Some Words

Well, the trip to Portland was nice, though not productive in terms of finding housing. It was instructive in learning about the different renting cultures between Portland and Minneapolis. Here, landlords are trying to rent things two months out. Everyone tries to get things covered soon, so that people have time to plan. There, everyone just assumes that they will be able to rent the place out in short order, which seems a safe assumption based on how things went over there. It did mean though that when I talked to people, they almost universally thought I was insane for trying to get this done two months out.

Today K and I started to finish up the wedding plans. It’s in two weeks now, and I’m going to be going to reunion next week, which means that I need to get as much done this week as possible, to avoid angry calls. It also means that I need to finish up a few things that I keep drawing a blank on, gift type things for people who may be going through customs. Tricky.

While in Portland I also got to go to The Teardrop Lounge which was fantastic. It’s the bar I’ve wished I could find here in Minneapolis for years. The men behind the bar knew what they were doing, but more importantly, they cared. I ended up tossing back three excellent drinks, which was harder on my wallet and liver than I had intended to be, but was imminently worth it. There were assorted good restaurants, and much good beer during the rest of the trip, but the highlight was the Teardrop.

It looks like congratulations are in order for the inimitable Mr. Ess. He’s suckered some lady into being the inimitable Mrs. Ess. Good job Josh, and nice ring. I hope your ring shopping experience was less fraught than mine. I also love that friends can tell exactly who the best man is from Josh’s quote.

I went to college reunion this past week. This was more than a little silly, as it was for the class that graduated the year before me. Still, there had been a lot of great people in that class, and I’d lost track of most of them. So I thought I’d stop in and say ‘Hi’ to a lot of people at once. I could only make four hours or so of it, as I had to work, but I drove down to Northfield anyway.

It was a good year for this sort of thing. Minnesota has actually gotten some consistent rain in the past couple of months, so the fields looked lush and green as I drove down. It was the golden hour, and everything seemed somehow more than it had been. I was driving back to some sort of fantasy campus that had never existed. The rosy glasses were held firmly in place by the Tom Waits I was playing.

The weirdness really began when I got there. Some of these people had been strangers to me since they had graduated. There were several that I would have liked to say ‘Hi’ who weren’t there, and a few that gave a general sense of brush off before I could say hello. But there were plenty of people who I had really missed. It’s hard to imagine a more pleasant nostalgia trip. An old friend, Dan Diamond, even got his ass out of NY for a little while. I’ve got to track down a few people now who couldn’t make it. But it has been great motivation to keep up with people better. For those of you I’ve lost touch with, I’m sorry. I make this sort of resolution about once every four days. I’m going to try to write though.

The other nice thing about a five year reunion, is that no one has managed to get so much done that I feel like a failure by comparison. At some point, someone is bound to do something so awesome, that when I hang around them, I inevitably, not matter how gracious they are, feel like I’m wasting my life on some level. It’s really hard to do that in five years. Ummm… grad school… yeah. Time to go I think.