February 27th

It's raining outside. I love it. I sometimes wish I could live in a place that experienced more weather. I say this as someone who lives in a very sunny climate and always has. Were I to actually move to my dream place, I might find that I hate it. I'll never know unless I try, though. Someday.

I didn't quite meet my goal of 4 workouts this week but I did do 3 so that's not bad. It's still pretty active.

I don't know that I accomplished something constructive every day this week but I did get one of my most procrastinated tasks completed. I changed my name. I visited Social Security on Wednesday. As soon as I got there and saw that there was no parking, I knew it wouldn't be a quick trip. Luckily, as I turned around to drive out the other driveway and take a spot on the street, a woman walked up to her car to leave. I maneuvered a little so that I would be in position to take her spot but still give her room to pull out. Unfortunately, I was blocking one of the driveways. Since she was already trying to back out, I figured it wouldn't be a problem. Wouldn't you know that some old guy drives up in his car right at that moment and wants to exit out of the driveway I am blocking. He honked. I motioned to the woman that was pulling out of her spot. I couldn't really pull forward or I would be in her way. Of course, she was having difficulty because her tire was up on the curb a bit so she was taking longer than I had expected. All of a sudden, the man was out of his car, walking up to my window. I cracked it a few inches and he started yelling, "I'm calling the police on you!". I just laughed and said, "Go ahead. Good luck with that." I knew I'd be out of the way in about 30 seconds and, sure enough, I was. I noticed the security guard from the Social Security office walking back inside. He had come to check on me. He asked what happened when I got inside. Then he brought me a little rating card for service in the office "since he had made contact with me". I was in the midst of writing a nice review of him when I looked at some of the other questions on the form. It said, "what time was your appointment?" and "how long did you wait?". Appointment?!? I scoured their website and there was NO mention that I could make an appointment. I knew I should have called. I ended up waiting about an hour but at least I finally got it done. I have a bunch of other things to do once I get the new card but I've started the process and that feels great.

Regarding my free time for all things enjoyable, I spent most of it reading and watching movies. Sunday, I finished "Twilight". As I've mentioned before, I had a hard time with it. It would get interesting and then it would be very sophomoric. I had higher hopes for the movie and I was disappointed. It was the same thing. I usually like the lead actress but I thought she was stiff and awkward. In fact, all of the actors seemed pretty bad. Maybe it was the script. I also didn't feel like Robert Pattinson was that steamy. Okay, he had his moments but not enough of them to make me believe he was this irresistible being.

I also finished "Darkly Dreaming Dexter" this week. I had listened to part of it on audiobook when I drove to LA for work. I had high hopes for that as well and was, once again, disappointed. It's probably because the TV series is so well written that the book seemed like an average everyday mystery from the paperback bestseller list. Perhaps they should have hired Michael C. Hall to read the thing. I know that would have made a vast improvement. Still, when I read the latter part of the book, I imagined his voice and it didn't really help.

Last night, Matt and I watched "The Hurt Locker". This time, I was not disappointed. From the opening scene, I was on the edge of my seat. I loved how I felt transported to the war. It felt so real that I had a hard time winding down afterwards. It's easy to see why people can't wait to get out of there but the movie also helped me understand why, to some people, war is a drug.