I'll make this quick, because it's bedtime and I have a piercing headache.

But before I forget, I must announce that I am connected to David Sedaris by two degrees of seperation. Maybe three. The lady who tinted my mom's windows in our house (sun comes in, heats the room, fades the furniture - tinting stops this) is married to Chug (who usually goes by a normal name, I forget what), who lived on David Sedaris' street when they were little in Raleigh, NC. Apparently, Chug and his sister - Linda? Lydia? something like that, are mentioned in one of his books. I don't recall that name from Me Talk Pretty One Day (god, how many times am I going to link to this book), but I guess it could be in there. She said when Chug's mother died, Mr. Sedaris (David's father) was at the funeral. Chug congratulated him on all of David's books, and he was just kind of, 'eh, whatever', and walked away. She also said their whole family is very intelligent, but kooky. That kind of fits with the impression from the book (which she hadn't read yet, but plans to).

Anyway. I have a thing for celebrity - not out of control, but I have a definite thing. Like most people, I suppose. I want to be like sugar. A hip interesting New York gal who runs into famous people when she goes out to eat at the trendy places... with a killer sense of humor and fantastic confidence. Like Parker Posey is in all of her films. ...sigh... We always want what we don't got, eh?

Well, g'night all. Mr. Advil and I are hitting the sack.

Question #1: why is my mom watching Full House??

Question #2: am I a bad friend? (prepare for ranting and self-doubt)

It's Caron. Again. Is it wrong that she's annoying me beyong belief? That I have to restrain myself every time I talk to her, that I roll my eyes when she calls and desperately think of some way not to pick up the phone when my mom has already said I'm home?

Is it wrong that I feel no sympathy whatsoever for her 'plight'? That I want to tell her to suck it up, shut the fuck up, and get over it, and get on with a real life? (Not that I have the right to tell anyone that, but I'm not calling them up every day to complain about it. Except you, but reading my blog is optional. And before that, I mostly kept it to myself.)

She just feels all miserable, and complaining. 'What am I going to do? Tell me what to do? Why aren't you saying anything??' Forget about him, he's a big loser. I just told you what to do. What else do you want me to say?? I'm sorry, but he's a big loser, and I know she's been sleeping with him and/or friends with him for almost as long as she's known me. But he is a FUCKING LOSER, and she doesn't understand that a loser with potential, or a loser that sometimes does really sweet things, is still a LOSER. He's rich as all hell, he could be smart if he tried, but he's living off of his mom's money and his investment earnings in a trailer in Ft. Lauderdale, with no job, buying hideously expensive electronics while his alcoholic friend drinks himself to death on his couch and his other friend tries his damndest to get AIDS. In my opinion, a loser with money is an even bigger loser, because he has no excuse. He got all the breaks and used none of them, because he's a big lazy slob who doesn't give a shit. And I don't give a shit about him, and I cannot for the life of me understand why Caron does. Let alone entertaining thoughts of marrying him, even going so far as asking me if I would be maid of honor at their wedding, should one ever occur. What the fuck. What THE FUCK.

Oooh, that's a great line I just heard from downstairs (mom's now channel surfing, thank god) - "Shut up! Shut up!" "I'll shut up when I want to shut up!" "I said shut up! Lose a few pounds and shut up!" *smack*

Anyway, back to ranting. So am I a bad person because I feel no sympathy for the problem she created for herself? I mean, it's not like I'm saying I told you so, but she's calling me almost every day to complain for hours. She expects me to care what happens between them, she really does, and she wants everyone to feel bad for her. Why?? Because she lied one too many times to a fucking loser, and now he doesn't want to talk to her? For THAT she's crushed? For THAT she's depressed and despondent?

I feel horrible for Ayako because her boyfriend treated her like shit. She tried to help him, she was there for him, she did everything. When she calls me up to complain, it's because he's giving her the silent treatment and being an ass around their friends and making her life miserable. I feel bad for her. It's not her fault. She didn't create the situation herself to add more drama. She's relieved when I say I feel sorry for her. Caron's upset if I don't.

