When The Smoke Clears

Holiday weekends are good. They are good for many reasons. Paid holidays from work are always a plus, of course. Visitors always put a twinkle in my eye, too. This holiday weekend was the best I've had in a while, I think. It started off a little rocky, granted, with an interesting night Friday night. (Now, Becca, I love you, and this is no way means that I didn't have a good time Friday night. It just wasn't necessarily what I had expected.) I haven't hung out with anyone under the age of 22 in a long time, save my little brother with whom I live (he's 20). I used to have a lot of 18, 19, & 20-year-olds working for me in the Navy, all male. I knew how to handle them, and I didn't hang out with them away from work. There were a lot of 18 and 19-year-olds in Pittsburgh on Friday night at a concert. Even a 17-year-old.... and they were all female. I hate to diss on my gender, but females really piss me off sometimes. I'm sure I wasn't a whole lot better when I was that age, but some of those girls are going to want to shoot themselves 5 or 6 years down the road when they replay some of these occasions. But the concert we went to was a good time. There were some people in the group with whom I hit it off, and we backed away from some of the teeny-boppers and laughed at them a lot.

The rest of the weekend was a blast! Becca came down and visited until this morning. I went out with my friend Danny. I haven't seen him much at all in the last year or so, but he now lives only about 15 minutes away from me, which I'm very excited about! We're going to go see Lyle Lovett and His Large Band later this summer. He and I have always like a lot of the same musicians, so it's nice to have him around again to go to these concerts with.

Sunday was the best, though. What a day! When it was all said and done, Patricia and I had 4 party invites to choose from, on top of going to our favorite bar. We chose a BBQ that ended up being only a few blocks from our apartments. Then we hit the bars after that. My friend Tiffany drove over from Arlington, and a new friend met up with us, so it was a fun girls' night out kind of evening spent with a lot of new friends. We even ended the night hanging out in a bar after hours b/c we've gotten to know one of the owners. The night ended with a mad dash to a cab before a British guy we'd met got into another fight (he did not instigate, btw), followed by shoving all three British guys into a cab to go home, and a run to Exxon for munchies at almost 4am! 7-11 was closed. I didn't think 7-11 ever closed!

We laid around all day yesterday, doing nothing but eating and watching the West Wing marathon on Bravo. Then we ordered pizza and watched the fireworks from my apartment building's roof. Now it's back to the grind stone. But it was a nice, relaxing weekend. Much needed, too. So I got all of the holiday perks - a day off of work, visiting friends, catching up with old friends I haven't seen in a while, making new friends, and eating until I couldn't eat anymore. Oh.... and the beer! :)