three-day weekend

this weekend was all over the place, yet unified by two themes: 1. not doing schoolwork and 2. having a good time. friday hung out with christine and finally saw some episodes of "veronica mars." whoa. this is possibly the coolest show currently on television. it is dark. not "edgy," but legitimately dark. noir. lauren captured it best by characterizing it as twin-peaks-meets-buffy. for reals.

saturday did a whole lot of nothing--slept in, went running, ran errands--then headed out for loren's 30th/ben's brother's 21st. good times. it was a fun mix of people. a couple fellow law students, but mainly their peeps from indy and ben's brother's friends from loyola. i was particularly impressed by loren's sister, who is obviously extremely smart and ambitious but not remotely conceited about it, as well as her boyfriend, who just got back from iraq, poor kid. (jason, don't start.) had a really rewarding conversation with both of them about bullshit we have dealt with as women in litigation-related jobs: she had come up against some of the same stuff as i (and some of my classmates) have in recent months. but that's so definitely another post that i don't feel like writing just now. at the stroke of 12, the party left casa loren y ben to go to a cute bar on damen. ben was in rare form; it's cute when he's in "special occasion mode," but it tends to mean that he foists free alcohol on me that i may or may not need. pretty much everyone there was laidback, smart, and funny, and i could tell loren had a ball. it was nice.

sunday was the most schizophrenic. i was miraculously only hungover for a highly sleepoffable hour or two (underdogg, thank you once again), then read a bunch of magazines and talked to my mom. and did a small amount of homework. on a whim, thinking it would be a quiet night, i went to the siskel center and saw "old boy" (part of the "vengeance trilogy" by chan-wook park), which i'd been meaning to see for years. holy mother of god. it was amazing, funny even. and beautifully shot. but if i scoured the darkest, most perverse corners of my psyche, i don't think i could imagine anything that even remotely approaches some of the events that take place in this movie. by the end you realize that it's definitely a moral fable of sorts, albeit a visceral, hugely fucked-up one. i was seriously traumatized afterwards. on my way to grab a bite to eat, got a text from tar-bear, who, after a sojourn to ny, is now back in the 773 for the duration. she was going out with a couple people, and while i had planned on staying in, i knew that i needed to get outside of my head after seeing that movie. the "bar" i met her at turned out to be more like a half-assed club in gold coast, SO not my scene and so undeserving of a cover charge, but it was good to see tara again. the crowd was so annoying (let's just say that none of the guys had necks and all of them were bald), but i eventually managed to get into the spirit of things and get down a little bit. bailed pretty early though. i have my limits.

then today, bbq #1 was canceled due to rain, but bbq #2, at kastrup's, was still on. we enjoyed beer, ribs, sweet corn and homemade ice cream. can you think of a better labor day meal? it's not possible. and even better, scott offered free furniture for my now-barren apartment! and even better than that, it wasn't ghetto! this kid ran was there, from nu, that i hadn't seen in 4 years. it was interesting to catch up. (no, jess, he's not fat...i'm kind of disappointed.) tommorrow should be fairly low-key, i'm skipping my evening class to go hang out with with my dad, who's in schaumburg for business. i convinced him to drive me to target. yes! hopefully he will have a new crop of politically-incorrect jokes to share; he 's been on quite a roll lately.

personal to lp: i'm so glad that you called--hang in there.