I just feel torn - am I being a bad friend because I don't feel sorry for Caron? Because she's difficult and annoying and does stupid stuff all the damn time? Because our views about very important things are totally different, because she calls too often and talks too long... I mean, if I was a good friend, would this stuff matter? Or does our friendship still even exist?

Every time the phone rings I'm afraid it's her and that I'll have to talk to her. It makes me feel guilty.

She's just so insensitive sometimes. She called me up last night during ER and asked if I was watching (this being the episode about Dr. Green and his family in Hawaii when he dies). She was like, "Why not?? It's so sad!" I said, "That's *why* I'm not watching." She was like, "How can you not be watching??" I finally lost it and said, "I've already been through it. I don't need to see it again." There's no way she couldn't have picked up that I was upset. Luckily, she dropped it, changed the subject, talked for a while (during which I did homework) and then said she'd call me another time. I don't even listen to her anymore. It doesn't matter whether or not I have any distractions (although it is more obvious then) - I listen to her just enough to know when to make 'uh-huh' comments, occasionally answer a question. It's getting to be like a game - how much can I not listen without her noticing? Because I don't care. I've heard it all before, every time. Every time the relationship ends with a guy, every time she fucks up and says, "what do I do? He's refusing to talk to me, what do I do?"

And then she says she's always in control, that she builds an 'escape route' into the relationship and triggers it when it gets too close. She does it on purpose. If her lie ends a relationship, it's because she wanted it to. Okay. THEN WHY DOES SHE KEEP COMPLAINING ABOUT IT AND STRESSING OVER IT AND CALLING ME UP AND BUGGING ME ENDLESSLY TO TELL HER WHAT TO DO and all I want to say is, it's simple. DON'T LIE.

She goes on about how I'm a hypocrite, because I'm vegetarian yet I eat at McDonalds (although not their fries anymore, since I found out they use beef flavoring in them), because I'm supporting them even though I'm not eating their beef. I never claimed to be Mother fucking Theresa. She says I shouldn't be lecturing her on morality, telling her not to lie, because I tell little white lies and occasionally cheated in high school. I'm sorry, but that's a lot different than taking money for fake abortions. It's not the same as telling your boyfriend, whom you supposedly love, a whole huge pack of lies about your life, because you want him to think better of you, so that his friends don't make fun of him as much, so he doesn't mind so much that you're not a skinny little ho-bag. I'm sorry, but the person who does that has major issues. It's not the same as cheating on a chemistry test.

And I never complained to her endlessly about cheating or lying. I never whined and bitched about how my life sucks because of it. Because I never got caught? Yeah, okay. But if I had - there's no way I would have the balls to complain endlessly about my life being a mess because I had made it that way.

It's not like this just happened. It's not like I didn't feel the same way freshman year, when I'd tell her over and over again not to call so late because she was bugging my friends. She didn't care. She said, I'm not scared of them like I am your parents. Tell them to suck it up. What the fuck?? She'd say she called late because I was never there, because I never returned her calls. Did she ever think why?? Because she was dishing out some huge lie to me, or talking about the huge lie she was creating for her boyfriend/ friends, or complaining because the huge lie had ended the friendship. Those were the worst times. Because she'd call all the time, and all she would do is whine and complain and worry about what was she going to do, what can she do to fix it, what can she do now.

The answer is always the same. Get even with him, forget about him, find another victim and do the same damn thing all over again. Dave, Rob, Jason, John - it's always the same. And I'm sick of it, I can't care any more, I can't feel bad for her any more. And I don't want to hear it anymore.

