you're the monkey i've got on my back that tells me to shine

Today I wore an outfit that, three weeks ago, seemed Christmasy, but today was complemented for its adherence to impending Valentine's Day fashion -- a red thermal shirt and a white skirt with diagonal stripes in a more muted red. It sounds all too much like a candy cane, but I don't care; I like wearing red when everyone else around me is wearing black. I complemented it by slathering on some lipstick (an upgrade from the Carmex that has served as my only lip adornment for much of the past couple of months) and leaving my hair down -- hair that was described as 'glamorous' by one of my coworkers, since the absurdly expensive haircut that I got in November is still paying out a decent return on the investment.

Why I felt the need to detail my sartorial choices today, I do not know, but hopefully it was a pleasant change from my eating and sleeping habits. My day was fairly uneventful; I made it to the office by nine a.m., had several meetings (none of which were particularly onerous, and in fact one -- with my friend Kerry, who was in Dublin when I was and now works on a team that I coordinate with -- was pure fun), and then left to pick up some necessities at Target. Afterward, I met Terry at Iberia; it's the tapas place that I went to last weekend, and it's conveniently located a block from her apartment. We had the fantastic deviled dates again, along with an assortment of other tapas, topped by a glass of wine for me and a glass of sangria for her. While we had just seen each other on Tuesday, there was much to recap; it's funny how neither of us think we have anything at all going on in our lives, and yet we can find new and varied topics even though we usually have dinner together once or twice a week.

I followed up the fun of dinner with the mild annoyance of shopping for groceries. I'm once again stocked up for the apocalypse -- or at least I could survive for a few days until martial law is imposed and I can attempt to make a safe and orderly escape to the Midwest. I should have started researching when i got home, but I'm too tired to continue thinking, so I suppose I should go to bed. Tomorrow will be busy enough -- I'm having Heather (aka dear respected madam) and Salim over for dinner tomorrow, which means I need to tidy up (shouldn't be too difficult given how much cleaning I did last week) and cook (will be fun but laborious -- I'm making boeuf bourguignon, which is like a beef stew only more expensive, since I need to take advantage of cooking opportunities when the guests aren't freaking vegetarians like most of my friends). Happy weekend, everyone!