Tonight, I finally got my act together and cooked a meal for the first time in several years. It wasn't anything terribly extravagant: sausages grilled on my new George Foreman grill (which comes in two sizes: extra-large, and extra-extra-large); and lightly sauted green-beans and dried-roma tomatoes. I think it was two weeks ago when I went on that Safeways shopping spree, and this is how long it has taken me to get around to cooking. I have done some ... what could only be called "meal preparation", in the interim, however: Safeways sells these wonderfully convenient packs of pre-cooked strips of chicken, and I just serve one up with a tin of chunked pineapple. Ah, batchelor life.

It is, however, very handy to have a Safeway (never sure whether the singular noun is "Safeway" or "Safeways") on my block. And it's the nicest, smallest Safeway in the city. In fact, there are so few people who ever use it that I'm sure my building complex must subsidize it. Most of the denizens of this area are older, so perhaps that's why the sales clerks always ask me if I need help with my shopping bags. In fact, today, I was getting mixed signals from the clerk, since he also asked for age verification when he rang up my bottle of sherry.

Today was such a beautiful, spring-like day. Even this evening, I was just wearing shorts and a tank-top to go the supermarket. There are few enough days in the year here in San Francisco that retain their warmth into the evening, so to get one now in early February is a blessing. I went over to the Castro in the late afternoon to do a quick back workout, and everyone was out in their spring finery (which chiefly consists of tight shirts, and skimpy tank-tops). Everyone had a smile on their face on account of the weather, and I even exchanged eye contact with a couple of cuties in the gym.

I had a very quiet weekend. Jed came over on Friday night, and we went to the gym, and had dinner at Pasta Pomodoro. One of the few areas of potential conflict we face in our relationship is that we follow dramatically different sleep cycles. I usually go to bed around 10.30, and wake up around 6.30, while Jed is rarely in bed by 3.00, and frequently not even by 5.00. No, he's not out at clubs all night; he just likes to work late, and get up around noon.

Friday night, we compromised: well, it would be more correct to say that I managed to prop my eyes open a little longer than normal, while Jed compromised a great deal, and lay on the bed with his eyes open for several hours. By the time the morning rolled around, neither of us had had a good night's sleep, but it's still nice to wake up with your boyfriend naked in bed next to you.

I had a scheduled work out with Cecilia at eleven, which I manged to get through despite having had only half a night's sleep, and then Jed and I drove over to Oakland to test-drive that Mitsibushi Montero I've been fantasizing about. Like most people, I dread interacting with car salesmen; you have to stare politely at them while they rattle on about special air-bags that don't blow up in your face, or some other suspiciously unnecessary gadget. But the car was, as I'd predicted, a beaut, and I knew that it was going to be hard to resist.

I forget what it was that started a change of mind in me today, as the day progressed. Perhaps it was reading the New York Times, with its subtle promotion of conspicuous consumption. Whatever it was, by the end of the day, I'd pretty much made my mind up against the Mitsibushi Montero. I just don't need such a big, fancy car, and I'd feel guilty driving such a monstrous vehicle around the already choked San Francisco streets. So it's back to the drawing board on the issue of how to replace my car at the end of its lease.