Good Boys | We 11/16

I was behind schedule for my living routine because I forgot to pack lunch, but then I realized I could take my morning meetings from home and drive into the office later since I'm staying for the Christmas light viewing. It's such a novel feeling knowing that I have plenty of time and get to wait for something.

We had a monthly running engineering retrospective meeting with many people talking about work I had no idea existed, so eventually in my boredom I started to set to myself and play Osu while still in the meeting. This is the life.

I was also reaching a Haikyuu analysis video this morning and it mentioned how some of the characters, like most people who enjoy sports, live for the fleeting moments of ecstasy they get from playing. The writer also mentioned how those moments are enough to get many players to our in with chasing the next.

These sentences hit me differently today and I completely understood what he meant. Full disclosure I got flashbacks to when I hit a bounce and cut shot during hitting lines and it nearly got me to tear up remembering the feeling. All this made me think about the moments that other people may choose to put a lot of stock into and empathize with them. For example I used to think it was silly spending so much money for luxury goods and trying to get people's attention with them, but now I kind of see how some think it's worth it all.

Work has been alright so far. It's been mostly learning when I'm not slacking by getting hot chocolate or eating. There were cookies and coffee available in the lobby which was nice, but I don't know what it was for. It's too bad they suddenly disappeared when I wanted another after eating lunch. The whole thing reminded me of random events like in college, which sounds sad to say like that now that I think about it.

Nicole also got Gonzalo to share some of his crazy stories during lunch. He owns many Herman Miller Chadwick modular sofa pieces, each one $1500, and babies them hard. Gonzalo said he spends a lot when it comes to his Apple products and these couches, but nothing else. He was more concerned about these couches than his girlfriend when both of them were sprayed with some champagne recently. He also said that when finding some discount for nice slacks he bought 100 pairs for $18 each, so I guess he has pants for the rest of his life.

He also shared about how an offer to buy his girlfriend any shoes she wanted suddenly turned into paying for a Louis Vuitton bag out of pressure from the salesman. After buying it though, he took his girlfriend to another location to return the bag, since she doesn't use handbags much, only to be asked it it was fake because they all have scannable tags to verify legitimately and the one they just bought didn't have one. The whole return debacle had him sweating and he suspects the salesperson from the first store of selling him a fake.

I've been getting a surprising amount done, but the afternoon has been killing me. This is the first time I've felt justified in relaxing during the evening.

The news that the Christmas lights event would likely have free food powered me up and I went with several of the team hoping that I could spend long enough to wait out at least most traffic. I met up with James at the stadium and we got the free food, but there wasn't much going on otherwise. We saw some people throwing balls around and swinging at baseballs in the field from the stands, and they started playing Elf on the big screen, but it was pretty disappointing overall.

I eventually saw my team members and we walked around looking for the lights, but got kicked out of the proper attraction by done workers saying that it isn't open, so I guess the lights were just the decorations around the park. We asked for some team pictures, and James took some nice ones of me, but around then we decided to split. James wanted to go to Costco and I considered loitering with him, but I wouldn't have had the time to get home before volleyball if I did so I braced the storm that is peak rush hour.

The road was terrible, but I realized a condition of stop and go traffic is that my gas mileage goes up since I'm basically only using the battery of my car instead of the gas engine. I also planned on picking up Adele, but was so late that she just went herself, which felt bad. I spent much longer then I intend taping my hands, but I should probably block more time for it.

Playing was okay tonight. Brian let me try one of his knee pads, which was nice to have, but it didn't make me play any better. My passes were more like shanks, my serves were awful when I wasn't on a streak of aces, and I started grunting when I hit and passed which got kind of embarrassing. This definitely felt like a day I settle for living through in order to chase the next moment of ecstasy.

Afterwards I went straight home and didn't feel that bad about it, especially since I have to wait up pretty early for a KT meeting tomorrow. Annie also messaged me for the first time in a while. I gave her a super brief synopsis of the Jinn and Sammy situations, the Kanna situation unfolding now, and we got to chatting about dating and relationships. It was sad realizing the truths I've realized about myself during the past several situations (I'm a bit of a pushover, I'm kind of a simp, I'm pretty easy, I'm a golden retriever and a good boy).