Real Kato Blog: A Followup

I have no idea what I was talking about last night.

Last night, I was really tired, and just a little bit buzzed. That makes for a Bad Blogging Experience. So today, I want to follow up and clarify a little. Of course, right now I'm really tired and just a little bit hung over. So there's no guarantee this will be any better.

First, by "Keepin' It Up", what I meant was "continuing my streak of posting every day this month". It was not meant to be a sexual reference, and given my state of tiredness last night, it would have been rather inaccurate if it were. Ahem.

This will be the first month in the history of this blog that I've posted every day. I think that's a significant achievement. I've also been experiencing a jump in web traffic lately, thanks to the fact that I'm the DEFINITIVE source of information for a certain scam on-line dating site. (Hey, guys, your scam sucks, but thanks for all the free advertising!) I'm also pretty high up there for information about my former company's layoff plans.

However, I get a lot of folks who drop by, maybe read one other article, and then never return. The lesson from that is, when it comes to landing new regular readers, you're only as good as the last article you wrote. That's all the more reason to follow-up on last night's incoherent babbling.

So with that in mind, here's more about yesterday.

I had lunch with Dan, Jessica, Kim, Julie, and Natasha, at Pop's Italian restaurant in Durham. We're all connected via work, though not everyone still works for my present employer. What's interesting is that, working for a company mostly comprising male geeks, I manage to befriend a group of really attractive women. (I would post pictures of all of them, but I think they might object to being put on display. I need a good way to ask, "Can I put your picture on the Internet?" Should I say, "I promise, it's not for porn!" Or is it better to avoid the word "porn" altogether?) I guess in some ways it's bad that I tend to be friendlier towards pretty girls; it seems shallow. But in my own defense, I find personality important too; and sometimes, pretty girls are more outgoing because they're more confident. And I should say, I think most girls are pretty. Or at least, capable of being pretty, if they wanted.

Lunch took over two hours because we had to drive such a long way. (One person works in Durham and doesn't have the flexibility to take a two-hour lunch trip to Raleigh.) That turned out to be bad, because yesterday I actually had a lot of work to do, and because I didn't finish, I had to wake up this morning at 9:00 to keep working. There's nothing like merging with a hangover. At least I can work from home; driving to the office was NOT in the cards this morning.

After work, we had thought about drinks after work, but we decided that the lousy weather was not conducive to a "happy" hour. So instead, I called up Anna and dragged her out to dinner with me at Evoo in Raleigh. (That meant having Italian for two meals in a row, but I didn't mind.) It was unusually crowded there, because the Wake County Boys and Girls Club was having a dinner and silent auction. One of the attendees for that dinner was a really attractive woman whom I'm sure I've met before, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out where. I hate it when that happens.

After dinner was my friend Samantha's 40th birthday party. That meant driving out to Durham again. I think I put a couple hundred miles on my car yesterday.

The party was fun. It was mostly attended by my friends who were once the core of the primary Nortel party crowd, but are now all suburban families with rug rats. Sometimes I can still see glimpses of their former party personalities lurking beneath the surface, just waiting for a few Jell-O shots to uncover them. But nobody consumes enough Jell-O shots, so the party remains somewhat subdued. There is no dancing on top of furniture, no drinking alcohol out of belly buttons, no wild removal of clothing. There was a little bit of flirting from someone who should not have been flirting, but behind that is a STORY THAT CANNOT BE TOLD. Sorry.

I've come to realize that I really miss spending time with these people. They're really great people. I told them it seems like they can never go out, because they have the kids at home. They told me, they don't call me because they expect I'm off doing Single Guy things, like drinking and partying. While that's true sometimes, there are also many nights where I just sit around reading and writing blogs. The fact that I've written every day this month should tell you something. So come on, people, call me! If there's any advantage to being a single guy, it's the fact that I can be almost completely spontaneous. I don't have to arrange for a sitter, I don't have to check with the Significant Other. I can go out for an evening, overnight, or even for a whole weekend, at the drop of a hat.

I don't see many hats dropping.

Now, about the end of my last post... when I said "before I say something REALLY stupid", that was in reference to two different things. One is the fact that I almost leaked the STORY THAT CANNOT BE TOLD. The other is the fact that I said I'm willing to sacrifice a few party nights to go see summer blockbuster movies. That's not really true... I'm willing to sacrifice nights of blog-reading, but I'll take a good party over a Star Wars movie any day.

For today, I still have to finish up some work (ugh), and then I plan to curl up with a book and recuperate from last night. I have some more interesting things to write about, but I'll wait until tonight... because IT'S LIKELY I'LL BE AT HOME. See?

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