Posting a journal is one of the many things that has fallen by the wayside recently. I hope that some future changes that are on the way will help remedy that.

I'm back from China, obviously. It was a great trip, but I was definitely ready to be home by the end of it. I didn't realize how tense I'd been in China. Here, you don't have to worry about getting mown down by a motorcycle when stepping out onto the sidewalk. The little things we take for granted...

I made it through the Christmas Holidays - unscarred this year! I did about 95% of my Christmas Shopping in China which made December rather relaxing for me. I also found out that my brother is getting married and has been engaged "oh since a coupla weeks ago" in his words. I only found out when I teased him about when he might be marrying his live-in girlfriend. I wonder when he would have told me had I not teased him.

This weekend, S___ braved brunch with my ex (the infamous Pumpkinfucker) and his new girlfriend. S___ was a total champ. The ex and I get along ok now, and overall he's a nice enough guy. I find it rather surprising because I expect him to act like his pompous 22 year-old self that he was when we broke up years ago. At the end of it, S___ said that he was glad that I'm not with Pumpkinfucker anymore. I am too.

S____ and I have decided to move in together soon-ish. We've been looking for a place the last week or two. We have some differing priorities when looking for a place (his seems to be "Ballard" and mine is location + building with character - which are rare in Ballard in our price range, so we are looking at other neighborhoods - but it will have to be a stellar place to please both of us). I hope we find a place soon. I'm so tired of commuting between our houses and I'm tired of (bless their sweet, wonderful souls) my housemates too. It isn't that they're doing anything all that terrible, but I just want a place where I feel at home and where I don't have to share one shower and one kitchen between four people, and where I don't have to worry that my stuff will get thrown out because one of my housemates goes on a cleaning rampage and thinks that it's just something that someone who used to live here left behind (you can tell I speak from experience - when I got back from China, my Cambodian painting was sitting by the back door on the way to the garbage). Wish us luck. We'll need it.