Trippin’

And so I’m back… from outer space.

First off, the North Carolina weather sucked, fuck you very much.  Its because I talked smack about going where it was in the 70’s– because it wasn’t.  It was actually warmer in Minneapolis yesterday than it was in Durham.

Oh, and it rained the entire time in North Carolina, too.  Did I mention they’ve been in a severe drought all winter?

AND now I’m back in Minneapolis just in time for Durham to be back in the 70’s, and to experience 3 – 8 inches of snow here today.

Other than that, I had a great time.  It was good to see everyone and to visit my old haunts.  It was also kind of odd– it felt like I had never left and had also been gone years.

FRIDAY:

I arrived and Frank picked me up.  I got to see Frank’s new house (all about the game room later!).  Went out to “Wine Bar” for drinks, which was the scene of a 5 minute date I once had.  Then we went to “Cosmic Cantina” for an after bar quesadilla.  It was there that I noticed that all the UNC college kids are tragically unhip.

In addition to the girls all wearing hippie sundresses (with leggings!  AND ballet flats!!) the guys were a mish-mash of bad fashion ideas.  Case in point, the dude in the umbros and blazer.

I have more pictures from this evening, but I just couldn’t bring myself to post them.  Including that mammoth girl in the purple dress making out with her boyfriend in line at Cosmic.  Ew.

SATURDAY:

I made a pilgrimage to my old house to visit Adam and Kindra.  They were gracious enough to unbolt the door and invite me in!  Both of them are SUPER NICE–and I’m only not just saying that because they read this blog, either.

Above is a picture of A and K in my old kitchen.  Oddly enough they have the microwave in the EXACT same location.  We snacked on bread, cheese and olive oil and balsamic vinagrette.  We drank beer and chatted about all sorts of things including cellular microbiology (the details of which I will not bore you with).

Oh, and there was one VERY interesting story about this girl who is recently preggers– but in a MOST unusual fashion.  I’ll have to devote a separate blog post to THAT fierce hot tranny mess story.

Adam was also gracious enough to copy like 8 gig of music from his iTunes library onto discs for me, effectively doubling my electronic library.  Oh, and Adam– the percussion group I was trying to remember is called the “Diga Rhythm Band”.

OH- and Adam used to be in this electronica band!  I got to hear (and now own) recordings of his music– very cool.  Its hard to explain their “sound” but take Philip Glass (and a dash of Brian Eno) but add in electronic samples and drum beats, and then liberally sprinkle in some whimsy.

OH OH!  I got to beat on Adam’s skins too.  (His drumset, you pervs!) 

LATER SATURDAY:

Frank’s birthday party.  I’ve mentioned Frank before– as part of my ‘tragic home decorating’ series.  Frank believes strongly in the principle of “clutter”.  The more shit you have packed into a space, the better it is.

Frank and I are decidely opposite in this regard.

This is a picture of Frank (in middle) with his boy-toy Larry (a cop!) and Frank’s bushy haired teenage son, Taft.  I tried counselling Taft on his hair choice, but to no avail.

Frank had a birthday party on Saturday night.  Many people came.  We watched basketball on his huge, flatpanel TV, and also played games– for you see, Frank has a game room.  The pictures of which appear below:

You can get a general idea about his TGI FRIDAYS approach to decoration from these pics.  I am insanely jealous of the Flash Gordon pinball machine!  And yeah, he has air hockey, foosball, pool, Ms. Pac-man, etc all in this room.  And a creepy talking/singing/moving Elvis thingy that freaked me out some.

AND he has Wii.  Which I played, even though I am decidedly anti-video games.  And which I loved immensely. 

Wii is a blast!  I loved the bowling and the tennis.  AND American Idol Karaoke!!!!

Its karaoke, but in front of the AM Idol judges.  You sing into a microphone that picks up your pitch.  On the screen, in addition to the lyrics, you also see the relative pitch that you have to match. 

I won ALL the judges over with my performance of “Black Hole Sun”.  But then I pushed my luck with “Bohemian Rhapsody” and only got decent comments.

Yeah, I’m hooked.

SUNDAY:

Brunch at Nosh.  Hung out with William and Austin and Nerissa.  W & A were at the party on Saturday.  And I saw William on Friday (where I got to see and read the first bit of his soon to be published novel “Being Written”)!!!

Austin in back, William in front.

This is Nerissa– whom I love.  We kick ass at “Scene It”!

And that’s about it for my “whirlwind” trip.  And yeah, the term is ‘whirlwind’ not WORLD wind, like the guy sitting next to me on the plane kept saying.  Uggh.

There is more, of course, but this post is already far too long.