She's fun to be with, and I've known her forever, and I know her family. But I'm seriously thinking that the only way I can continue to be friends with her is if she doesn't bring up or talk about any of her ex-boyfriends. If she gets a new boyfriend and tells me she lied to him, I don't think I can stand that either. I'm not saying lying to him as in, 'Mmm, honey, this tastes great!' or 'I love golf', or 'how did you know?'. I'm saying telling him "Fine, don't talk to me if you're pissed at me, but I just wanted to let you know that my period was late." Was late. Two weeks ago, it was a couple days late, but since then it's been and gone. And now she's upset because he wants proof of the next abortion. What can I say? At least he's learning. But I cannot sympathize with her. I cannot feel sorry for her. And I can't listen to it anymore.

If you're wondering about the manic/depressive nature of my recent posts, blame my hormones. Sometimes I hate being a woman - but consider the alternative. ;)

Blogger is having some issues with my page.. I wonder why. This here post is gonna be image-heavy. First things first, a Spark.com quiz result!





Now, I have to ask - is Me Talk Pretty One Day required reading for all bloggers?

And, finally, pictures!! Of some of the stuff I've been mentioning off and on throughout my posts. If I actually had any regular readers, a) I'd know about it and b) this would be very useful and exciting. As it is, this is rather pointless but satisfying in an exhibitionist sort of way.

Here are my first two ceramics projects. Yes, they're supposed to look like this, except for the giant cracks. Heh.


Weird bug-shell thing

Incense burner for Jenny

Happy family!

And here's 1/3 of my final drawing project. I didn't like the other 2/3 as much.

Self portrait

My model. ;)

I know I look a bit ... strange, but I needed a new pose for my face. I'd done looking up, looking sideways, looking frontways.... anyway, you get the idea.

Later I'll post pictures of the dining room stripes and the hand-painted tuscan bathroom. G'night everyone!

Well, I found out last night that the 500/week design job doesn't have room for me. I misinterpreted Bronwen's email - I thought she was the 'leader' of the group, and that the job was mine if I wanted it. She said to contact Laura for more info - tried in vain to do so for weeks. Then I tried to contact Bronwen for more info - again, in vain, for weeks. Finally, I emailed the rest of the random strangers in the group for more info, and got a near-immediate reply that the funding is only for 6 people, and they already have 6, and thanks for the email but they can't help me.

Damn.

So, I'm taking the campus job. But I have a good feeling about it - Barb's cool, and I'm working with Alexys, who is, as I've said at least twice today, the absolute best. I start June 3rd, work 37.5 hours a week, and I get my own desk. Works for me. I'll get to help green up the campus and get some more office experience, particuarly in doing green work. Cool beans.

I'm also finally enrolled back at CMU, so I've spent the majority of today trying to figure out my classes. Of course, all the ones I want to take are during my other required classes, reserved for sophomores or art majors or whatever, have a waitlist in the double digits, or require 3 prerequisites that I don't have. So I found a history class to fulfill my academic requirement (American Environmental History - Critical Issues - sounds like fun) and a (just in case I don't take a class this summer) elective called Art in Culture. It's only 6 units (instead of the normal nine) but that leaves me with only .5 unit left for graduation, and Melissa said she'd wave that. Whoo!

So I went searching for summer classes that I could take - one summer class at UPitt will end up being somewhere around $500.00 (the one I picked was a Women's Lit class in the evenings so I could take it after work - held in the Cathedral of Learning, of all things, which Ayako refers to as 'the giant phallus') - Penn State is $500.00/class, and it seems everything else requires being in a program or getting your masters degree. So I'm back to looking at good ol' Central Piedmont for a purely online course (hopefully won't have to fly back to Charlotte each time I want to take a test), because the price is right and I'm already enrolled.

