October 4th, 2004

flavored with age

The obligatory weekend update

Much of this weekend, unfortunately, is a blurry haze, thanks to a combination of sickness-related exhaustion, drug intake (both legal and imminently decriminalized thank you very much Mayor Daley), and spending most of the weekend parked behind my eMac writing. However:

- Friday found me at the OK Corral for a couple of games of Cities & Knights of Catan. I think I'm just gonna have to pony up and buy this fucking game already, because it's addictive. Both games (with me, Doug, Andrea and Cole) were extremely competitive; I was out of the second one from the get-go (although I had a hard time pinpointing anywhere I actually went wrong), but I was in the first one until the end. rum_holiday won the first one, continuing her career of total dominance; she's the Josef Stalin of Catan. Doug took the second one. We played until four o'clock in the fucking morning. I may not be roleplaying, but I'm staying up like I used to when I did.

- Saturday was almost all writing. Writing my crappy novel, writing a bite-the-bullet-deadline freelance gig, writing a short story I'll be submitting (along with several others) when I get back from the 215 Festival, writing some notes for various projects, writing a movie review for the hack rag that employs me on occasion, and editing some pieces for the next High Hat (including a pretty snazzy one by LJ's own thevulgartrade). I managed to run to the store and buy some sundries, and I seem to recall watching "Strangers with Candy" season 3 and eating food at some point, but the rest is all a blur. I must have bored my long-suffering roommate thaitea to tears, but she knew when she didn't marry me that I was a total broke-ass grind.

- Sunday was all about sleeping late (way too late, as it happens), cleaning up my grotesque self into a presentable human being who doesn't crawl around in the muck like a filthy worm, doing still more fucking writing, writing mash notes to my wordily wonderful gal ninafarina who I miss a terrible lot, and finally heading over to Lara & Jeff's for a delightful evening. We went up to the Arab bakery on Foster, walked halfway across Chicago, listened to Armenian music, talked the talk, ate some decent Thai food (the delivery guy came back to bring us straws and sweet & sour sauce, which is an unheard-of level of service from delivery guys, who normally think it's worth a ten dollar tip if they can refrain from vomiting on your food), and played a really fun, addictive card game called Bezique which I wanna play again. I did pretty well given that it was my first time playing, but theletterr took the game by snagging a Double Bezique in the third set. Then I went home and fell over for ten hours THE END TIP YOUR SERVER GOD BLESS.
flavored with age

PHILA, I'M IN YOUR AREA!

Okay, Philadelphia and upper-east-coast types, it's gut check time. THIS WEEKEND, from Friday the 8th to Monday the 11th, I'll be in the City of Incestuous Homosexual Love to read at the 215 Festival. Time for you punks to show me your love! I'll be reading on Saturday the 9th at Tritone, sometime between 3 and 6, as part of the Small Press Showcase, and there's lots of other amazing stuff going on. You can get a schedule here, and a list of the performers including a thugged-up mugshot of my grotty phiz here.

I want to see as many of you fuckers in the audience as possible. And I want you to take me around Phila the rest of the time -- I'm only reading for 10 fuckin' minutes, and I demand fun for the remaining 4,310 minutes I'm going to be there. If you want to hang, hit me up with an e-mail at leonard at ludic kid dot com and shout out you're gonna be there, and I'll get you my cell number and schedule. Let's fucking bust it up with nerdy writer types, son!