I was writing another soft skills post, the concept of building checkpoints into a task to help deal with distractions, and to help increase flow state.
I quickly realised I was in over my head. It was a very busy weekend with a distinct lack of free time. Why not flip it onto itself? I can use the lack of free time as the content.
On Saturday night I met with a friend / former flatmate, a shared friend of ours, and the shared friend’s girlfriend. Had a couple drinks in Waxy O’Connors – an Irish pub in the city centre – and then headed towards the train station.
While waiting for the train station we saw a lad with a light-up bucket hat. We explained where we were going out and asked about him. He responded “I’m goin’ hame man, I’ve got dugs to feed”.
“Where we were going” was the rum shack, near Queen’s Park. Took the train, wandered aimlessly for a moment because none of us got the directions out, and we arrived at our destination.
The event was Zag Erlat’s My Analog Journal: a funk/soul/disco dance party. What a time, too good for a sans-serif description.
Shout out Radio Buena Vida.
Feeling fragile on Sunday. Woke up early, sorted out some laundry, got a coffee. I’m currently reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas by Jules Verne. It’s pretty good. Lots of descriptions of fish and molluscs. I’m all about it.
In the mid afternoon I tried to write that checkpointing blog post. You can see how well that went.
In the late afternoon, the same characters from last night got to my house, heavily provisioned. They have brought enough food for a small battalion. Chicken thighs, tenderstem broccoli, carrots of all colours, baby potatoes, faux chicken for a vegetarian, Vitalite butter for a milk allergy.
We cooked, all together, as a symphony in the not-large-enough kitchen. It was great fun, in a sense we stress-tested the kitchen, learning the ways in which it doesn’t handle four people cooking concurrently.
We ate and chatted, and chatted and ate. The housemates got involved. We reminisced. We talked about our areas of expertise, talked about things we know nothing about.
The faux chicken was relatively convincing. The texture wasn’t there, almost chicken mince. Honestly pretty good, I might buy it of my own accord sometime.
The evening drew on. Normally I’d have offered around a nightcap of some sort, but for some reason I didn’t. We had someone driving, and regardless, I don’t think anyone had any real desire for alcohol.
We said our goodbyes, likely the last for this year. We talked of plans for January, plans for June. It’s nice to make plans for the future, it adds a much greater “see you later” to the whole exchange.
I tidy up a little. My friends already handled most of it, which was very nice of them. It has been an enriching, life-affirming evening. The sort of evening people really do need, whether they realise it or not.
I sit down. I need to write something. The past 24-ish hours were so wonderful: why write about anything else?