Paul Van Dyk played here in Puerto Rico again last night, but this time I opted not to go. Several of our friends (Michelle, Isa) were going, so Andrés went as well, but I remembered my experience last time, where I found myself bored and wanting to go home from nearly the moment we arrived. With such loud music, it doesn't really matter how many friends you've got around you, because you can't talk with them — you're stuck with nothing to do but bob your head to the music for seven hours.

I knew I'd be bored at home too, so it wasn't a clear-cut decision, but in the end I opted for the choice that involved less effort and not spending $30. I didn't really regret it — I enjoy spending time by myself sometimes too, and when Andrés got home later that night he confirmed that there was a lot of just standing around.

I kind of felt bad that I had missed out on so much time hanging out with him on his last night here, but we did get to hang out for a bit after he got home around 4am. We prepared a feast (consisting of veggie burgers, veggie corn dogs, and veggie buffalo wings), watched Scrubs, played some more PS2, and then headed for bed around 630am. He had to get up again two hours later to pack and get ready to leave for the airport. I slept two hours longer than him, getting up just in time to ride to the airport with the family and see him off. Then, of course, it was back home for a few more hours of sleep.

I flew down to PR a few days ago for Christmas, and I've really been enjoying being home. I was introduced to Natalia's new puppy, Lena, who is adorable. She's eager and affectionate, even with strangers, and full of the energy and exuberance puppies are so known for. She's awesome.

Andrés is here too, and we've been spending time with some cool people. One day we hung out on the back patio, drank wine, and got in the pool with Jóse and Lorena. Another day we cooked food and watched Family Guy with Marc, and today Andrés, Michelle, Billy, Natalia, and I went to the beach. Going to the beach on Christmas Eve: OK, so maybe there are a few good things about this island.

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On Thursday, when I got out of work, Michelle came by to watch Wednesday's episode of Lost (I discovered that apparently I've missed several episodes — how did that happen?!). After the show was over, we hung out and jammed for a bit (I keep forgetting she plays drums). It was fun getting to play music with someone else. It reminded me of how nice it is to have someone with similar interests to spend time with. I get so used to living my life with minimal human contact, and it doesn't really feel too unpleasant after a while, but then I get to hang out with someone I like and I'm reminded of how much better life can be.

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Last week Marc, Andrés, and I went over to Michelle's house to see the four short films she made last semester at NYU. These were her introduction to shooting on film — all her projects so far have been shot on video. This semester she was allocated eight rolls of black & white 16mm reversal film to be used over the course of the semester. All of her films were really good, but I especially liked the one she made for her final project. She really has a lot of talent and great creativity. I'm constantly impressed with the ideas she comes up with for her movies.

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Sunday night was quite an adventure. After a failed attempt to go ice skating with the family, Michelle brought her boyfriend Billy, her cousin Kyle, and her friend Johnathan over. After some brief hanging out at our place, Billy wanted to go to bed and Michelle wanted to play pool, so we dropped Billy off and then headed out to San Juan.

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I think that just like Mitch Hedberg's "One complicated payment," someone decided that since most of the trip had gone awesome, the last part would be made as difficult as possible. My 6:30am flight from Dublin to Manchester was delayed for two hours because of poor visibility, but we didn't find out until we had left the gate, so we had to sit in the plane for two hours watching the sun come up and waiting for the weather to clear. I didn't really mind much, as I slept right through it, but the delay made it nearly impossible to catch my transatlantic flight from Manchester to Boston. To make things more interesting, my duffel bag decomposed a little more at a critical moment. I hurriedly checked in my bag, the woman stuck the label on the strap, and then as I lifted the bag (by the strap) onto the belt, the strap broke. I sighed and showed it to her and she had to cancel the check-in and check in the bag again to get a new label to put on a different strap. That was the third loss of structural integrity this bag has suffered, and this one left a hole for things to fall out of. Fortunately, I only had large things in that pocket, so nothing got lost, but it was disconcerting. Fortunately, the bag made it home without any further incidents, but it's certainly never leaving again.