I'm having weight issues again - well, they never stop, but sometimes they come to the forefront. I had the thought today that maybe I could try to survive on nothing but soy milk and vitamins. I'd get my protein, the basics - it has some carbs, some fat, enough for each day, and the rest my body can get from its own damn self. My mom keeps buying bread and cheese and stuff like that, I keep eating (more than I should of) it, she says what the hell is up with that, I say I don't know, and it keeps going in its vicious little cycle. I obviously don't have enough self control to eat small amounts of things, so that kind of diet won't work. I need to eat food that tastes bad, food that I don't like, but is good for me. I'll eat just enough to keep me going, and not eat any more than I need. As I said before, I obviously don't have the luxury of eating food that tastes good, like bread. I'll sentence myself to a lifetime of nasty crappy healthy food and let it go at that. I just have to get to a place where other people aren't buying me food. Like Pittsburgh. No communal food. And I'll try to explain to Ayako that throwing out brownies is less of a waste than encouraging me to eat them.

I feel like everything is on hold until I get to Pittsburgh. I'm just biding my time until then - don't start anything new, finish up what's going on, and somehow pass the time until June. It's a horrible, helpless feeling. I think I'm in the midst of a very mild depression for various compounding reasons. The worst of it is that I don't think I can do anything about it until I get to Pittsburgh. I hope things'll change for the better - freedom, friends, self-control, a real job - these things will be good for me. I'm anticipating a personal rennaisance of sorts, hoping that getting my life back will motivate me to do even more. Especially without an exhausting commute to worry about like last summer. I'm hoping. Hoping hoping hoping, and waiting. I feel like I'm in a cocoon - a frightening, depressing, greasy cocoon, waiting...

Or maybe I'm just filthy nasty and need to take a shower. It's worth a try.

Woohoo! One lab down, one more to go. I really did some cheesy shortcuts for that lab, but he didn't say we couldn't, so I'm assuming it's okay. I mean, I didn't even worry about mixing an array of characters and integers for the tic tac toe - I just used the ASCII codes. Enter 'X' into the array, meaning 88, then when it displays the chart, check if the array says 88, and if so, print X. Likewise, when checking to see if that space is already an X or an O, just check to see if the array is larger than 9 - none of this =='X' stuff. Heh, what can I say, I'm lazy. But it works! If I was more energetic right now, I'd bother checking a) if the board is full and no more moves can be made and b) if someone actually won. The wind is out of my sails, however, so I should just go to bed before it comes back.

By the way, I realize sometimes that I am neither geek nor non-geek. I'm a semi-geek, a geek mix, a quasi-geek. For instance, I've heard the term 'Begin Geek code block', but I have no idea what it does, or what to do with the gibberish that follows. I can read h4x0r but not 'speak' it. I play computer games but I'm not what would be called a 'gamer'. I *make* video games but all I really do is paint, and the only console I own is older than I am (yeeeah Intellivision). I feel like I can never be fully accepted into either of these worlds - I'm too anti-social and nerdy for the 'real' world, and I'm too ignorant for the inner sanctums of geekness. I am destined to wander alone, programming my HTML by hand but ignoring Java or any other higher forms of web design, using photoshop to paint but stonewalled by Borland C++, with my 3 computers and no PDA. What's a girl to do? ...sigh...

Anyhoot. Night all.

Oy! Well, that's over with. Drawing class has been completed - 'A', thank you very much. It kind of reminds me of high school - with the amount of work I put into it, I really deserved a B, but because I either grasped the concepts quicker than most people or had some sort of natural ability, I get an A without really trying. There was even more of a disparity in this class because I've taken its equivalent at least 3 times before. The teacher said during my crit that she should have challenged me more. I didn't say anything - should I have told her I was just taking it for credit and fun, and didn't really care about adding to my portfolio? Ah well.

Ceramics is mostly done - I had almost all of my pieces glazed for the crit, and that was about on par with everyone else. I stayed after the (extremely short and painless) crit to finish up my work. Poor Mom is horribly sick - I got a ride with Sheila this morning because she felt too bad to drive. Sheila also took Doug to his checkup. He's looking good for a man with no femur. I managed to resist telling Joanne's motorcycle-fixated sister his story, although I imagine if she decides to get one against her parents wishes, I might bring it up. It's a shame, I really like motorcycles too - they're so beautiful. The Harley types, I mean, not those plastic-covered race bikes. Although, as freaked as I am sometimes about driving/riding in cars, I'd be tense as all hell on a motorcycle. Maybe I should start with a Vespa...

