Oy vey, what a weekend. If this post makes any sense it'll be nothing short of a miracle. I haven't felt this wiped out since the climactic final episode of Life In the Halls, in which I played the recurring character Loyal, the old friend from high school who used to show up in the dramatic slump between sweeps months. (Spin-off show character pending network negotiations and a better job market.)

Saturday morning began with my dad crashing through my bedroom door and giving me a wake-up call a la the Chicago police on Fred Hampton. Normally, I'm left to my own alternate sleep schedule, but it was the day of marching band state finals. I've been out of high school for a good long time, but I still like to support the band, as I credit it with much of my success after high school. That, and it would be my first time cheering for the band alongside my brother, now an alum. I won't give a complete recap of the day, as I'd like to sleep soon, but here are my personal highlights.

I ate lunch at the cheesecake factory, an establishment that offers food and titular deserts as rich as it's intended customer base. I've eaten there once or twice before, and every time I chuckle that even the men's room has Romanesque arches and dynamic room lighting. It's one luxurious loo. This time, however, I was struck by the odd mural on one wall. It was a sort of deco-ish painting resembling some kind of garden of eden scene. There was a woman with an apple, a tree with a snake, and other little symbols floating around. The odd thing is that the symbols are from five major religions. They're springing from the tree, even though some of them don't have a garden of eden type story. The mural is painted almost whimsically, but the content is confused and muddy. I don't know who painted it, but I know a few people who would be glad to do a better job.

Upon arrival downtown, I decided to kill time before finals at the city mall and the surrounding downtown area. I love walking through cities, surrounded by moving people and huge buildings. I like the anonymity of it, like an ant farm. It was chilly and rainy, though, so wandering outdoors was out of the question. A crazy homeless guy asked me if I had concert tickets, though I was unaware of a concert that night.

The mall was packed to the rafters with band students and parents from all over the state, in addition to the normal weekend crowd of yuppie kids spending their parent's money and mingling with the common folk. For some of them, shopping at the gap is considered slumming. Faced with three and a half hours of time to kill until the band performed, I had to swallow my selectively anti-establishment pride and venture into stores I normally wouldn't look twice at. This meant going beyond my usual regimen of book stores and music stores to explore clothing stores. Most stores yielded nothing but expensive clothing modeled after thrift store clothing, similar to the fashion mistakes of ten years ago. Two stores surprised me, though. One men's clothing store had $80 jeans for $20, and even in my size. As I was trying them on in the dressing room, I overheard a guy telling his boyfriend that Target has some nice clothes sometimes. He was serious, and if Queer Eye for the Straight Guy has taught me anything it's to trust a gay guy with fashion matters I know little of, so maybe I'll check out Target sometime. The second store was Banana Republic. I didn't buy anything, but I was impressed that the employees were friendly even after a full day of refolding shirts left askew by each herd of mouth breathing tourists. The young woman folding sweaters in the aft of the store even smiled genuinely when I asked if there was anything on sale. I don't know how they do it. I'd go nuts and start fires.

The band was excellent. They took second place and the crowd went crazy. I was standing next to my brother in the stands by the field exit when the band exited, screaming and cheering with all the other alumni who traditionally congregate there during state. It's such a great feeling to see the kids so happy, though I only sort of know a few of them. I probably would've dropped out of high school if it weren't for marching band my freshman year. I think that's true of a lot of kids in the band. One of the greatest functions of music programs like this is that it serves to catch the kids who would otherwise fall through the cracks in a school with close to two thousand students.

I got to drive home, as I usually do, but this time it really sucked because I didn't have any music to listen to. Two hours in a car with two sleeping people and one bored backseat driver is almost as boring as an art history class.

Today I woke up with my two dogs playing Dance Dance Revolution on my stomach. They're lucky I think they can do no wrong when I look at them, because I think I had just cause to toss them out the window.

I drove my brother back to college, a three hour trek across mostly flat land with a few hills towards the end. The fall leaves made for nice scenery, though.

edit- this is where my train of thought ran out and I went to bed.