Saturday night, Gina and I went to a bar way up north and west...still in the city though...to meet some of her friends for a four-person-birthday party. Four people's birthdays are within a few days or something, so they all celebrated together...they got an upstairs room at this bar and charged $20 all you can drink, whatever you want, basically. The people I had not yet met. But just about every one of them was cool to me. They all threatened to beat my ass if I treated her badly...and a couple of them were, like, serious, it seemed. It's like, wait a second, you don't even know me...but whatever, it was cool.

They had a karaoke machine up there, which ended up sucking...but it allowed me to have some fun. Gina and I sang "Love Shack" except that it was the edited short version, which I'm sure you've all heard at one time or another. So when it got to the shortened part, I was off, and then I just started goofing off. It got to "TIN ROOF! Rusted!" which Gina sang. And I just ended the song on a diatribe about, "Wait, why is it a tin roof? Why does our shack have a tin roof. You know, they're doing fine union work with wood beams and tar and whatnot. We could probably get the roof replaced. And also, why are we in a shack? Why can't we be in a nicer place. I mean, I don't need a mansion..." Gina couldn't stop laughing...

Then we went up to sing "Summer Nights" from Grease...and that was retarded as well. Because for the "Tell me more, tell me more..." part, it just said "Instrumental Break" and we were like, "What?!" So I just started singing that line to the music...again, it threw Gina off and she was cracking up.

At any rate, a good time was had...

Today (Sunday--technically yesterday at this point) was my first Sunday off in months. Woohoo! I spent the day at church and with Gina's family the rest of the day, b/c they all got together for her birthday which was Wednesday. We went to an Italian restaurant called Gianotti's out in Oak Brook. Filled myself up really good on some fish...tilapia, I think it's called...and have plenty left over. Then we went back to her parents' place and had cake, coffee and sat around and relaxed and chatted it up. Again, good times...I got back a few hours ago and attempted to clean my room a bit...got a little done. Still more to do...got sidetracked by reminiscing stuff from an old shoebox with letters and cards and whatnot from some of you and relatives and other penpals and such. Didn't really READ the letters or anything...but enjoyed seeing them in there and remembering who this was and who that was...things like that.

Now, I'm headed for my first working Monday in several months. It shouldn't be too bad, I guess. but we'll see. Now, I'm tired...goodnight for now, folks. :)