It was great to be playing bridge in the Tau library again. It was me, Nick, Anne, and Cat. It was about 1 am. We were conducting bidding in a variety of silly accents and giggling helplessly. There were none of the disturbing actives anywhere in sight. Just four "old school" Taus, slap happy and playing cards late at night. There were many bridge games that weekend. D. even seemed to enjoy playing a few times. But that Friday night game was beautiful. Every single reason why online bridge just doesn't work was right there. We all knew what we were doing, and we were close enough friends that it didn't really matter if we got sidetracked from the game for a few minutes.

The "amble" to Country Kitchen after Formal was cold, but fun. ("I dunno, Ana. Bitchen is a pretty long walk." "Don't think of it as a walk. It's an amble. A nice, leisurely amble. Hey, Rick? Wanna amble with us?" "What?" "She wants to walk to Bitchen." "Not walk. Amble.")

It was amazing, sitting stoned and drunk in Vincent's apartment with Jaime. I told her it didn't matter if the so-called "real" world sucked. It wasn't really real. Right here, this couch, this cat, this pipe. This is real. We decided that remembering right now was real could help us when our other lives started to suck too much. Right now, we are real, and we will be real again someday. I wrote all that out in one of Aimee's notebooks. I wonder what she thought when she found it...

D. and I christened the new car Thursday night. We drove Anne and Jack home, then decided to drive around for a while. We ended up parked over by the start of the South Woods Trail. As we were backing out, we noticed there was a house not 10 feet from us, with lights on. Teehee.

In short, it was an amazing few days off. I got to spend time with both people and attitudes I had forgotten exactly how much I missed.

BUT....

1)Anne has said on previous visits that when there aren't dozens of alums running around, Cowtown really sucks. Of course, I'd be willing to bet that NowhereLand sucks more.

2)Anne and Jack want to get out. They will be at least confused, and possibly upset with us if we tell them that not only are we not moving to NY with them, we're moving back to Cowtown.

2A) Jack is on SSI. Anne isn't currently working but she has a campus job lined up for the summer. I don't see how they could possibly have the $$ to move all the way to NY by the end of summer. Though, they don't seem to be having the epic financial crises that we do.

2B) See yesterday's entry. Everyone says they want out.

One more thing, then I promise to stop brooding about this for today:

D. pointed out that moving to Cowtown isn't really "a step backwards" anymore. (That was his argument, when I first brought up the idea, back when we couldn't find a new apt. in Milwaukee.) Basically, two years ago, we would have been saying, "We couldn't make it in the real world. We have no money, no apartment, and no future. So we came back." Now, according to D., it's more "We just plain don't like the real world. We've proven we can do it. We've had acceptable jobs and credit cards and car loans. We just prefer the wacky college atmosphere. So, we came back."

Hmmm...

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