Guess who the service “matched” me with? Heh.

It was a little weird seeing him there – but when I stop to think about it, why should it be? I’m doing the same thing.

Still, I’m feeling a little down today. Maybe because I had such a rough day yesterday with the migraine, or maybe because it’s overcast and rainy and miserable outside. Maybe it’s because I spent all morning transferring old photos from one computer to another, and seeing them all reminded me of how lonely I once was.

I really don’t feel like going out today, but maybe I should anyway. I think it’ll be good for me. Just a reminder of how nice my life really is.

But it turned out fine. When I arrived, he was already there, waiting for me. We enjoyed dinner and a nice conversation, like two friends catching up on the latest news. Which I guess is what we are now.

If anything, I feel better than I did before. My life is pretty together. Things are looking up on the job front, I have a busy social life, and I’ve done some serious retail therapy. What do I have to be angry and bitter about?

This is in sharp contrast to my last apartment, which was in a slightly younger but still kind of old building. I spent two winters there, though you’d think after the first one I would have learned my lesson. Apparently, the boiler could not handle both heating the building and providing hot water, so all winter long, the boiler was crapping out every 2-3 days or so. The landlord would fix it, and then it would fail again. And again. This was not the kind of thing where hot water would eventually come out of your faucet if you kept it running long enough. This was the kind of thing where you would have semi-frozen slush coming out of your faucet, it would be 45 degrees in your apartment, the management office was closed, and the super was nowhere to be found. I would complain to housing, but they couldn’t really do anything about it as long as the landlord fixed it in a reasonable amount of time, which they always did. I’m almost glad the ceiling in my bathroom collapsed and started pouring sewage into my apartment, because that finally gave me the excuse I needed to break my lease and find somewhere decent to live.

I really love my new place. It’s been so nice that I almost forgot how bad it was living in the old one.

I’ve been a little preoccupied lately with my feline situation. I’ve added another cat to my household temporarily as a favor to a friend. I think I’ve officially exceeded the maximum allowable feline-to-human ratio before people start calling me a crazy cat lady, but this should just be a temporary situation. Unfortunately, relations between my current cats and the new guy are a little strained. New Cat has stopped hissing and seems interested in getting to know Moxie and Starbuck, but my girls are having none of it. They’re fine with him as long as he keeps a respectful distance, but as soon as he approaches, they start hissing. In an attempt to get around this restriction, he’s started pouncing on them randomly, which does not please my girls one bit. Have you ever heard a cat screech? It is the most awful noise ever.

The thing is, I honestly believe he is just trying to initiate play. He is not hissing or behaving aggressively towards them, except for the pouncing. Even then, as soon as they screech, he immediately backs off and skulks back to his corner, all sad. Poor guy.

Also, my girls are not behaving aggressively, either. They leave him alone unless he approaches, and then they warn him to stay away. Even when he pounces, they just defend themselves and hiss a lot until he leaves them alone.

So I don’t think the situation is hopeless, but it does mean I don’t feel comfortable leaving them alone unsupervised. Which makes life around here a little more complicated. Sigh.

The bomb went off, but we were too far away to be instantly blown away, so I went looking for my phone. My boss found one in the same crocheted iPhone cozy as mine, but I already had my cozy, just not the phone. That was strange, because I’m pretty sure nobody else has an iPhone case just like mine, but there they were, right in front of me – two identical cozies. Sure enough, the phone my boss gave me was not mine, but since the world was ending and all, I decided to use it until I could find mine.

Meanwhile, one of my ex’s friends made plans to hang out with me. I didn’t think it was a date or anything, but I’m pretty sure he did. So did my ex, apparently, because when he found out, he flipped, and beat up his friend. In my dream, I was kind of amazed and amused by the whole thing.

And then the cats woke me up. I’ve taken in a third cat temporarily for a friend who needs to be away for awhile. He’s really scared and keeps alternating between trying to escape his confinement (I’m keeping all the felines separated for now) and running back in to hide.

But anyway, when I woke up, I couldn’t find my phone. Heh. I did, eventually – apparently, I left it in the bathroom last night and just took my little handmade cozy in to my bedroom with me. It was so much like my dream that I was weirded out for about an hour. Strange.

One of the commenters in the article linked to this graphic about the 2004 budget. It gives a nice visual of our spending, and each element is sized according to its proportion of our federal budget. So yeah, we could cut our spending on foreign aid, but is that really going to make much of a difference?

Sigh. I’m just glad that my budget is slightly less complicated than my government’s.

Not that I’m anti-census or anything. I filled out my form the day I got it. But I think by the time they get around to tallying all of their information, the trains, hospitals, and even the schools will be done with all of their planning for the future. The census is great for demographic information, but I can’t imagine it’s very helpful for resource planning at all. There must be other, far better ways of doing that.