"You and your empty promises of holding hands . . ."

Why yes, Wikipedia does help me sleep better at night. Last night, for example, I finally looked up the meaning of the following quote from Ocean's Eleven:

"Off the top of my head, I'd say you're looking at a Boesky, a Jim Brown, a Miss Daisy, two Jethros and a Leon Spinks, not to mention the biggest Ella Fitzgerald ever."

As a fan of jazz, that Ella reference has been making me ponder for years, and I'm pretty sure I could stand to use some of that brainpower to actually get myself through college.

Speaking of which, this past weekend made me remember why I don't want to leave my current college in Texas, despite the fact that the teachers there drive me batty. Getting to see my lovely boys again was a total blasty-blast, and I spent every day proudly strutting about with some of my favorite people on the planet.

Boy's wedding was absolutely lovely, even if he did guilt-trip me into dancing at the reception for all of ten seconds. I even walked away with a tea bag that says, "One Powdered Kiss, Just Add Water. Colin and Anna's love potion 2004." Apparently, it's the type of tea they were drinking when they shared their first kiss, which is exactly the cheesy awesomeness that makes them such an adorable and lovable couple. I'm personally looking forward to testing this magical drink potion when I bump into Elijah Wood one day.

Most of what made this weekend fun for me was the never-ending stream of inside jokes being generated. Danielpants and Cooley and Zummo and I can officially say that we survived the end of the world, seeing that we were all in the car Friday night when the odometer hit 111,111 miles, the clock switched to 11:11, and the CD flipped to track 11. The only reason the Earth didn't explode right then was because it was dying to hear our new album, No More Cheese Curds. That's right. We formed a band in Wisconsin, called Ukuleles and Doobs. (We really don't want any more cheese curds, either, regardless of how "tasty and delicious" they are in the minds of Danielpants and Boy.) The title to this entry is one of my quotes that we chose to use as a line in one of our songs.

Chicago, of course, was kind enough to hold off on the rain on Saturday so that we could enjoy some outdoor sight-seeing before sending Zummo back to Virginia. The rest of us hit up the Field Museum after lunch, which is about the exact moment that I remembered that ten miles of walking is not fun in discount flip-flops. Nevertheless, much fun was had, many pictures were taken, and Giordano's pizza and Mission: Impossible III greeted us upon our return.

Sunday was rather laid-back in comparison to the rest of the weekend — church, lunch, Orange County, Dumb and Dumber, and a trip down to Midway to drop of Cooley and Danielpants. Pimp was the only one left at that point, so he joined my father and brother and I for some MST3K before heading out early Monday morning.

All of them are now in their respective homes, far away from here, and every cloud in the sky has been crying ever since. There are plenty of cool people in Chicago, it's true, but that doesn't keep me from feeling a void now that my Clubber boys have gone.

After all, who else will squoosh their heads up next to mine to take stupid pictures in Millennium Park with me, knowing full well that we run the risk of blinding ourselves for the sake of a photograph?

It's hard to find true friends like that these days.