Well, I broke the new sleeping pattern last night. Vick called and wanted me to bring Angela some scarves that she’s knitted so she could sell them at work (this is already an established practice for the two of them). Instead of bringing the scarves to Angela I decided to take Angela to the scarves. We showed up at Vick'’s and surprised her with a bottle of Pino Grigio, which we drank while Vick played us songs on her newly restrung guitar. We all sang along to Me and Bobby Mcgee and I told the story of the infamous roof party.

Cop, “"What are you doing on the roof at five thirty in the morning?"”

Background chorus of drunks singing Me and Bobby Mcgee from roof.

Neighbor, "“That’'s my bedroom window right there!!"”

Me, "“My friend BJ just graduated from…(pause) I honestly don’'t know where he went to school. Somewhere up in Iowa. We were just celebrating his graduation, but it’'s late, I’ll send everybody home.”"

Kirksville Cop, “"Well you don’t have to break up the party, just get off the roof."”

Should I post pictures of the infamous roof party? I have plenty.

I also spent some time playing Halo 2 with my nephew (I can'’t get a handle on that X Box controller- my guy is always looking at the ground – I only killed T once to his nine tags) and generally just hanging out with the family. When I was growing up our family evenings often consisted of singing along to the guitar playing of my sister Vick and my brother Kris, occasionally we would play Pong on the black and white TV. The similarities took me back to my Milwaukee childhood, that Pong controller was a bitch at first too.

So after I took Angela home I went over to John’'s, who was interested in repeating the wander of our previous Thursday. I parked at John'’s and watered his nearly dead plants while he finished up a fence mending conversation online with our old friend Larry. I never really knew Larry all that well. When John, Brad, and I lived together in college Brad and I were replacing Larry and Michael in the house that John already lived in. I knew Larry more through his fiancé Jessica, who was a friend of my girlfriend Melinda at the time and whom I also had several classes with. It would be an exercise in understatement to describe Larry as antisocial, we got along fine but it never occurred to me to stay in touch.

I told John that I found it odd that he and Larry had both married the women they’'d been involved with at the time, while I have had something like fifteen significant relationships since then. It’s just a contrast of choices.

So we decided to walk to the bars. Now if you’ll recall I had already run around five or six miles yesterday so in walking to the bars I was deciding to walk an additional five miles, since the bar we were going to is on the far side of the West End which is at least two and a half miles from John'’s front door. So I woke up today with some bodily experiences. I think I have a mild bruise on the inside of my left heel, my right knee is slightly swollen, and I also have shin splints in both legs. Really not too bad considering. I guess I am supposed to rest today and then hit it hard again tomorrow. The hot bath helped, but I suppose a salt bath would have worked better.

Ah well, back to the grind, I mean the coffee grinder of course. Oh, our night out was uneventful. I spent much of it talking to Robert, who liked my coat and my shirt, but he felt my pants were too white to be wearing after Labor Day. The pants were Khaki, but in the blue light of Sub Zero they did look white. Robert is the Llywellen's Chef who was very into Cronenberg from a few stories back.