saturday jon threw a bbq so i spent the whole day/night over there. we had delicious grilled meats, cold beer and lots of cornhole. i started out really terrible at cornhole but in the grudge match of the filipinos -vs- non-filipinos (jon & cecile -vs- devin and me) my team won best 2/3! i don’t know what happened but at some point i got the force and arc just right and was sinking beanbags one after another. all kinds of bizarre subjects of conversation were bandied about – gang wars, public acts of violence, the merits of ds9 -vs- tng, how lame it is that i’m still not caught up with battlestar galactica, and randomly i met a guy (whom i’d seen at these parties before but never talked to) for whose band firebelly did the cd insert design. crazy! small world i guess.

sunday i went sunglasses shopping with ozzie. no luck, but to be honest i could’ve seen something perfect and i wouldn’t have recognized it. it was like 90° and pretty humid and we went to old orchard which is an outdoor mall. it was like the surface of the sun out there and all i could think about was how much i wanted to lie in front of a fan and concentrate on minimizing body movement.

last night i saw the howe gelb show at the old town school of folk music and i have to think about this a little more seriously, but i think it was the best show i’ve ever seen. i wasn’t too sure about him after listening to a few of his tracks beforehand, but performing live this guy kills. he had a gospel choir with him and some insanely good musicians playing with him. it was the single most energetic and uplifting and toe-tapping concert i’ve ever experienced. plus, the venue is smaller and very intimate and andrew got us seats in the front row of tables shoved right up against the stage. the opener, angela desveaux was also good – she said she’d been doing nothing in chicago but playing guitar hero! her bass player was born in chicago and his aunt and uncle came to the show – they were sitting at the table next to me and once their set was over he sat with them to watch howe. he was totally rocking out – i think we all were in the front row. i wonder if anyone else there was as excited as we were…i mean, probably. it was a barn burner!

today was less exciting, but not because of the company – because of getting to the company. lindsay put on another lovely picnic out in lombard and ian was in town so i met up with him too. unfortunately these meetings were in suburbs nowhere near each other so i ended up kiling about 5 hours on the metra, el or bus to spend 1.5 hours with lindsay and 5 mintues with ian (construction at howard meant i was stuck on the platform for-freaking-ever) before he had to leave for the airport. i’m glad i saw him and went to the picnic though – it would’ve been even better if the weather had cooperated and not thunderstormed most of the afternoon!

on the docket for tonight: laundry (oh boy!), tivo and trying not to get heat stroke in my un-air conditioned apartment.