at the end of february was jon’s birthday party at delilah’s. it was a good time – matt made cupcakes! – and there was a lot of drinking and a lot of drunkenness. the birthday boy left after apparently lapsing into unconsiousness in the middle of conversations and yelling at people in spanish. at the beginning of march was cecile’s masquarade ball/lechon party. everyone wore formal attire and masks so it was pretty surreal. that and the whole roast pig sitting on the kitchen table. one guy came as strongbad! strongbad in a suit!

last week was the first annual chicago printers’ ball. my company was a sponsor and aaron designed the fruit stand that held all of the free swag. swag that was completely decimated after half an hour. it started at 6, eric and i got in line at 6:30…and i do mean in LINE. around the block. after an hour and about 5 people cutting in line directly in front of us (people from a certain magazine beginning with ‘p’ apparently have no manners) we finally got in. there were some people dancing on the stage and a couple of people i knew so we hung out past 9 and watched the band set up for the event that was going on afterwards. matt showed up too, which was surprising because i thought if anyone i invited would come it would be jon or kate or andrew. after the ball matt, eric and i walked all the way from hot house up to the bennigan’s (the first open restaurant we found) and had some food and iced tea. we had an interesting conversation wherein i probably revealed too much about myself then called it a night.

friday we went to a costa rican restaurant for a coworker’s last day. it was AMAZING! we all had shakes – i had a mamey shake (warning: picture is huge). mamey was described in the menu as apricot/raspberry flavored. it is delicious. i also had some potato tacos with mole and fried plantain. i recommend irazu to anyone!

this week diana was in town from vancouver! we hung out last night. we all went to reza’s for dinner and had an insane amount of food. somehow diana, asli and i got into a weird conversation about birth control pills and egg donation while jon desperately tried to go to his happy place. afterwards we hit carol’s, a country-western bar with live music. the band was awesome – the guitar player was so incredible! they took requests and played everything from old-school country to the blues.

today i had to pick up my new earphones from the wicker park post office (long story). we ate at the grafton in lincoln square where i had the best shepherd’s pie since will’s homemade in london. i also had to take my new pants to be altered – hopefully they’ll work out for the vegas wedding next weekend. while there we’re going to see a penn & teller show and see the star trek experience (of course). after the actual wedding, pat wants to go to the stratosphere tower to ride the roller coaster and the insanity swings.

monday is eric’s interview at apple, so he’ll fly to california tomorrow, fly back on tuesday then fly back out to vegas on friday. the rest of today is devoted to messing with my new earphones, reading my new popsci and watching some back episodes of numbers and monk.