I'm feeling just a touch out of it. I got home today, did some random stuff, (badly) cooked dinner (Boca burger & tater tots, both underdone), watched a movie, and took a nap. Well, I guess it's not technically a nap, considering it was 4 hours long. I keep doing that - laying down to rest at 6 or 7 pm and waking up hours later in a fog. At least I did wake up, cuz I needed to take out my contacts. I think it was one of my dreams that woke me - another home-invasion nightmarish thing, although this was different than most. I won't bore you with the details - but think I started freaking out because these men were in the house with me (alone), and it woke me up a little, because I started manipulating the dream enough to keep me safe. Later, when I left the house, I found out it was all a big misunderstanding, and they were actually just part of an activist group trying to save some examples of Shakespearean history that was somewhere in the huge trashed abandoned house I was in. *shrug* Don't know what was up with that. Or my profound happiness at having copious amounts of Dr. Pepper at my disposal. Hmm.

Anyhoo, it doesn't look like Ayako's going to call me back to discuss the possible trip to the bay area this summer, so I'll do something productive. Whether or not it'll be meaningful is as yet unsure... redesign my webpage, or do a programming lab? Or ooo, a computer game, I haven't played one of those in forever. Well, we shall see. Night all.

Omigod. I know that sounds 14-year-oldish, but that's how I feel. I'm chatting with Ayako, and she mentioned hot guys playing shirtless soccer, and happened to mention my favorite hottie was sans top, and I nearly had a seizure. Ahhh!! AAAAAAAAAAA!

I did one programming lab today, cleaned up a little read a bunch of magazine articles... dinner last night was nasty, so I ordered pizza and watched the 6th sense on TV. Caron came over and talked throughout a bunch of the movie, asking me to clarify stuff, and making fun of it, and while I was explaining it she would shush me so she could hear what was going on. Caron is not an easy person to watch a movie with. She took off near the end to go home, and then I switched around and found Philadelphia on TNT's Kleenex Tearjerker Theatre. I turned it off about 1 1/2 hours later - it's not the kind of movie you *have* to finish, once you've seen it.

Man! I keep getting mental images of half-naked hotties. I'm trying my best not to giggle, but I am grinning like a fool and waving my hands around. Heeee! *squeal*

I'm probably getting sick. My mom has a sore throat, and she's so hoarse she sounds like that guy in Independence Day and Mrs. Doubtfire. It's kind of funny, except that she feels awful. And I'm going to feel awful next. With finals in the next few days. Woohoo.

Currently, though, I'm the sponge for Ayako's rants on IM about evil/stupid ex-boyfriends, so I shall depart. And occasionally giggle when thinking of my hottie. eeee! :D

Well, Lisa and I worked on the bathroom until about 1:30. We got a lot done - I was in the kitchen for a while, and I went back in and I was so amazed.... it's a little on the busy side, but it was filled with all the painting stuff so that probably didn't help. I should put some pictures of it on here..

After she left, as usual, I took a break and never started again. It's the TV, it does that to me. I was flipping through the channels, trying to decide what to watch. I found a period piece on WE, which was exactly what I was in the mood for, so I watched it for a while, but it was about these little rich kids with British accents. I'm not overly fond of children, so I watched the end of some random James Spader movie and then flipped back, and holy shit! The kids had grown up and turned into Christian Slater and Jared Leto!! I stayed on it after that. :) It turned out to be Basil, and Claire Forlani turned up as a slutty young bitch. I wonder when she picked up that squinting habit of hers that she showed off so well in Meet Joe Black. After that was over, I happened to come upon The Maltese Falcon, which I can never turn away from. Such a good movie, they're so hard to find anymore.

