I just signed the lease for a nice, brand new apartment just off 6th and Folsom in San Francisco's SOMA district. I've always wanted to move to San Francisco to try it out and I'm super excited about it. I don't move in until the beginning of February.

This weekend, I'm taking Diana to work's carnival themed holiday party. I'm actually excited about going this year because I have a nice outfit I want to show off.

Last year, I bought a suit for the holiday party. Later, at the Edwardian Ball, I bought a bowler and silk cravat. Later, I commissioned Dark Garden to make a tweed Beau Brummell corset-vest for me. It's finally finished and just in time for the holiday party.

At Bat's Day, I also finally found the exact type of pocket watch I was looking for to match the buttons on the corset-vest.

Of course, I'll get pictures taken with the full outfit but, in the meantime, imagine the combination of:



This Sunday, the day after the holiday party, I'm also going to wear it to the Dicken's Faire and we'll get pictures there, too.

I'm working on encouraging Diana to get boudoir photos at Dark Garden's photo booth as well. We'll see.

I'm excited about also going to the Edwardian Ball and the Exploratorium's Science of Cocktails this year on a double-date with Diana, Andi, Christy, and I.

Over the past couple of months, Liz and I were working towards reconnecting and getting to at least the level of "friends". We'd gone to lunch a few times, dinner, brunch. Gone for a walk.

We hadn't really had a good talk, yet, but I feel that Liz probably has a lot she wants to get off her chest. I was encouraging her to do so.

She'd refriended me on Facebook and Twitter but said that friending me on Livejournal wasn't going to happen.

She even invited me to her birthday gathering.

However, suddenly, she uninvited me and won't tell me if/what I did wrong or what's going on. She won't tell me if she's given up on being friends.

Even when we were together, Liz was often a mystery to me. I'd sometimes figure out what was going on from her Livejournal posts but, now that I don't have that, she's opaque. She doesn't really post anything of substance to Twitter or Facebook.

I admit that I cut off communication to her when we were breaking up and I was moving out but I also explicitly told her why we were breaking up and why I wasn't talking to her. It was because I was so angry that I was afraid that I would say something out of anger that would make it worse. Once I was able to have some distance on it and got myself under control, we started talking again.

To have things going well and then, suddenly go back to the way things they were 5 months ago, I'm just confused and mystified. If I knew what I did wrong, I'd apologize. If she decided she didn't want to talk to me or see me again, I would understand and respect that but she hasn't even said that much.

I must be doing something wrong, though. Two other people who I'd recently had dates with also aren't talking to me. Maybe they got together and decided that I was a horrible person and that I should be punished with silent treatment. I have no idea.

I broke up with Liz and Jeff today.

Those who were close to me knows that it's been rough for the past several months, since I moved in, and it will come as not a big surprise to them.

We were together for two and a half years and I lived with them since December.

I'm packing and looking for a new place. If anyone would let me sleep on a couch while I look for a new place, I would appreciate it. I don't want to be at their place, understandably. It does make it easier that Liz is going to be at school during the week so I can hopefully not encounter them while I'm packing and moving.

I'm hoping that moving out won't take long as I hadn't really got to unpack since I moved in. It had sort of been a plan that we were about to move into a bigger place together so it didn't make much sense to unpack.

If you are a mutual friend of Liz/Jeff and I, it's ok to not invite me to events they may be at. I understand and I don't want to cause any awkward situations. It's also not necessary to keep the fact from me in order to protect my feelings. I understand and I apologize for the situation of awkward social protocol this may cause.

- stuff is all gone now, thanks-

Going to sushi with Paula and Liz. Omnomnom!

Ok, I'm on a sudden blogging roll. It's pretty easy and natural once I actually sit down to do it. Anyway, here's my outlook for 2010:

January:
* Recover from London trip - done.
* Buy new computer - done.
* Edwardian Ball - done.

February:
* Ski trip - done.
* Volunteering for PantheaCon - done.
* Valentines day for girlfriends - done. I took Diana to Pillow Fight and took Liz to Cirque du Soleil's Ovo.

March:
* Do taxes - started.
* Go to Albion Nova Steampunk Exhibition - tickets are bought, hotel room is reserved.
* After doing taxes, start researching moving back to Mountain View.

April:
* Maybe try to take my roommate to Bats Day at Disneyland - depends on money/time, we'll see.

May:
* Go to Eve Online fan meeting in Vegas if they have it again this year.
* Volunteer for BayCon but I'll try to take it easy and not sign up for many shifts because it interferes with my birthday and it's stressful.

June:
* Attend SF Pride in stilts this time so I can actually see the parade.

July:
* Attend Tiki Crawl - waiting for site to update so I can buy tickets.

