Well, geez. It's the last day of 2004. So it's been almost a year since I moved here now - but it feels like I've lived here all along. I love it and wouldn't go back for the world.

Anyway, being New Year's Eve, I had the day off. Jared didn't. This means it was a KAT DAY. I love this kind of day. the kind where I wake up at 10 and crawl out of bed at 10:30, then make myself look hot and catch a bus downtown to spend waaaaay too much money on new clothes at Nordstrom. I shopped in that department where the sales people call you by your first name, and the dressing rooms are like small lounges rather than bathroom stalls. And I bought a new pair of jeans and a really awesome shirt. I'm not talking about how much I spent though. ;)

So after I left Nordstrom I was walking past Westlake Center when I remembered, "Hey, the monorail is open again!" So I went up to the top floor of the mall... just to see how much it cost to ride to Seattle Center - and when it was only a buck fifty i jumped on that silly little relic from the 1962 World's Fair and rode north in nostalgia. And then I saw the Space Needle.

Some background here: I haven't been up the space needle in more than a decade, so it was time. But, my boyfriend is afraid of heights, so it's one of those things he doesn't really want to do together. So I decided, to hell with the fact that it's 13 bucks, i'm going to see the view from 520 feet up. So I did. You really can see so much from up there - the view over the sound is absolutely amazing. And there's a fucking Starbucks at top. (Duh.)

Anyway, that was pretty cool. I felt like a tourist, but oh well. It was me day, so I did what I wanted. :D

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

I just touched a man's stereo equipment. And unplugged stuff and plugged new stuff in.

AND IT WORKS.

I am breaking new ground for women here.

yargh, another week down. another week closer to the end of the year, and the end of the world. Not that I'm saying these two events will be concurrent or anything, I'm just saying is all.

Finally got around to closing that credit union account I've been meaning to drain for the last, oh, five years or so, so I should have a check for almost $500 coming my way soon. Big money. Oh well, it'll go to some of my debts and other such crap. Fucking money. Also, that raise that my boss has been promising me since August will finally be in effect as of the 20th. Thanks. That really helps for all these 5 months I've been paying rent on a place that's just too damn expensive when you're making less than $10 an hour in take-home pay. So, assuming all goes well, and Mike's friend decides to move into my room, I'm all set to move in with Jared in January. this will mean a drop from $468 to $337 in rent - count all $131 of those new dollars I'll have now - coupled with my buck-oh-eight raise, should mean things will be slightly easier than they have been. Not to mention all the hours and gallons of petroleum saved in commuting to and from Tacoma to spend time with my boyfriend. And that fucking apartment down there, with its fucking mold that fucking gave me asthma, will finally be out of my life by the end of the year, once Brian leaves. And the new place doesn't have carpet, which I'm glad about because carpet is bad for asthma and it's easier to keep dander and dust down with hardwood, but it is so fucking noisy when his cats decide to race down the length of the apartment at breakneck speed at all fucking hours of the night. obnoxious kitties.

Hardly got anything done at work this afternoon, I had friday-brain so bad. this is a common but untreatable condition in which your brain is already off for the weekend, but your body isn't. I cope with repetetive tasks and music, but it often degrades into shameless free-cell playing and much spacing-out. Blah. I have such a mind-numbing job. But hey, big-bossman dropped in unexpectedly this week (he is based in southern california, so my desk isn't on his daily tour). I accidentally let leak a few key remarks on my salary and he, not previously knowing my monetary situation, was much dismayed. Perhaps this will result in the pulling of a few strings and the raising of my pay, once more. I would be stoked about that.

Tonight: dinner, maybe Tacoma, nothing exciting. Jared has a box waiting for him at his old place from Kenneth Cole - and he didn't order anything. I am just dying to know what's inside. That boy has ALL THE FUCKING LUCK with entering contests and forgetting about them. I should keep him around - maybe we'll get a few vacations or a car or something. He idly wondered at one point whether it was about Kenneth Cole's model contest they had a few months back - but he never submitted a picture or anything for that, and no one picks a model without seeng a fucking picture, so I'm sure that's not it. If that boy got a major ad campaign for a totally respectable label I would be very jealous for awhile, and then I'd deal with it.

Wow, I'm rambling.