well, i had a really fun birthday yesterday. when i woke up, i went to kickboxing for the first time here. wow. it was really hard, but i did great, and it felt really good. i’m planning to go every saturday morning, unless i’m out of town. the class was 1 1/2 hours, and about 30 minutes at the beginning were really hard conditioning warmups and some stretching. briefly, i thought i was going to die. then some free sparring, then combination training with a partner, then “cool down.” the cool down wasn’t really cooling. it was about 15 minutes of ab work. holy fucking shit. i can’t even describe. today, i’m pretty stiff, all over, but it feels really good.

so then i went and fed mark’s cats, then met matt and dick for some lunch at cafe zondag. they’d been out testdriving motorcycles. then matt and i went home to prepare for the party.

the party was excellent. i did cocktail-fu, and got everyone completely toasted, except myself. well, and a couple others. 2 people didn’t drink at all, and for some bizarre reason matt didn’t drink much either. neither did dick. but everyone else was toasted and had a great time. and everyone brought presents! that was a bit of a surprise… i really hadn’t needed presents, but i’m definitely not complaining. they were all great. speaking of which, i’m going downstairs soon to try one of ghislaine’s cookies. yum.

since everyone was trashed, the party didn’t make it very late. about 3 a.m. unfortunately, i got a second (or some other number) wind around then and was absolutely energetic.

woke up this morning around 10. matt wanted to go motorcycle shopping again with dick, so we invited him over again for breakfast (after all, we had breakfast supplies to feed whatever might have been left of the party), then they took off. i went to the kumulus center for the arts to visit their open house. i talked to the metalsmithing teacher, and have signed up for one of the metalsmithing classes and also pottery with the same teacher i took ceramic handbuilding from last year. then i went to feed mark’s kitties again.

and then i bit the bullet and stopped in at matuchi to see if they’d hire me as a bartender. the guy working was not very enthusiastic, or even polite. he didn’t understand my dutch, although the girl there did just fine, and he told me that my lack of dutch would be a problem. bullshit. matt bartended in prague with no czech. people say the drink, and you get it for them. i can do small talk. what i don’t know how to do is ask for a job, friendly and casually. oh well. i left my name and phone number and he said he’ll give it to the boss. right. somehow i doubt it.

there’s a live band playing at cafe zondag this afternoon, and sofia and dev told us they’re going. so we’re going to head over there too.

thanks for the birthday wishes from many of you after my last post! and don’t worry, nathan, although i didn’t drink much, i did drink some, and so i lifted one for you, too! 🙂