during the day i flip-flopped between two clients, working despite the fact that i wanted to go out running on this 40something degrees day. i could hear my neighbor upstairs, he'd been home the whole week, must've cashed out all his vacation days. when evening came around i went out with my friend gary to continue my christmas purchases. he called saying he'd be late, having been pulled over by a police for running a stop sign. when he got here he said the guy let him off with just a warning. we went to copley square, a combination of holiday shopping and babe scoping. the copley mall isn't like other malls in that there's a plethora of high-priced boutique stores like louis vuitton. it was kind of weird knowing that i was in a mall with people who's christmas spending would be more than my annual salary (if i was working full-time that is). i ended up just buying some hand soaps, part of my on-going fascination with fragrance. when we returned to the car there was an orange ticket, a $25 fine for parking at an expired meter (apparently free parking didn't start until 8pm or so). we went to chinatown for dinner, taiwan cafe, where we had the oyster omelette, smelly tofu, salt & pepper shrimps, and watercress. there was definitely a lot of food and i felt queasy afterwards. we were there late enough that the chefs were out eating their dinner, it brought back memories of when my own parents worked in the chinese restaurant business. i treated (figuring it was only fair, since gary got that parking ticket on my behalf), then he drove me back home. i watched the stepford wives, which surprisingly wasn't that great (a tongue-in-cheek satire of gender relations, i wasn't in the mood for a movie like that tonight), and i ended up falling asleep on the couch, waking up hours later to brush my teeth and crawl into bed. the transition from living room into bedroom must've done something to be sleep rhythm and i couldn't fall back asleep. i got up to do some reading until i felt drowsiness enough to sleep. by then the sun was out already.