The Lost Week(end)

It's been a crazy week. Despite our place still largely being in disarray, Megan and I hosted our first house guest, Mr. Zach Trexler. The whole duration of his stay was whirlwind of fun, food, and booze. Zach flew into town Thursday afternoon. We hooked up at my work, and after a quick wardrobe change, we headed downtown to meet Ian for dinner and drinks at La Bouvette. After that, things get a little blurry, as Zach and I kicked off our weekend in true rock star fashion and never looked back. You know how Dennis Leary used to sum up Jim Morrison's career as "I'm drunk, I'm nobody. I'm drunk, I'm famous. I'm drunk, I'm dead?" Well, that was pretty much our extended weekend, except without the "I'm nobody," "I'm famous," and "I'm dead" parts. And although my liver probably doesn't think so, it was just the kind of break I needed.

So, after being properly pickled, Zach, Ian, and I stumbled to the Goofy Foot from Ian's apartment and checked out Eux Autres. Despite being a little concerned about Zach during his hour spent in the men's room, I had a great time. The show was fun and it was a real treat to see Nick play again. I had only seen Nick play once before, when his band Byron The Bulb opened for Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks at Sokol. This time it was a much more intimate setting, and since there are only two members of Eux Autres, it was a lot easier to focus on Nick's playing. My unbiased opinion was that, despite the lackluster soundboard skills of one Mr. Mike Arnold, it sounded great. But then again I was a little drunk, so none of you should take my word for it. No my friends, you should go check out Eux Autres for yourself. And by the way, I'm just giving Mike shit, I'm sure that he did just fine at the sounboard, despite the fact he had no idea what he was doing!

Again, that was on Thursday night. Apparently, I forgot that the weekend hadn't started yet. So, let's just say that Friday was a little rough at work, and leave it at that. Some of the crew were meeting up at the Goofy to hear Mike's set and catch up. Zach and I declined as we decided to sit around at the homestead and drink instead. We called it a night pretty early. Thank God.

On Saturday, Megan and I had a wedding and reception to go to. We left Zach to his own devices while we went to celebrate the marriage of a pretty amazing couple. You see, this may have been the wedding that we were at, but the couple has actually been married for a little over a year. Kelly and Shawn were engaged after only dating for 7 months, and when Shawn's marine unit was called over to Iraq, the two of them rushed down to city hall to tie the knot before he was deployed. Now that Shawn is back safe and sound, they wanted to have a full ceremony. It was a really nice affair, plus it was cool to see a color guard send off the couple. There's something about marines with swords in their dress uniforms that says badass and elegant at the same time. Plus, free wine and beer at the reception along with decent food got the evening started off right.

After a wardrobe change for Megan and I, we grabbed Zach and headed downtown to meet up with a bunch of our friends at Mr. Toad's. A large group of us gathered outside Toad's on the patio, imbibed a few cocktails, and got lost in conversation. It was great to have a chance to hang out with Nick and Mike. We had a good time catching up and I think that Zach was especially glad to see Nick and Josh again. The trip down memory lane took another detour when Nick detailed his encounter with another old acquaintance the night before, Dave Duckworth. Dave was a hot topic at the Class of '95 reunion a few weeks back and it was just kind of weird that someone had actually run into him. The whole thing was made even more surreal when I went inside to visit the men's room and who did I see? Dave freakin' Duckworth. To be perfectly honest, I was a bit apprehensive at first, since I hadn't seen Dave in a looooooooooong time and wasn't quite sure how things would go. But I gotta tell ya, my reservations were almost immediately put to rest as Dave was warm and seemed genuinely happy to see me. Dave sounds like he's doing well. He and a couple of other guys run a record store in KC that specializes in House music and apparently, they've developed a pretty strong following. We made plans to get together in KC a couple of weeks from now when Megan and I are in the area (Hopefully, I'll be able to get him to start carrying some RJD2 and DJ Shadow.) Anyhow, we closed the place down and made our way home. For most, it would be time to call it a night. But not Zach and me. No sir, we managed to stay up until 5:45 playing college football on Playstation.

Needless to say, we slept in on Sunday. However, after a couple of attempts at home improvement, we started drinking and never stopped. Ben and Max came over and joined us. We stayed up late kibitzing about the hurricane and what could have and should have been done. It may sound lame, but I think that everyone actually had a good time. Zach even commented on how it was nice to have a political discussion, as he doesn't have much of a chance to back home. I was having such a good time that I recounted what I thought was a humorous story about getting trashed, when in actuality it was just a good story to get my wife pissed off. Whoops. Hopefully, I didn't make everyone else as uncomfortable as I was. Sorry about that everyone. Lucky for me, my wife loves me and quickly got over what a dumbass I can be.

They next day we sent Zach off in style with a trip to Valentino's Grand Buffet. In my opinion, it's the best buffet in town. Unfortunately, that's not saying much. We spent the rest of Monday recovering. Luckily, I had the foresight to take Tuesday off as well. I puttered around the house most of the day trying to get some shit done that I had planned on doing over the long weekend.

The rest of the week has been catching up for lost time at work and at home. It's all been a blur as my liver slowly returns to normal size and I've really been trying to get things done at home. I have successfully diminished some of the clutter and the kithen's finally starting to come together. We're still behind schedule as far as I'm concerned, but I'm learning how to stop stressing out and cut loose every now and then. I'd like to say that we should all do this more often, but I just don't think my liver could take it.