Now I don't want to mislead you, the pastoral scene I just described does not mean my fall break was the same. Mostly I wasted the break hanging out way too late and then trying to recover the next day. For instance, Saturday night Jake & I went from bar to party to another party to Highway Diner finally and I got home at 5:30 in the morning.
We got this idea that we would take my keyboard and set it up in the basement of the new bohemian house party place. It turned out well, it was cozy & dark and people lounged around while a strobe light kept time, eerie in fact, I played Radiohead and people dug that and talked. Then Jake took over and played for a while. I talked to some dude about my number 7 nightmare and he handed over this little book in which he had scribbled arrangements of circles nested in regular polygons, talking importantly and ridiculously about how the number 7 was actually special because only 7 circles came together in that particular way, harmony and light. Blah blah.
Jake wound down and people were leaving, and then this guy says he can play piano too, real modestly. Jake later told me he knew exactly what was coming next. So the guy sits down and turns out to be a professional lounge lizard, literally, played blues and jazz at restaurants, and was incredibly good. I was afraid my keyboard would never let me touch her again. Finally Jake, insanely jealous, asked for a lesson from the dude.
We packed up though, Jake & I & a frisbee friend we picked up at an earlier party, and headed to Highway Diner, where I ordered french toast and got it special-made by the large personality of a chick behind the counter. Along with Duffy's and its famous homeless guy Elvis act this is one of the truly authentic places in Lincoln, one of the places I would take a Lincoln visitor to.
Anyway Sunday night Drew, Jaimster, Jake & I hit the casinos in Omaha. Except for Jaimster (the DealSeeker) we all lost money. Jake was going to lose the most on the night since within a half hour of getting there he had lost $70 on roulette, betting on black with a friend of his. But at the very end he grew his remaining $10 to $20 through blackjack, then put it all down on roulette as we were going out despite our attempts to restrain him. Well he won on black this time and we were all laughing at his bravado.
On the way back he had us in stitches with his overexcited stories of freshman year. Back at the apartment Jake & I ended up talking and yakkety-yakking until 6 in the morning about relationships, abortion, morals, and then when we woke up about politics, war, and America until about 3 in the afternoon.
Posted by Alan at October 22, 2003 11:49 PM