Le Weekend

For once having Friday off instead of Sunday was a great thing: this past Friday was a perfectly lovely day, with blue skies, a light breeze, and temps into the '70s (whereas today is gray and chill). I ran 6 miles, I took a long bath, I looked at art books, I read a lot, I cleaned the bathroom. Then Friday night we went to Federal Hill with K'wali and Klezma and had an excellent Thai meal before a rousing game of Boggle (yes, we are old. Parcheezi soon). I teased K'wali that he should write on his blog more often than once. He started it two months ago, after all. We returned home from their place to find our garage blocked and the entire student body of Towson U. crammed into our neighbor's back yard. Turns out the driver who parked illegally in the alley was a student of mine three years ago. "You my teacher!" he said, exhibiting that command of grammar so characteristic of those who passed my ENGL102 class. Although for once I didn't call the cops when the party got out of control at 2:30am, another neighbor did. Six rather militant officers showed and shut the shit down. One beefy crewcutted pig had his big flashlight on one of the renters next door when I looked out the window at 2:50am: "You've got underage drinkers with open containers roaming the neighborhood, you've got one lane of York Road blocked, you have three cars illegally parked in the alley, and you're way too loud in a residential neighborhood. You will not waste my time any more. If you have one more party I will arrest all the residents here. Do you understand me?" The cops actually went inside and cleared the place--the last time I called the responding officer said "keep it down," let the party continue, and told me "You should move."

Saturday I woke with a hard fiery burn in the back of my throat, and coughed up something the color and consistency of magma. A wretched virus has been making the rounds at Cook Liberry, laying low several Aunties and student employees for long periods. I thought "just what I fucking need" and stayed on the couch or in bed much of the day, eating vitamins, slugging Airborne tablets, sipping herbal teas etc. Cha and I took a walk around 3 and I felt weak and rough, so we unfortunately missed Poptart's birthday shindig at Earthdragon and Damnyelli's joint. I certainly could have made it, but didn't want to spread the TU plague into an environment with an infant (and likely other toddler visitors). So--happy birthday Poptart, we owe you a six pack! We took a two-hour nap and I felt ok enough to hit the Lyric. Didn't want to waste those $30 tickets, after all. I'm sure I gave everyone on the Grand Tier Level my germs, but I don't know them, so tough. Excepting of course Virginia Monologues and The Hulk and co, that is.