Are paramount

I’ve changed diary names. You probably noticed.

Yesterday I cleaned. Tidied my room, cleaned the toilet and bathroom floor and sink, did dishes, took garbage out, etc. Then I worked on that fictionalism paper until it was time to PICK UP EMILY FROM THE TRAIN STATION! Yay! I collected Emily, and we had appetizers and desserts at the Cheesecake Factory, which won us over with its clever marketing strategy of being visible from the train station. We said hi and talked and joked and stuff. She mentioned one of those things that ought to be obvious, but is easy to miss, due to absense of the right sort of self-reflection: my social life is very, very different now than it used to be. I don’t hang out in groups any more. I miss Rice.

Anyway, next we came back to my apartment, where we discussed Thanksgiving Day plans.

We thought we’d prepare/procure some good food, so we started by making a list of traditionally Thanksgivingish food, in order to determine which things on that list we wanted to have. Happily, Savannah had already compiled such a list for our reference in her traditional Thanksgivingish entry (except it doesn’t include mashed potatos! Mere oversight, or is Savannah a part of some sneaky secret deviant communist non-mashed-potato-at-Thanksgiving-eating society? Big questions…) and used it as a checklist. We decided we liked several of the suggestions, some of which I had stocked in my kitchen, and some of which we planned to go buy. Then we watched TV and talked and hung out and had a nice time, until it was really, really late.

We rose mid-morningish and turned on the parade, and showered and dressed and I had breakfast, but didn’t give her any, because I’m just that kind of host. (You know, that kind that doesn’t force-feed breakfasts to people who say they don’t want them.) Then we left for our shopping trip, but were thwarted by grocery stores being closed on Thanksgiving Day. Who knew? (Note: if your answer is, “I knew that! Everybody knows that. I’m surprised you didn’t know that!”, congratulations.) We came back to my place and managed to prepare quite a good meal out of what I already had.

We ate: salmon with mushrooms and lemon, rice, peas, mashed potatos, rolls, and a black bean, black-eyed peas, corn, and feta salad. ‘Twas good. Then we watched the Colts/Lions game, and we were both of the opinion that if we have to watch a team that we like get its ass handed to it, it’s at least good if it gets its ass handed to it by another team that we like. Plus, Peyton put up amazing numbers for my fantasy team, again. Then we had pumpkin pie and ice cream and I had coffee but Emily doesn’t like coffee, and watched the end of season 3 of Coupling, which was awesome, and hung out and talked for some more. I tried to show her Buxton DVDs, but they didn’t work because they are lame and non-working. But we watched some Buffy instead (the two best episodes beginning with the letter ‘H’), and then we left to deliver her to the South Attleboro T commuter rail station.

It ended up harder than we’d planned to find the place (even though, Emily, when I looked when I got home, we *did* take the correct exit, #2B), and Emily missed her train, so I drove her most of the way home, and put her on a regular T subway, and then drove myself all of the way back home from there. Then I ate leftover salmon and rice and salad (because I was hungry), and wrote this entry. And now I’m either going to continue merely chilling out, or tackle that paper again. And honestly, I’m not really in a papery mood right now.

Tomorrow: cleaning again, to hopefully make my place such that it will impress (or at least avoid disgusting) Tara when she comes to visit in the evening. And after that, Tara is coming to visit in the evening.

I’m apparently in a whimsical mood, language-wise. I’m not sure about other wises. It was fantastic to spend some relaxing time with Emily, and we had a nice meal and day. Hooray for Emily. Otherwise-wise, I think that I wish that some things were different. I’m not sure which ones. Hmm.

Family Guy is about to come on.