hanukah dinner was fantastic, vika was charming as ever, and i was so happy to be able to have hanukah dinner with a friend.

everything turned out great except for the latkes, which apparently for the recipe i got i needed a food processor for, but that's ok because i picked up a small potato kugel from the kosher bakery on 65th and it was just as good with apple sauce and sour cream as the latkes would have been, i bet, and even better because they aren't all greasy like latkes.

but i will be getting a food processor when i get into my new apt because i want to be able to get my cook on, you know what i mean?

yesterday was work and it was nice. i am so glad that i work where i do because #1 people really like me there, and i get recognized regularly for the good work i do, #2 i actually like the people i work with and #3 i will be at this job long enough to actually career progress and make adult money, which would be a first for me. true, i may not sling cell phones for the rest of my life, but it'd be nice to get out of entry level, make some skrill, put a nice big dent into the credit card debt i have concentrate on those pesky student loans.

then today i went into work for only an hour for my teams holiday party thing. i scored some mugs with surreal cows and oreo cookies on them which vika promptly took to use with her lady (who flies in tomorrow! whoah!) and people liked tha apricot rugela that i brought from the kosher bakery, which was a surprise because i guess i just assumed people wouldn't be into the jew food. luckily, there's still a bunch left for me and my morning coffee, so i am double happy.

now i am sitting in my room with delicious candles burning, smoking vanilla cigarettes (happy hanukah to me!), listening to music and reading about music. i am very happy at this moment.

ever since i made the decision to stay in seattle i have been happy everyday, which is weird and so nice i can't describe it. it's a new experience for me to be happy for longer than 4 hr periods of time, or to be happy without the aid of mind altering drugs.

i guess this is what people strive for that i didn't know i could achieve.

i am still alone for the majority of my time, but now i really love it. that's not to say i don't like being around people, because i really really do. but i am ok with being by myself, too, and can entertain myself and find things to do and be silly and talk to my cat and give him shoulder rubs and lay on my bed looking at the ceiling and feel whole and happy and good.

and that, my friends, is a whole hell of a lot.

also, jon and niki have both told me that they and a whole slew of people i know from oakland are tentatively planning a mass migration to seattle in a year.

wtf?

i am so happy i decided to stay here, without the promise of that or anything, simply because that means i am staying here because it's what i want to do for me. and i'm sure that's why it feels so good.

now, i am trying to be calm about their saying that they are planning to move up here. i know how much they love oakland, so i am not getting all hibbity jibbity about it yet.

i'll just wait and see how things turn out.

but i'll tell you this much. if they DO move up here, i will be so happy that i don't know if the world will be able to stand me smiling all the time, and how my eyes will shine or the good good everything that will be seeping from every pore in my body.

i just don't know that this clunky ol' world is ready for all that posi stuff.