Thursday was another "work at home" day for me. The weather outside looked a little threatening, so I decided to head out in the morning for my run. I went to Golden Gate Park again. It was fairly warm and humid, despite the grey skies, as I set off down the mud track. But midway along the outbound stretch, I started to feel a few drops of rain, and the wind started to kick up. By the time I'd reached the far end of the park, the storm front had hit, and the trees whirled around me, scattering bark, leaves and twigs. It felt dramatic and exciting, but I was wishing that my car wasn't at the other end of the park! However, I made it back in one piece.

Back to the car and observing the storm

The storm must have been worse than even I'd experienced, since when I got home all the power was out. I learned later that something like 20,000 "families" had lost power (am I a family?) So I spent the afternoon snoozing, reading the New York Times, and snuggling with my travel books in the couch in my living room. Just another work day :)

That evening, the power came on just in time for me to make myself presentable to walk a block to meet my friend James for dinner. He works at the Internet start-up that I interviewed with fairly recently, just a block from my apartment, so we'd arranged to meet on the squalid street-corner at the end of that block. As I walked up to him, it felt entirely appropriate to whisper jokingly under my breath "Speed, LST?" James has a complicated full life going on - working at a start-up, a long-term girlfriend, buying an apartment house and rehabbing it while renting out the units, and dealing with his sick father who's just had to relocate to California. I don't know how he stays so cheerful and easy-going with all that stress! I didn't take a photo of James this time, though - I guess I'm becoming a little shy of prevailing upon my friends to pose "one more time". Unlike me, they probably tire of being photographed :)

Around eleven in the morning on Friday, I finally was informed that the replacement hard-disk on my work laptop had arrived, so my sojourn at home was over. I headed in. There were no instructions on how to install the darn thing, and so, at someone's advice, I unscrewed all the tiny screws on the back of the laptop, only to find, with the last two tiny little screws, that those last two tiny little screws were the only ones that needed to be unscrewed! It would have taken me 30 seconds if I'd known what I was doing! Anyway, I got the thing done, and I was back online at work.

Installing the hard-disk on my work laptop

While I was at work on Friday, more storm clouds threatened the city with a lurid light.

Friday night was my "big" date! I say big only because he was cooking for me and ... well it was our first date after we'd slept together. I confess that I was looking forward to it all day with a smile. And hey, it turns out that he can cook! He made a great steak with green beans and squash.

I'm starting to think what it would be like to have a romantic someone special in my life again. It's too early for me to know whether things are going to work out with us or not - after all, we've only had four dates! But I've seen enough already to imagine how things would be if we got to know each other a lot better, and I like the idea. The odd thing about being in this stage of getting to know a guy is that you're doing very intimate things with him - such as spending the night - when in fact you don't know him that well. His face is still somewhat new to me - I look into his eyes and don't really know what's going on behind there.

Like I said, I spent the night with the guy - the first time in over two years I've done this with anyone. It was a wonderful feeling to wake up with a nice man in my arms. Well, I say "wake up" - I didn't actually sleep a great deal. I'm a wretched sleeper when I'm sharing a bed with someone. As a consequence, of course, today I'm a sleep-walker. But it was worth it :) I'm just going to call it a day right now and take a nap, for I have to be fresh for a dinner outing tonight. See ya!