulated magically over the weekend, and 2 hours of calls built-in automatically. there's just no way around being slammed.

that said, i mentally prepped myself by working for a few hours yesterday, to help get myself ahead of the avalanche. it worked out quite well, and i'm actually somewhat keeping my head above water today. it still sucks, but i don't feel like i'm going to die.

NICE!

the weekend was pretty good. it got off to a rough start, but we came through in the end.

my goal for the weekend: NOT DOING THE SAME SHIT I DO EVERY WEEKEND.

we semi-accomplished this.

FRIDAY

friday i ended up picking my car up from the honda dealer after work (goodbye $400). after a few hours of post-work decompression, we decided to head to new york deli. i was hoping for a dance party of some kind, but upon arrival we found only douchebags. for a hot second, new york deli was THE place to go.. and now it's been overrun. another richmond bar falls victim. anyway, we stayed there for a little bit and then headed to (GAHH NOOOO!) helen's. going to helen's falls directly under the "same shit i do every weekend" category. i stayed for a drink and then bailed out and headed home before last call.

SATURDAY

saturday was pretty chill. i spent most of the day at the house, taking care of laundry and various other projects that i set out to complete. i also played some heated rounds of grand theft auto IV.

that night i had set a goal that we had to do something totally ridiculous to make up for the previous night's failings. after much debate, we decided to go to this bar called "the bank". it's sort of a fancier "club" than the dive bars we frequent, so we decided to go all out. all the girls put on dresses and ian and i sported ties. we looked like a prom group. it was fabulous. we got there, soaked in the strangeness of it all, danced, and had a great time. even when i ended up paying for my overpriced drinks, i felt like it was worth getting out of the same routine.

after leaving bank, my attempts to hail a cab failed miserably, so there was a 10-block hike back to my apartment. surprisingly, i was just drunk enough to not give a shit and it was actually a nice walk! bonus points for not getting mugged/jumped.

SUNDAY

sunday was like every sunday. but that's actually a good thing. i went to my favorite brunch spot perly's. to keep somewhat with the "new things" theme, i ordered something different from the menu. i know, i know.. it's a stretch. but it's hard to change old habits. after brunch, we returned home to a photoshoot! kenny was taking photos of his new summer line of flux rad. ian and caitlyn were t-shirt models and did quite a good job. i was photographer's assistant, basically my only job being to keep ian from trying to play GTA:4 between photos.

after that we piled in my car and headed off to see the new batman movie. i had high expectations and was pleased to find them all exceeded. heath ledger's performance was a total mindfuck. he was brilliant. i thought he'd do a great job, but this was really one of his best roles. he re-invented the joker completely. the only drawback to the film was any scene without the joker in it. his character was so intense, you could feel things die down every time it cut to a scene without him.

all in all, one of the best movies i've seen this year. highly recommended.

after the movie, i got a little work done, read a little, and got to bed at a reasonable hour in order to face this hellish monday.

not a bad weekend!