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.

random experiment!

starting today i will be eating with my left hand. changing up normal, everyday tasks is supposed to keep those neurons sharp…plus it seems like a fun experiment. and a lot easier in the workplace than not speaking for a week. i tried to start doing this on monday, but forgot about it once i got back to my apartment that night. tomorrow we’re having a big business meeting lunch though, so hopefully i won’t make a total ass of myself. anyway, if you see me eating with my right hand this week, please remind me that the right is the wrong hand and the left is right.

i guess the past month sort of flew by, what with actually doing work at work and all. i built out templates for my office’s new website and coded a cms for one of our clients. i’ve settled into a nice routine of sandwich-making and bus-taking (cta, if i were as unreliable as your bus ‘schedules’ i’d never be employed for longer then, oh say…45 minutes, which is how long i stood waiting for you in 9° weather, waiting to lose that last bit of feeling in my toes and face. while i’m on the subject, dear humbolt park landlords: shovel your fucking sidewalks). i am starting to spend my spare moments wishing for a car so i can avoid my crappy commute, but i’ve pretty much decided that i’m not buying a car until i have a real reason to do so – like a job that requires a lot of traveling or maybe winning the lottery.

i’ve seen some movies (‘the aviator’, ‘house of flying daggers’, ‘a very long engagement’, ‘kinsey’, ‘million dollar baby’) and have finished the first volume of the baroque cycle. nothing earth-shattering actually, which is sort of depressing…but at least i have a good job and i’m healthy. soon i’ll be heading home for grandma & grandpa’s anniversary and grandma’s birthday, PLUS trivial pursuit in bluegrass. TWO tables this time for trivial pursuit; i anticipate some heated interfamily competition! this weekend a few parties are going on…i haven’t been out in awhile and am sort of hesitant to do so, but they’re both being thrown by people i wish i saw more of (my fault).

cripes, my grammar is awful. was it always this terrible? i need to get a grammar-check module for movable type or something. anyway, let’s see – last night we did tuesday night pizza at ben & sara’s instead of o’famé so we could watch ‘groundhog day’ and play some xbox. ok, tetris worlds is a weird game. granted, we could’ve looked at the manual to figure out what was going on, but the objects of some of the game variations were really bizarre. ben, matt & i did sort of a round-robin thing so we all got a chance to play. next time: i bring over my two controllers so EVERYONE gets a chance to be confused.

i could probably go on but i realize that i’ve been totally rambling. hopefully i’ll be able to get back in the habit of posting once every day or so. happy birthday conrad!

sorry i haven’t posted in awhile. i’ve been working non-stop while at work and only today have i gotten a little break to do some site maintenance. the job is super, ‘white noise’ was creepy, the best part of ‘the life aquatic’ was the giant cross-sectioned ship, my new css book rocks and extra sharp cheddar makes awesome sandwiches. the other night i had a dream wherein i was going to be killed and i was waiting over and over to be shot in the head while the assassin did test shots with blanks or something because the murder had to be staged in a very specific way. but then he fell in love with me and decided not to kill me but his boss saw me alive and got mad and decided to finish the job himself, but this time also kill my parents. i guess he didn’t succeed? i woke up too soon to find out. weird. the end.

i just talked to one of my best friends from high school, adam. we caught up and stuff and it was awesome! i am not good at keeping in touch. i know this. i keep up with a lot of stuff via weblogs. weblogs are awesome for this purpose. but what about you guys that don’t have weblogs (and might be reading this right now)? what are you up to?

tonight was supposed to be cross-rhodes then observatory, but due to uncooperative weather it became just cross-rhodes. it was ben and sara’s first time there. the food plus the paper football game times the MASH round where matt’s future profession is ‘trophy wife’ really made the night a lot of fun. afterwards we went to dominick’s to pick up ingredients for egg nog shakes. we went to ben and sara’s and played scene it, cecile’s early christmas present from matt. we split up girls vs. boys and the girls won both times (although we were neck and neck at the end of the second game). after that we watched some cable – fine offerings such as ‘dr. giggles’ and the escentuals show on qvc. oh – also ‘talk sex‘ on the oxygen network which was incredibly funny. for example, one caller basically wanted to know why men like breasts. uh…does that really rate a phone call? to a sex expert? i don’t think so. anyway, it was a really awesome night. hooray for friends. they rock.