I was still feeling pretty good about yesterday and knew today would be good. Surprisingly, the Russian called me to talk. I think she called to see what was going on for holidays, but I'm not really sure. Since she moved in June, I have talked to her twice and both times were because she wanted something. Neither of those was social, just business. She claimed that she was going to come out here to see me and I agreed with a noncommittal grunt, knowing that she was just talking and not likely to follow up. I think when she was in London, she was lonely and she may still be so since we are close she thought she could come back and hang out with me. I fully expect that she will make friends immediately as normal and then not really need me.

I also got a call from my boss saying that since the weather was nice, if I wanted to walk around and put flyers out in the neighborhood for some extra hours he would pay me for it. I had plans which he was perfectly okay with since it was out of the blue and said to come in for my first shift on Monday night.

What were my other plans? Well, as I was headed out to get some coffee going, roommate S was there and we had a good hour and a half of conversation concluding with we were going to hang out and bake some cookies (she has a pumpkin fetish and it is in season right now) and then watch a movie. We agreed to take some time to do our own thing and then hang out. When we met up again, she said that some of her friends were at an Octoberfest street festival and invited me to head out with them. I was pleased to be invited and we went off.

We met them at a hookah bar and had a couple drinks and I tried my first hookah. I took one puff and that was fine. It wasn't very exciting, so I left it after that. S and I were pretty hungry so we started talking about food. Of course since there were seven people going, and we had been drinking and there were several conversations going on it took about an hour to figure out which restaurant we would go to.

We headed off to the Chinese restaurant and were seated at a table that we were joking made us feel like a UN conference or something since we were a group consisting of me and a Chinese person, a Canadian, a couple of Indians and some Jews. Especially when we were trying to figure out what food to eat. It was very diplomatic. We got some sake and five dishes and it was good (but not special) and the company was good and I felt really comfortable.

Back home, in my rut, if I knew one person in a group of strangers and was expected to be social, I would have been quiet and shy and maybe make a fool of myself and probably not have a lot of fun because I didn't know anyone. Today, I was amazingly comfortable and was able to feel social and felt like I was actually myself and that people liked me for who I was. This feels new and I really like that random people liked me for who I was and didn't think I was lame even though I really didn't act differently than before. I'm pretty sure it was all mental and environmental.

After food, I think some of them were headed out to another bar, but S and I still wanted to bake cookies and watch a movie so we headed home. Though once we got to the baking part, I guess what that meant to her was she would sit at the table and shop online for dresses while I baked the cookies. Which surprised me, but didn't really bother me. Especially since she did the dishes when I was done, though for some reason, I still felt bad about that. We watched our movie and called it a night.

I was really really proud of myself today. I mean, I got out of the house and hung out with people I didn't know and enjoyed myself and felt really comfortable. This was a good day!

Also, one of them was really cute and quite friendly and funny. I think he'll be around quite a bit since he and S are good friends, so hopefully I'll see him around and get to know him better.