Monday, May 8th - Wednesday, May 10th: Marcos visit!
Marcos came over late monday night. It was awesome, unfortunately since both Geoff and I had to work, and we were too pegged with stuff coming up (Geoff has a writers camp in a few months, I have a house closing at the end of the week) so we couldn't take any days off. So Marcos got to sit bored in the apartment and only get to hang out with us for 4 or 5 hours. But, one of the supremely cool things that Marcos did was find Cheng (the coolest girl we keep forgetting to invite over despite her living so close) and then took us to dinner at a cozy mediterranian cafe right next to the outwrite bookstore. I got some delicious falafel and a tomato mozarella pesto panini (I asked for no peppers) that was absolutely scrumptious. Marcos got a lamb-burger, and Geoff got spaghetti. I forget what Cheng got.
The other cool thing Marcos did was re-introduce us all the cool clips that he found over the internet in his travels. There was this one clip on You-Tube labeled Abba vs Joan Crawford that was hilarious. He also managed to find a VH-1 marathon of Surreal Life... all I can say is Alexis Arquette is delicious. I felt bad that we didn't get Telemundo, as he wanted to show us lots of novella moments but couldn't. Otherwise, we had lunches with Marcos and it was awesome. Marcos left Wednesday night after I crashed, and I was unfortunately busy with a dinner party when he called Friday to see if we were able to do something, but I definitely had a wonderful time and was happy he came.
Friday, May 12: GA Tech Aero Dinner
So, Friday I just gave Mark a call to see what he was up to. I think he invited me down to dinner and I countered with "Why don't you come up here for dinner?"... so he did, and he brought along Cayce and Eric K. (who were also invited) and I stuffed them full of lasagna, brown-n-serve yeast rolls, and Ghetto Cake. Cayce, Mark, and Eric K. are all Ga Tech Aero grads, thus it was perfect that our friend Jason, a Ga Tech Aero Grad I met through Geoff, came over too. Mark and his pals brought booze and appropriately killed it. I was asking for some Bacardi Silver or Bacardi O3 (read: wussy malt beverage, IE: Alcaholic Crush/sprite) and they got Bacardi O (read: very strong rum with a lot of orange extract: a tincture of orange tic tacs... I tried mixing some with Caffiene Free Diet Coke, and it ended up tasting like fizzy robitussin
.) Everyone loved the food, and everyone chatted and was wonderful until I conked out about 11:00 because I had to get up at 5:30 AM the next day for...
Saturday, May 13th: Eric Graduation!
I got up all groggy, filled with yesterdays lasagna and yeast rolls, and finished showering and dressing about the same time Eric arrived to whisk me off to University of Georgia. On the way there, Eric's brother Barry ended up behind us on 316. Thus, we all arrived and parked, Barry gave me a Snickers bar since I forgot breakfast, and then we hung out with one of his friends for a bit. Then as Eric went to go sit in the bleachers with all the other berobed ones, I met Eric's Aunt Donna, Eric's Grandparents, and sat with the rest of Eric's family. I also brought my Poppy Z. Brite book and read through some of the more boring bits of the ceremony.
Otherwise, the commencement speaker was a UGA alum who had since become the editor-in-cheif of all of the time magazines. He was wonderful, thoughtful, and down to earth. He brought up the fact that he graduated "thank the laude", and that when he went to a game in the 70's there were no Black people on the bulldogs. My how much has changed, and my how much will change by the time I turn 50. I would rate it as an excellent speech from an excellent journalist. He also reminded me that anyone who tries to discount the media based on occasional slight biases should really be the ones taken under scrutiny. Hence my anti-reactionary sentiments in a lot of my prior posts.
The graduation wrapped up, we took some pictures, and we headed back to Atlanta. Eric stopped by the apartment with me for some lunch and snuggles, and then we made it back over to his parents house in Kennesaw, regrouped with his family and we all went to a restaurant called Aspen (where they had twigs serving as menu-holders, how quaint). I had a wonderful dinner there. Eric's family reminded me a lot of my family: full of love, stories, love, happiness, and love. I got shrimp and alaskan crab legs. Eric got a crab cake, I think Eric's mom had the shrimp and scallop while Eric's dad and Donna (who I was glad to sit next to) had a steak filet. One weird thing aspen did was have "matchbook notes" they were these little matchbook style packets that had small sheafs of paper that were easy to take out rather than matches. I took out some pens from my pocket protector and kept writing "a small note" on them and passing to people.
Sunday, May 14th: Car Shopping and Merkur Goodness
I thought I would be missing out on shopping for a Mazda MX-5 with Mark on Saturday, but he didn't go. So we tried again on sunday only to find that all of the dealerships were closed. Alas. I called my mom on the way there, however... and since Cayce, me and Mark were together, when Jeff showed up we all got in the Explorer to pick up some really light tires from a thunderbird in exchange for the turbo-coupe intercooler that had since become useless once we got a much larger turbo. I also went ahead and ordered a MegaSquirt since we were all there and we settled on next actions to be had with the car. I was hoping to visit some this week, but I have been busy as a bee.
Monday, May 15th Dinner with Cayce, Mark, Eric K. and Eric
After some work and house stuff, grocery shopping, and showing Geoff how to make Pizza Bagels... I showed up late to a Spaghetti Dinner with Cayce, Mark, Eric K. and my Eric. it was really good sauce, but I caused some concern on account of the fact that I don't like angel hair pasta. Otherwise, there was much chatting and after I got back to the apartment I got to snuggle Eric more that night *squee*. Which brings me to my next note... leaving early with Eric still in the bed, is really hard...
Wednesday, May 17th Crawfish Boil with Eric's Mom & Dad
I was invited to a Crawfish Boil at an Acworth New-Orleans restaurant called "Henry's". I arrived after braving 1.5 hours of back-roads goodness to get to Eric's Parent's house after work... got into the Buick of goodness glad to be out of my car with Eric, his mom, and his dad, and drove to a place I had been before with M1 Global that had really good poboys. I was worried because I had never had crawfish before, but apparently they were just like shrimpish lobster. You take off the tails, peel them open, and eat. If the spice is too much, then you dip them in butter. Since there is lots of ripping and cracking of exoskeleton, I consider it a catabolic meal... and it is good. We ended with the famous and delicious Bread Pudding. I went back home and went to bed with the knowledge that the next morning I would be stuffing my car full of TV's and DDR crap for the sake of Taste of Alpharetta's DDR booth fun-zone which I am helping run today.
