I can't tell you exactly what it is I've been doing the part month. Not because I'm keeping secrets, but really because I don't have an incredibly clear recollection. I feel like I've been very busy, but for the life of me I don't know what it is I've been doing. I know there was the runup to the party, and then the party itself, and then this past week which I've used as a refractory period after the party. But even given all that, I can't account for about the entire month after New Years. And since I haven't been blogging, there is no record of what it was I was doing. Kind of a bummer, really. Maybe I'll try to recreate the month from my credit card recepits.

One of the ways I can tell that I've been busy is by looking at the thing around me. By the time this weekend came around, the apartment had been seriously neglected what with all our guests that came in for the party, our coming home drunk and tired every night, etc. On Friday night when I picked up the living room, I found 7 empty 20oz bottles of Diet Cherry Vanilla Doctor Pepper that I had drank (in regards this stuff: I've been drinking it just about constantly since it's come out. This is in no way a recommendation for it. I'm still seriously on the fence. It's either the best stuff I've ever had, or the worst [worse even than Irn Bru. And don't neglect to check out that website. There's a flash game where you have to run down the streaker at the football stadium]). We had to go through 4 permutations of ways to stack the sink, just so everything would fit (we do have a dishwasher. I should try using it. At the very least, it's another place to put dirty dishes).

Another way I know I've been busy is that it was only this weekend that I was able to make some time to deal with a very simple problem that has been driving me crazy recently. For the past month or so, there's been a seriously annoying beeping sound coming from somewhere in the apartment. Very regularly (once per minute), a soft beeping noise would emanate from. . . something. It was frustrating, but no one had the time to deal with it. We had just (a few weeks ago) gotten a new carbon monoxide detector installed, so I think we just assumed that it had a crappy battery which had to be replaced, and as soon as we get a battery it'd be fine.

Well, being who we are, it took us a long while to get replacement batteries for the durn thing (I actually don't think either Ben or I ended up getting them. Rather, it was Ton who was in town to visit, because he got sick of hearing the beeping). But the battery did end up getting replaced. And the beeping continued. And actually got worse. As of this past week, it had been keeping me up at night. I'd be just about to drift off to sleep, and

beep

Just loud enough for me to hear, and to be listening for. And the next one would be deafening, and the next thing I knew it was three in the morning and I had been listening to one beep per minute for the past three and a half hours, and the reason I knew that there were 210 beeps in there is because I counted every one as it came through. So yesterday morning, I broke down and went for a hunt.

Well, to be honest, I broke down and started looking for it on Friday night. I was in the middle of the hunt (head inside my closet) when a lady friend of mine asked what I was doing, and just as I was explaining to her that she had to be quiet because I was listening for the beep, so I could determine what direction it was coming when the thing beeped again. That happened twice, when I realized that there might be only so much "Shhh! We're listening for the beep " a young lady will take before she loses interest. So the hunt was postponed a little.

The hunt involved a lot of patience. It started with my head in the closet, waiting for a beep. And them moved to my head under my desk, waiting for the beep. Next to the bed, under the bad, back under the desk because when I was under the bed it sounded like it was coming from there. It ended up with my pulling out and emptying half of my drawers, and finding a smoke detector in my dresser drawer with my summer weights pants.

Just as I found it, I saw Ben getting into the bathrooom for a shower. Obviously, this was a sign. I took the alarm, and hid it inside his sleeping bag, in his closet. Next time I saw him that day (8 hours later), he gave me the finger.