All the Dried Roses
Now Playing: Duran Duran--"Last Chance on the Stairway"
Quite a week for news: John Roberts sworn in as Chief Justice, a giant squid tussles with a camera crew (sort of, anyway), Ted Nugent offers his services to the National Wildlife Federation, Judith Miller prepares to testify, Don Adams dies (I'll miss him by that much)... it's all too much to contemplate, really.

Tuesday night I volunteered at the Planned Parenthood beertasting at the Arbor Brewing Company, one of the two good brewpubs in town (I'm sorry, but I don't like Grizzly Peak). We--or I--honestly didn't do much, just handed out menus and glasses to new arrivals until myself and several volunteers decided "to hell with it" and began filling our own glasses. I had a good time talking with Meredith, Angela, Jess, her friends Mary and Steve (whose New Year's Eve party I'd attended ten months ago), and Ricardo, who may or may not become my new housemate. It was all good fun, and in a good cause.

My friend Phill's moved back to town--San Francisco didn't work out. During the Don Carlos days, he was pretty much my best friend around here, and I missed him terribly. I ran into him and his boyfriend Lee a couple of weeks ago outside the Parthenon (a Greek restaurant on the corner of Main and Liberty--it would have been nice to "run into" anyone outside the real thing) and had a nice chat. I'll have to get together with him (as well as Elizabeth, come to think of it) and go over to the idiotically-named "Blue Wolverine" sports bar, which will occupy the same haunted location as Don Carlos, Cleveland's Gill and Grill, the Bistro on Main, Bill Sablack's (whose command to anyone to "GO AWAY!" is still on the back door), etc., etc. Some other day I'll have to wax nostalgic about the horrors of "The Don's," but I'm really not in the mood right now. It's a gorgeous day outside and the Casionauts are playing the Michigan Union ballroom tonight. That sucks in only one way--I promised myself I'd watch They Live (1988) before I saw them next, but life's too short. Right now, anyway. I also can't wait till I can rent the Scorsese Dylan documentary, No Direction Home (2005)--what I saw of it Monday night was amazing.