A Bithday, A Mouse, Almost A Tattoo, and A Billion Cancellations

[thepnutgallery]

2 am this time. I did everything to get back to sleep - jerked off, moved rooms, etc. Nothing doing. I thought about going in for at least a little bit, to take care of the eservice, etc., but ultimately just called in. I *still* couldn't sleep for another couple hours and even then only dozed. I hate this so much. Ryan had mentioned a pool day, so I did join them for that. I got a message from a potential client while I was there, and also from a headless torso on Scruff. I also shazamed about a dozen of Ryan's songs.

The torso on Scruff never sent a face pic, and when I pressed him on why he was "discreet," he admitted he was cheating on his partner back home. Ugh. I canceled speaking on the panel when things got serious with the client, but then he stopped responding as well. Ugh.

Tim came over with the new mouse, I watched her run around in her cage. She's *beautiful.* Tiny and sleek with the most amazing little manicured claws, and she stopped to groom herself about 10 times while she was running around. He'd deliberately chosen a female mouse so she wouldn't be as pungent, but also opted to still just get one. UGH. Still no clue what I'm going to name her.

Even though we were ready, he wanted to wait for his friend, Jay, from the Marina. Jay is non-binary, and showed up wearing a fantastic pink belly shirt, but with their still gruff Boston accent. I dropped them off at Plumeria, then drove off to find parking and walked back. They were sitting outside with a couple and their elderly dog when I walked up. I almost thought the couple wanted me to stay with them, because they pulled up a chair for me, and I kind of got the vibe that they wanted me to stay after dinner as well, but as a male/female couple, that would require a lot of positioning.

It was a good dinner, and as always when I'm kind of tired, I'm glad it wasn't on me to carry the entire cocktail conversation. FHA got to my place a little early, and of course dinner ran late. Jay offered to pay for the whole thing, which would really make sense singe they'd ordered a lot and pushed Tim to order more, but the two of us taking Tim out would be a wildly inappropriate time to start splitting hairs on a check. I left my credit card, told the waiter to split it with Jay, then walked to get the car without checking the total. It really just doesn't matter.

FHA had cleaned my kitchen while he waited, which makes me feel a little bad for making them wait so long, but mostly makes me feel bad because my kitchen was already clean...for me. I'm schlumpy. Everyone got introduced, I showered, then FHA tried to put on my temporary tattoo. Unfortunately, something went horribly wrong with the ink -it kept beading up. He put the tattoo in permanent marker instead, and hopefully that will stay on. Lord knows I can avoid showering. While they were there, Joey tried to help me with my costume, but there's not much to do be done about it.

I guess overall it was a good day, but it's kind of a close call, really.