on a day where i should be quite happy, a day where the heat got fixed, a day featuring the return of the one man running club, i'm actually feeling pretty depressed. you ever just sit down and evaluate your life and realize that 10 years ago what you thought you'd be doing now you're nowhere close to doing? winter is a cold season, physically and emotionally. especially cooped up at home, with so much free time, an example of too much of a good thing going bad. it's not just things in my own life that's depressing: there's plenty of bigger things that are depressing as well. just take a look at the news, melting polar ice caps, herbicide-resistant coca plants, massive fallujah offensive, hermaphrodite fish in estrogen-tainted colorado streams, and a republican controlled government. i should learn to stop watching the news. everytime i get depressed i start thinking, "okay, does this mean i'm bipolar? does this foreshadow something more serious happening within my psyche?" i'm usually not a depressed person. if anything, when bad things happen i find them ironic and laugh it off. but sometimes bad things are so bad, there's just no turning that frown upside down.

nstar gas was sending a repairman this morning, between 8am and 12pm. i slept until 9am and woke up. i was in the bathroom when i heard the doorbell ring. i brought the guy down to the basement and told him what was happening with the furnace. he said he tried calling but didn't get an answer. he opened up the protective shielding inside the burner and looked around with a special mirror on a pivoting rod. everything seemed okay, there was no damage. he replaced the thermocouple and hotwired the furnace with a pair of tiny alligator clips to jumpstart the burner. it went off fine, he said everything looked kosher. he suggested that if i ever upgraded the furnace, that i do something about the air intake which isn't as efficient as it could be. after he left, i tested the repair by turning the heat on and off from the thermostat. fixed!

today was cold but i went running anyway, just like old times. shorts and a t-shirt underneath a turtleneck. initially i tried running in the sun, avoiding the cold shadow regions. once i warmed up though, it felt just like summer.

after i showered, i installed and played some diablo ii, which is like crack. i haven't touched the stuff in a while, but ever since james returned my cd's, it's piqued my interest once again, and i'm afraid it's got the better of me.

i turned up the heat sometime in the evening, and briefly fell asleep on the couch. i finished out the night with back to back to back episodes of SVU on the USA network.