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Edit Great, I seem to have caught a cold now. Huzzah.


Leave it to me to have a 'vacation' that leaves me completely wiped out. But ah well, things have been very fun so far. Here begins a recounting of Stuff What I've Done Lately that you probably have no reason to care about, but I feel like recounting it, so here we go. Skip at your leisure...

Saturday evening, my dad threw a surprise party for my mom's 60th birthday (which is actually not for a couple of weeks, but he wanted to do it while I was in town). This is... unusual. My dad is a very kind person, but he is also... somewhere at the intersection of very mellow and kind of shy personality-wise. Big Surprise Party is not generally part of his MO, which made the gesture all the sweeter. My job was to invite Mom out on errands with me while Dad got all the guests he'd invited over and brought out the food he'd stashed at my brother's place. Fortunately, my mom is pretty easy to stall at Fry's, so all went according to plan.

After the party, a smaller group of us went out to dinner and from there I went to see Dave B's band play, from whence we went on to a party with him, Johnny C and some other high school friends (actually, check that: I've known Dave and Johnny since day care, circa... 1987... geez) until about 3am... or 6am, depending on which time zone I use.

Spent Sunday afternoon catching up with the rest of the old community at church, which was actually very nice. There was one off-handed comment about how "now that the prop8 wars are over, the only thing I have to worry about is the economy", but I was able to bite my tongue and tactfully steer the conversation back to how much I like living in Boston. =;) It'd been a very long time since I'd seen a lot of these people, but they're faces I've known practically my whole life. I grew up with them as an extended family and they went right back to treating me as such, so in that sense it was very nice to see a lot of them again. A bit stressful, but still nice.

Then I spent Sun evening at slyviolet and wyldelf's with them, manana, rhosyn_du and rubicantoto. It still blows me away that this mix of people I know from high school and people I know from college have all become this cohesive tribe and spending time with them again was awesome. I really feel like I've found my home in Boston, but every time I come back to CA I just wish I could cut out the rest of the country and at attach the two coasts to one another... maybe leaving Madison as a sort of land-bridge between the two. =;)

Also, slyviolet and I are doubly-horrible people. Horrible for composing, off the tops of our heads, "letter to a starving child", and doubly so for not having written it down. Comedy gold, lost at sea.

Anyway, that one had me home around 3am as well. Then, on Monday I took BART into the city (what foreigners call "San Francisco") and spent the whole afternoon catching up and chatting with predundant, whom I'd last seen in-person while on my honeymoon, and taking in the... local color of the Castro neighborhood. Got to see his chapel, talk about business, music, gaming and mutual acquaintances.

From there I walked to the Mission district and went to a yummy vegan restaurant with m_shell and fiat_louis, then back to Shell's place for a lovely chat until catching the last train back home.

...not bad for two and a half days, but man am I trashed now. I actually slept in until about 10:30 this morning! Ah, this hedonistic lifestyle I lead!

If you're in the east bay and want to get together, ping me. I'm free today and Weds, but after that life starts getting eaten by Thanksgiving and the wedding (25 people over for thanksgiving dinner?!).