Speaking of which, I just read our local critic's review of the Spiderman movie. He was pretty nasty about it, but then he's pretty nasty about everything. He just can't sit back and enjoy a stupid freaking movie like Spiderman, he has to make comments about the flatness of the characters and how things just kind of 'happen'. Whatever dude, you obviously had higher expectations for this movie than most people. It doesn't need to be *good*, or even freaking *realistic* - it's Spiderman, for chrissake. Drink your coke and don't think too hard. I'm gonna need to see that sometime soon. I've missed all the other movies I wanted to see, because either everyone saw them first and didn't want to see them again, or they never wanted to see them in the first place because they're sissy little girls. I haven't even seen Lord of the Rings yet, for crying out loud, let alone the Count of Monte Cristo or Brotherhood of the Wolf. At least Jenny said something about going to see Spiderman (she's a big fan of Kirsten Dunst, and I think she likes Tobey Maguire too) It's so cool that the future Spiderman was on our campus.

Mom's home - time to cook dinner. Night y'all...

That last post seems a little cut-off, but I can't remember if there was more because Blogger was having some sort of issue when I tried to publish it before. Anyway. So yesterday I wasted the first few hours of the day online (surprise!) - except that I found yet another campus design job and applied for it. I know I'm having enough trouble deciding between the two offers I already have, and I really need to make a decision soon, but neither one really rings my bell, and this one sounds REALLY cool. Well, there's 2 of them, actually, but I really didn't understand what she was talking about with the 2nd one. The first one, though, I'd be designing service robots, or at least figuring out how they would be designed in the future. I had so much fun with our robot project that Ayako, Laura and I did sophomore year. So I'm excited, but I haven't heard anything from her. And it's only one day after she sent out the email. I don't know if she's set a day she wants all the responses by or anything...

Uh oh, sounds like Lisa's here to work on the bathroom. I might have to go... I was up until 3 am plastering the walls. It takes a lot longer than I thought, and I'm afraid I might have to do it again. I hope not, tho - it's only a little thinner than what Lisa put on, but it still looks okay to me. The clouds on the wall are done but the ceiling needs serious help. There's a real learning curve here, it's kind of funny to see it.

I decided, though, that I really like just taking a huge chunk of time, starting a project at like 10 pm and working until it's finished. It's enough to drive you crazy, especially something as repetitive and physically draining as plastering, but there's a certain satisfaction in doing the whole thing at once. You can look back and see how much you've accomplished, you know exactly how much time you're spending on it (4 1/2 hours - I'm slow), and there's no interruptions or needing to clean up every time.

It's more stressful with more than one project, though. I was glazing the rest of my ceramics work yesterday (crit Monday) and I had like 6 things going at once. Not that this is a shocking revelation or anything, but I just love to make stuff more difficult than it has to be. For instance - one of my pieces for ceramics is 3 different parts. 3 parts to fit together, 3 parts to stain. And of course, I chose to put 3 different colors on. The really annoying thing is that all of the glazes they have are only for dipping or spraying (which we can't do). So everything has to be dunked in these big buckets of stain, after you've stirred them up with your bare hands and dissolved all the chunks of goo in the bottom. Not too bad if you have a normal sized piece and you just want one stain on it. HA! Of course, I choose to make large, awkward pieces that can't fit in the buckets so someone else holds them and I pour the stain on. Also, I put 3 different colors on, and only some of them can mix, so I have to 1) wax resist the feet 2)dunk the whole thing in red glaze 3) clean off 1" above the feet 4) wax resist 1" above that 5) dunk the whole thing in clear glaze 6) clean off the bottom 1" again 7) dunk that in black glaze. That was one of 3 parts, all with about the same process. And I had 2 other projects going on at the same time, some with different stains, some with the same, and of course something's always drying and can't be stained at the same time as another piece.... and trying to work around everyone who is also freaking and trying to get their stuff done, in a small small space - it's... aaa! The same thing happened with my garden tools. Trying to make 3 models at once, and each model has between 2 and 8 parts. It's insane.

