Fix up, look sharp.

Let it be known that the drama subsided (in my head) about 15 minutes after that last post. It must have helped! Hooray for blogs.

I feel like it's the weekend, as I do every day that I don't have to work at the after-school program. It's not that it's a bad job at all--it's actually quite fun, and when I'm not there I do miss the kids (most of them), but a one-day break from the mental and physical energy needed to do that job is like a tropical vacation sometimes.

That's all, really. No great theme today (as if there ever is). I'm reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and liking it. I like it so much, in fact, that I read it for a bit too long at my desk today. Why is that so much more naughty than reading a million blogs on the internet? I don't know.

Also, we're going to see Dizzee Rascal this weekend at the Double Door. Hooray!

Hear ye, hear ye.

It's been a while since I forgot something that I definitely, completely should have remembered, that someone else was depending on, but as of today let it be known that:

I am sometimes a stupid asshole.

Let it also be known that I am sometimes very dramatic, but it kills me when I forget something (something little and, to some people, trivial, but nevertheless important to me), simply because I'm absorbed in my own silly thoughts.

Damnit. Okay, this is my attempt to get over it and move on. Let's see if it works.

A cookie is a sometimes food.

FYI: As a result of Sesame Street's new theme of healthy living, Cookie Monster will be singing a different tune...

In other, less groundbreaking news, this weekend was a lovely smorgasboard of activity. Allow me to explain:

- Friday night. Brian and I attend a ceremony for the St. Viator high school Athletic Hall of Fame, where his father's 1969 football team was being inducted. I know that any description I attempt will not do it justice. Suffice it to say that the event was held at the White Eagle banquet hall in beautiful Niles, Illinois, and if you have ever talked to me and thought that I have a Chicago accent, then you would be blown away by the voices of the people there. "I mean, ahhhnest tah gaaaaahhhhd!!" Brian was all worried that I would want to slit my wrists after spending the evening there, but I was actually thoroughly entertained. And I learned some pretty good jokes from his dad's friend. (What's Irish and stays out all night? Patio furniture! Get it?? Paddy O'Furniture? HA!) The speeches were kind of endless, but at least the drinks were free.

- Saturday night. Friday was Brian's birthday, but because of the White Eagle extravaganza, we moved celebrations to Saturday. I took him to Green Zebra for dinner, where we got a table with very little trouble and had what may have been the best meal of my life. And even though you might not care, I'm going to outline that meal for you because it was so wonderful. And because they have a menu online. And because I love how Susie S. describes all her meals on her blog.

They were all tasting portions, so we shared everything:
1. Baby mixed greens, shaved manchego, sherry-hazelnut vinaigrette
2. California inside-out roll, with fresh wasabi, citrus-coconut sauce
3. Okinawan sweet potato dumplings, fresh water chestnuts and star anise broth
4. Gnocchi that is indescribable (and not on the menu online), other than that, upon tasting it, Brian sighed and said, "I could eat this all day. Every day."
5. Root vegetable terrine, with vanilla-salsify puree and citrus vinaigrette
6. Cream puffs with three dipping sauces: caramel, pineapple-mango, and spicy hot fudge.

We practically floated home, and after our very high-brow dinner, we joined Brian's friends for a hilarious night at a decidedly low-brow bar, where (because we kept losing everyone and it was so loud we couldn't hear them anyway) he and I did funny dances all night and pretended that there was a Star Trek-style forcefield around us, protecting us from the crowd.

Not a bad couple of days.

Wheeze, hack.

I've begun telling people that I've been smoking filterless Lucky Strikes for the past 50 years, because that's what the cough I have sounds like. Yesterday it started getting this intense wheezy quality to it as well, which, while really annoying for me, is at least quite dramatic. If you're going to irritate people with your incessant hacking, at least make it good so they wonder whether you have the black lung or something equally awful, and you might keel over at any time.

I'm feeling much much better than a few days ago, however. Just in time for the weekend.

Present.

"Information about time cannot be imparted in a straightforward way. Like furniture, it has to be tipped and tilted to get it through the door. If the past is a solid oak buffet whose legs must be unscrewed and whose drawers must be removed before, in an altered state, it can be upended into the entryway of our minds, then the future is a king-size waterbed that hardly stands a chance, especially if it needs to be brought up in an elevator.

Those billions who persist in perceiving time as the pursuit of the future are continually buying waterbeds that will never make it beyond the front porch or the lobby. And if man's mission is to reside in the fullness of the present, then he's got no space for the waterbed, anyhow, not even if he could lower it through a skylight."

- from Tom Robbins' Skinny Legs and All