August:
* Do something special for Diana's birthday. We're still talking about what to do. Maybe want to go to diving in Mexico or maybe a birthday/DefCon combo trip to Las Vegas.
* Attend Burning Man - I haven't been in years. Probably be part of the "fuck it" non-theme camp.

September:
* Visit my family, going in September seemed to work out well last year.
* Go to Northern California Renaissance Faire.

October:
* Go to Eve Fanfest in Iceland - waiting for site to update.
* Epic Halloween Party!

November:
* Recover from Epic Halloween Party, start getting Seasonal Affective Disorder, give Liz good birthday hugs.

December:
* Go to Dicken's Faire.
* Hide from Christmas.
* Epic New Year's Eve party!

Also, sometime, during 2010, I want to move back to Mountain View. Hopefully, maybe, April or May but I dont' mind waiting for a good opportunity. My shit is already/still packed.

I feel like I'm forgetting a bunch of stuff.

This really isn't any more than any other year. This is sort of my typical thing. If you ever wonder why I don't blog more often, wonder no more!

For Valentine's Day, I surprised Diana by taking her to the San Francisco Valentine's Day Pillow Fight. She likes being surprised. She had no idea where we were going or what we were going to do before getting there

After we got out of the car in San Francisco, I handed her a shopping bag with a pillow in it. I think she started to suspect something was up when we started seeing lots of other people walking in the same direction who were also carrying pillows.

I had gone to Target and Bed, Bath, and Beyond and tested all of their pillows to find the perfect, small, soft, durable pillows. I was trying to be soft and I didn't want to accidentally hurt anyone or have an exploding feather pillow.

I was stressy, as usual, about making it on time. We did manage to make it just minutes before starting and then the fight ensued. I was trying to be innovative by doing body blows with my pillow or balling it up into a soft boxing glove and giving them a jab; everyone else seemed to be going for the head.

I was kind of nervous that Diana might have a bad time. I was afraid the tight crowd might give her social anxiety, a panic attack if some stranger was especially vicious, or that she might fall or get hurt by accident. None of that ended up happening, so yay. She had a good time.

I quit after 30 minutes because I was tired of getting pillows to the head and my arms were getting tired.

I met back up with Diana after a while and we managed to make it to our restaurant reservations, with a quite a bit more stressing about it from me. If you haven't figured it out, I stress a lot about making it to things on time.

Here is my dos and don'ts:
* Maybe consider bring a helmet. They are vicious and go straight for the head.
* Do bring a bandana or mask of some sort because you will get feathers up your nose and inhale them.
* Bring water, it's a work out.
* Arrange a meeting point and time beforehand; there were too many people tweeting, blogging, and uploading pictures so we weren't able to get working cell phones.
* Even though it is the San Francisco waterfront in February at night, don't bother bringing a jacket, you will work up a sweat.
* It might be a good idea of not going in with phones, wallets, and valuables. It's a fray; you might lose or break them.

Since moving to California (almost 10 years ago) I've wanted to go downhill skiing in Tahoe almost every year. Well, I finally got to go two weeks ago.

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So, the summary of what did and didn't work well was:
* Snowboarding is difficult; downhill skiing is much easier for me.
* I need to buy gloves with wrist guards in them; my wrists have already been injured and I'm afraid of further injury.
* Getting the boots and skis from a rental shop that wasn't at the resort is cheaper.
* Sierra-at-Tahoe is a really nice resort; it has a lot of stuff for beginners (also tubing!).
* The lessons at Sierra-at-Tahoe are good.
* Braiding my hair was good, it kept it out of my face.
* Cell phones are fail. We need better up-front coordination of where to meet when. I might bring my radios next time.
* Bring lots of ibuprofen; we will be sore.
* Maybe get snow goggles next time. I had some issues with snow in my eyes.
* Next time, I want to get to the resort earlier. We only went for a half-day but I had a lot of extra energy.

Ok, so I promised myself and others that I would journal often during the trip and show them lots of pictures. As you can see, that failed miserably. What made it worse was that once I fell behind, it was intimidating to try to catch up so that discouraged me even more.

It also didn't help that I've been somewhat depressed. It's a combination of the weather change and feeling sad and lonely because I don't have my usual amount of social interaction and people making me feel good.

So, I'm declaring that I'm not going to attempt to catch up, for now. I might journal some missing parts of the trip later if I feel like it. I'm going to try to start again, today, to try to journal more often so I can maybe cover the remainder of the trip.

One of the things that is sort of disappointing me is that I haven't used any of my train passes, yet. They were quite expensive and I only have a couple of weeks left to use them before they expire. I might get one or two train trips in and then I'll just have to let the rest get wasted.

I just might come home early and take some vacation from work to spend time with my loved ones. I miss them so much and, at this point, I'd rather spend time with them then to go do touristy stuff alone.

If I don't keep my promise to journal, feel free to nag me horribly.