Late | We 11/23

I did the same thing as yesterday: took too long to make it into work for a meeting so I just stayed home. Today I made that decision at 10:30 instead of noon, but I think odds are I'll be fine for this week even though I didn't go into office at all.

I didn't do anything for work but the headphone trick and nobody pinged me or anything. Word of a half day came during stand-up so I logged off at 2 PM asking with everyone else.

At that point I chilled playing games and watching volleyball videos for a while. It was sad remembering that we weren't playing tonight too.

Around 4:30 I figured I should go for the remaining salad ingredients, but I took my time buying and preparing everything. I figured I'd surely be able to prepare the salad in an hour, but I was pretty late and showed up at 7:15.

There were a lot of people already mingling when I arrived and it was nice chatting with the range of people in the friend group: Rachel and Ryan, Cindy, Alex, Sierra and Savanna, and Jacob. I was pretty "corner of the room", mostly talking with one or two people at a time, but I preferred it over playing games on the loud end of the apartment.

We talked about all sorts of things, but it was most interesting seeing how people with different connections to the group got to know each other. Eventually just about everyone was playing fishbowl, so I chilled rereading Haikyuu, the first chapter of which has very interesting parallels to the end of the series.

Later there weren't a ton of people, so we played Codenames for a bit. I also shared about the revelation of having a twin to set to yourself and being a doubles partner for life. After that there were even fewer people so we chatted about trip ideas, enjoyed some truffle cheese, and talked about red flags in hypothetical romantic partners. Eventually the conversation became about professional volleyball and I could feel everyone but me and Anthony getting tired.

We continued to chat while cleaning up. There were a lot of unfinished water bottles which we emptied, and I loaded up on leftovers filling up the containers I brought, another container someone left, and a to go box that Sierra had a extra of. It was a great night and I'm thankful to have these people in my life. I guess even with my newfound skepticism around people I'm glad to be able to meet and experience life with them.

There were also several references to me and girls throughout the night, which were a but awkward especially with Jinn there. I was told to chill out with girls, asked about the any situation but pretty quietly, and asked if pictures of myself will be on my hinge profile. The whole thing made me realize how unhinged I may look to others so I guess that's a good enough sign to take this break.