(One of the 8x10s)

What a roller coaster of a day!


+2 I woke up,
+5 put a load of new (+3 Christmas present!) towels in the laundry downstairs,
+3 placed my Netflix disc in the mailbox on the street corner,
+3 and walked to McDonald's for breakfast.
-4 The lady sitting two seats down from me was slurping her coffee like it was the most delicious soup ever.
+1 I walked home, moved my towels into the dryer,
+6 and made the most awesome playlist of forgotten and neglected songs from my mp3 library.
-17 I went to the dryer to find that, after 75 minutes, my towels were all still entirely damp.
-5 I hung towels in front of my heater and all over my apartment,
+100 and then I received a phone call from my apartment landlords telling me that they have decided to credit me with $400 of rent for the 20 days that I went without heat this fall and winter. Wow! Best settlement ever. I mean, I asked for some credit, but I didn't expect that much.

+5 I cut out all of my coupons, bundled up, and headed for the grocery store.
+4 I found nearly everything that I wanted
-2 except hot dog relish for less than $2 and sliced cheese for less than $4.
-15 The cashier rang all of my coupons for 1 cent each, became flustered, had to get help, and took a good 10 minutes to complete my sale. Embarrassing!
+5 I successfully made light of the situation with the girl who was unfortunately in line behind me. I acknowledged ruining her life, and she agreed that I had, but forgave me.

+3 I left the grocery store a sweaty mess,
+5 but the train came right away!
+10 I picked up the mail on the way back inside, and received a lovely letter from an old friend and the 8x10 photo enlargements that I ordered last week.
+10 The photos look great!
+8 I ordered a humidifier
+9 in the shape of a penguin from Amazon.com in order to stop
-20 my nightly nosebleeds and
-10 itchy, dry winter skin.

+5 I packed my skates, bundled up again, and headed downtown for the evening.
+6 The train came right away again!
-5 But everyone on the train looked tired, haggard, angry, or smelly. No eye candy there.
-25 When I got to the skating rink, I found it, quite literally, crawling with pre-teens, suburban moms, and Asian tourists. The rink was so crowded, and everyone was skating so badly, tripping, falling, tearing up the ice, that I skated for less than 30 minutes before giving up in disgust.
-40 I realized that I am the grumpiest old 29 year old man in the world. "Darn kids..." etc.
+3 I headed towards State Street to check out the January sales at some of my favorite stores,
-75 and received a text message from my new friend that he is leaving Chicago tonight and won't be back for a long time.
+25 See, he actually lives in New York City,
+10 but works in Chicago all week, when we hang out,
-25 and goes home to New York for the weekends.
-50 And now his work is transferring him to a new project that is not in Chicago. Bye, new friend!

-12 I browsed a while but didn't find anything to buy,
+12 but I also didn't spend any money.
+5 The train came quickly! What a streak of luck!
+3 And there was a couple of cute guys inside.
+15 Looking out the train window, I saw a guy playing with his two large dogs in the snow, doing something that looked a lot like a jumping group hug with them. Fun!
+3 I got home,
+6 Amazon has shipped my humidifier,
+10 and my towels are finally dry.

Just returned to Netflix:
Scrubs, Season 7, Disc 1