It was Slen's birthday yesterday. It was sad to see him miserable all day, but at least I know it was nothing I did. Huh.

I got him loot: the recent Helloween album, Gambling with the Devil, and one by the Hellacopters (this purely because he likes their name!). As Slen ironically remarked, I didn't need to stray out of the H section in the music shop. Actually I looked all over their metal section, having looked up a list of the best power metal albums of last year and chosen a few, but that shop's range is pretty bad. They had one out of ten in stock. OK for a store in the centre of Manchester, I suppose; there evidently isn't much call for good music around here, and they do at least stock DragonForce.

There was also pirate T-shirtage, a book of mnemonics because it was in the rack near the tills and looked pretty interesting in a stocking-filler sort of way, and some white chocolate raspberries. Then I called for pizza (Slen being easy to please in some ways) and we watched the recent two-part Doctor Who, the one in the library. After the direness of The Doctor's Daughter I was close to stopping watching the programme altogether. This was pretty good, though.

I knew I couldn't top last year's gift and didn't try. He knew not to expect another book this year. I will write the sequel sometime, though.

Writing Mews has been unexpectedly helpful to me. I still get warm squirmy fuzzy feelings thinking about the fact of having done it, or remembering giving it to him. I hadn't ever done anything comparable with my life before. It's a warm golden-red-brown glowing point to curl around, the first really pure and good alternative I've found to my usual habit of dwelling on mistakes and bad things. It's a carrot on a slender string.

Either that or I just really like resting on my backpats.