the anticipation

My head really isn't in the game right now. A lovely few days, really, and the anticipation of more to come is distracting me from basic things.

Friday evening I went to Lihn & Stewart's house for a small dinner gathering with Jill & Mark. Lihn has some dope cooking skills and we had a Vietnamese crepe-type thing that I can't remember the name of, but that was so good. Stewart showed his hilarious newest video involving a cow and we howled over a rambunctious game of Cranium (Jill & I won). My side hurt from laughing so hard.

(My natural laugh has been coming out more often, and easier, than in the past. Over the years I suppressed my natural laugh because my sister would get angry and was mean about my laugh, a derivative of my mother's wonderful cackling laugh. The drunker I get the more likely it is the original will come out, but lately it's been sneaking out randomly. Guess the people I know are just really hilarious.)

Yesterday after work I met up with my visiting friend David (it's taking everything in me not to say his entire name because I almost never call him just David; it's always his full name. Most of our friends address him by full name). We wandered around, had some burgers, regrouped briefly, and met up with his friend for a bit. By the time we got home it was past my bedtime (anticipating an early morning today), so I fell asleep almost instantly.

This morning we met up with Jill & Mark, Lihn & Stewart and their visiting friend Graham for dim sum. We tried a place on Broadway that Jill often drives past that had good reviews and waited out the lineup. Good thing because it was excellent and super affordable. We got something crazy like 17 plates (maybe less because we cancelled the BBQ pork buns when they weren't there toward the end and we were stuffed full) and it was something stupid like $11 + tip per person. And we had leftovers! We actually thought it was a joke, but it's just really affordable. Really, really good beef brisket, and I (finally!) got turnip cake. Jill and I drove David to the ferry and had a good chat on the way back into town. Lovely.

Chicago has been on my mind for weeks, months, and now that it's hours away it's like I have no idea what I'm doing. The weather is supposed to be kind of crappy this week, so I'm not sure what to pack and does that mean the Cubs/Reds game is out of the question and what if the hotel is dreadful and geez the movie at the historic theatre I wanted to go to isn't playing anymore and is Chicago an umbrella city?! I CAN'T REMEMBER! I'm excited. Really, so long as I get to do even half of the things on my to-do list I'll be happy; the cemetery is high on my list.