I have to say, though, I'm really looking forward to getting back into the design world. Not necessarily (did I spell that right?) because of the people, however. I really miss being up there, but I feel like everyone really bonded or clicked or something this past year while I was gone. I know they're cool with me and everything, I don't think they're glad I'm gone (like some people I know), but if I went up there, I would have my usual awkward underdeveloped social skills, and they would all be cool with each other.

Hold that thought, Lisa's here....

First things first: I wonder if I should apply for Core 77 to feature my blog with their other design blogs. Core 77 is the online mecca of Industrial Design. They already have a student blogging, tho.

Secondly, I have discovered a hidden talent of mine: turning on light switches by falling over. This has happened at least twice, and I'm anxiously awaiting the next occurence. The especially odd thing is that it's always the light switch I was going to turn on anyways, and I just happened to do so by conking my head against the wall or stumbling into the door. It's a gift.

And thirdly, Joanne's 21st birthday was last night. Well, actually, it was the day before, but her Charlotte-based shindig was last night at her house. There were like 30 people there, and I knew... 7 of them. Not bad, actually. Joanne cleaned up - I said all I got for my birthday was a night out drinking with my sisters and dinner at Bistro East. Oh, and a cookbook. Andrew (friend of Joanne's for as long as I've known her too) got a bunch of crappy art stuff from his family - cheap brushes from Crayola watercolor sets and a Bob Ross book. I can sympathize. Ooo, art stuff! I'll get this for the artist! It's like buying cheap knock-offs with Japanese lettering for your Japanese friend. Heh. Anyway, she got unknown amounts of money and gift certies, a pedicure set, random journal-type items, a Rocky boxed set (?!), Men in Black, and Jacko's Thriller album on CD. Joanne is weird.

Thorsten, her German-exchange student friend/boyfriend? was in attendance, making various thumbs-up signs and taking 3 rolls of pictures. With flash. Andrew and I sat back, shared a glass of red wine and made snide comments. Olivia (I knew her when she was Libby) is all grown up and looks like that high-school chick Diane from Ed. Apparently her major goals in life are to be a missionary and own a Harley.

After the party broke up (around 9:30) and we finished cleaning up (around 10:30), we went to Phil and Tony's to get drinks. We walked in and there were 2 groups of people hanging out at the bar - right inside the door was a weird collection of smashed 30s hipsters dressed nicely and flirting outrageously with each other. At the far end of the bar was a collection of smashed 30s hoochies dressed nicely and flirting outrageously with the bartender. Luckily, the patio was open. I got a couple of Brown Ales, on draft. Good stuff, I like it better than the reds. Since Thorston and Joanne had Pyramid W-something-German (lite beers with an orange slice), Olivia was the DD and had a fancy-looking OJ, and Andrew had his bottle of Bud, he said I was the Man of the Group, with my big dark beer. Heh. We had a good time talking and I got pretty tipsy - nothing embarassing, but I did have a little balance trouble getting into the car that I don't think anyone noticed. And I'm a really boring conversationalist. I believe my subjects of choice were the patent drunken Asia peeing on the floor story, Monty Python (nerd! nerd!), and... um... hell, I can't remember. You get the idea. At one point when the conversation was taking a turn for the unknown, Olivia put me on the spot and said, "Wendy! New subject!" And the entire table turned to look at me. You know I hate that. My brain shut down and I mumbled something like... "Um... I'm not good at that kind of thing..." and the table was uncomfortably silent for a few seconds before Olivia brought up some new subject. Yeah. Woohoo, go me. But overall it was a pretty good time, and I was a little louder and less graceful than usual by the time I got home and went to bed (only around 12:30).