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I had the most wonderful experience last night. Andrés and I stopped by Michelle's house to see her before she returns to NYU. While we were sitting in the living room talking, we could hear her younger sister Gina and her friends shrieking in youthful glee upstairs. Her mom explained that it was Gina's 16th birthday and she had some friends over to spend the night.

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The weekend with Courtney was great. Although I only took two days off (Friday and Monday nights), it felt like a more substantial vacation. The weather was uncooperative though, so I didn't get to show her many of the cool things available here.

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Last night I had made plans to hang out with Michelle, but my parents needed me to watch Natalia for a few hours, so we looked for ideas for things we could both do. Natalia mentioned that she still wanted to see Hitchiker's Guide, which I wholeheartedly support. However, the website was out of date, and it turned out that the only theater listed that was supposedly still showing it in fact wasn't. Instead, Natalia suggested we go to the little amusement park next to Montehiedra (shows who is really in charge of the evening). Michelle was all for the idea, so she came over and we headed off.

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The week with Meg and Amy was awesome. I didn't get to write about it until a while later, because I immediately left for the Cedar Point trip, so details are kind of sketchy in my memory now, but I wanted to get something down about it.

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Man, I've been getting behind in documenting my life. Spending too much time living it. OK, so Liz came to visit a few weeks ago, and it was an awesome week. Andres, Liz and I went to El Yunque and hiked down to the waterfall, although Liz didn't dare to jump down the first waterfall. Ah well, it was really scary my first time as well. On the way down, we stopped and ate awesome Puerto Rican food as is tradition, and then, exhausted and sated, drove down the mountain with the windows down and Sigur Rós enveloping us.

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Liz arrives today, and will be visiting for a week. Andrés arrives tomorrow, and he will be here for two and a half weeks. I've accumulated four vacation days from working weekend shifts over the last month or two, so I'm taking Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday off. That means today is effectively my Friday, which is awesome.

After Liz regrettably leaves, Andrés and I are going to see if we can make a weekend trip to St. Thomas to visit Rose. A few weeks after that, I'm going to Cedar Point with Bryan and Cat. Around then, Michelle and Andrea get down here for the summer, and they'll be here for 4 months. So for the next few months, at least, my solitude seems to be in a temporary reprieve.

Liz's plane gets in around 6pm, so the plan is to call her when I get off work at 8. Just have to make it until then and I'm home free.

Today was fun. So many people remembered my birthday. Weird. I woke up to find like eight or nine IMs from people, and throughout the day Bryan, Meg, and Jenn called. Although I've always felt the whole "ackowledging a birthday" thing is a bit hackneyed and overrated, I have to admit it is nice when people remember of their own accord :)

I met up with Michelle and David, and we tried to go bowling but were deterred by traffic. We found ourselves near San Patricio, so we ducked out of the dilatory morass and decided to watch Million Dollar Baby. Great movie, but not an uplifting experience. So to lift our spirits, from there we returned to my house and ate delicious brownies that Natalia and Mami had made to serve as my birthday cake. Michelle went over to her boyfriend Billy's house to say hi, since it's nearby, and David and I played a little music.

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Today I hung out with Michelle, and went with her to pick up an old friend of hers named David Hernandez from the airport. He is a guy she sort of dated back in 6th grade, at which point he moved to Arizona, and they hadn't seen each other since. He was actually really cool, and I got along great with him. I was sold when we were discussing musical tastes and he asked Michelle, "Have you heard of Dream Theater?" and she smiled and pointed at me. He's a drummer, so he was surprised and impressed when I mentioned that Mike Portnoy did a drum clinic here a few years ago.

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Ugh, this has been a difficult week. Andy, Donny, and Violet are down here for the week for their spring break, and as usual, I'm spending my nights working and my days hanging out with them, and carefully ignoring the missing third component, sleep. However, I've never been very good at this, so it just means that sleep encroaches upon all the other activities of my day like wine soaking through a tablecloth.

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