Friday felt like a really fast recovery from jet lag, but as the weekend would prove, it took the body clock a while to get back on track - I kept waking up at like 5:30 in the morning.

I skated into the city to pick up a package from the office and then down to the church offices to help round up the high schoolers for the Young Life work crew trip. As per normal for these trips, we get a lot of kids coming out of the wood-work, so I was kind of bummed that I wasn't going, but I knew it was the prudent decision - I had dry-cleaning to pick up and sleep to catch up on and an early flight coming up Monday morning, and a work crew weekend would have just sucked it out of me. So anyhow, we got all the kids out to Hoboken where Cregan and Mindi and Jenny all met us with the rental cars to drive everybody up. After sending them on their way I picked up a burrito and got started on cleaning out my email.

Then I get the call about an hour later that lets me know the Chicago thing is on hold for the moment, and I'm not flying out Monday after all. Super greaaaat. But all things for a reason, even poor management timing on projects I haven't yet started on.

Then it became the weekend of shopping. It started innocently enough - a couple of pairs of jeans from the Earnest Sewn sample sale, then a couple of shirts around the corner at DCC Labs. Then Sunday everything just went to crap. Some qualifications:

Hugo Boss hardly ever has a sample sale of any size whatsoever, and this was evidenced by the hordes of people in line when I got there on Sunday morning, most of whom were gay men or well funded straight guys with their girlfriends or wives. But mostly gay men. Another great qualification is that I need some suits for the Walgreens project, and these ones were a full 2/3rds off their normal market price. And they were beautiful. And I could not say no. And no one would help me. Next it was dress shirts and knit tees and tennis shoes and dress shoes and then my entire annual bonus was gone. Just like that. I was a victim of the situation.

I'm taking back the Hickey Freeman I picked up shortly before I left for Greece, so that will let a little of the blood, but November will still be known for years to come as the month the wheels came off with my years-long restraint with the credit card. Shame on me.

So this morning, instead of waking up and catching a plane to Chicago, I woke up and got back on the 8-mile horse, and there's nothing nicer than running on completely rested legs. Odd to have running weather in the middle of November, but I'll take it while it lasts.

Still working on getting all the pictures hashed out on flickr, should have a link for them soon.