What a World. What a World.

Sometimes I just can't figure out this thing.

It took someone asking me how my weekend was for me to realize that it was bizarre and fleeting. It was intense, and the range of emotive responses that I undertook are surprising considering that they barely crossed my mind at the time. Perhaps I blocked the weekend out because it was too much to deal with.

On Friday, I escaped work and couldn't get a hold of anyone to do anything with so I settled for an evening walk and a $50 meal at a cafe on Lincoln Park. Four-spice duck and a pan-seared white truffle followed by the best tiramisu I've ever had. It was calming, and it was the first time I'd ever spent that much without caring. I just let go. I went from a three star restaurant, clinking forks and knives against plates with lawyers and business executives all made out of ticky-tacky, to watching Knocked Up. It was a decidedly, bi-class night.

Saturday, I had lunch with Emily which was really eye-opening and fun. We ate, walked around the harbor talking and I tried to figure out how to break into really nice looking older buildings. I got home to find my friend Marco wanted to meet up with me, so I walked the mile to the metro so I could talk to Kimsey - always excellent - and four seconds after hanging out with her, some young kids ran past me. Another came on a bike and dropped it right at the metro. Another scrambled onto it and took off. Then the cop cars showed up. I was riding the escalator down when a bike-cop had a teenager on the ground putting him in handcuffs. I have no idea why.

Taking the metro to the capitol, Marco decided he wanted to eat so we walked back to, you guessed it, Eastern Market and rolled into this nice cuban place that did Ropa Vieja nearly perfectly. Marco lived in a commune at Stanford where there was a lot of comfortable nudity and socialism. Our conversation was quite different than the ones I had with Emily or Kimsey. I adapted. We then went from calm dinner, to deciding we'd start a band together, to going to a house warming party that was part suave sophisticates and part fridge-full-of-beer. I ducked out after a few free beers and headed home, finally getting to talk to my friend Dave whom I've been missing lately.

Sunday morning, I had a soccer game that turned really ugly. The ref was frantic, barely knew what she was doing, and it resulted in a lot of bad calls. Two or our players got yellow cards. We had to restrain one guy from talking to her. She exhibited that nervous stature of someone whose authority only derives from authority. The yellow cards in her back pocket and whistle were not enough to prove that she could judge a match, and it showed. I also went from cloud nine when assisting a goal to almost dying of dehydration on the field. We won - and what should have been celebratory was tarnished by anger and bitterness.

I meant to get a lot done yesterday, but instead I crashed when I got home. I woke up disoriented in the evening, decided to get groceries and spent from 10 - 11pm there. There is nothing more satisfying that getting groceries. Having a full kitchen is an incredibly relaxing feeling, and I was able to go to sleep around 2am feeling really relaxed.

This ended at 5:30am when I got a call from my ex-girlfriend informing me that her dog had broken her other front leg, and the vet is suggesting that she be put to sleep.

I'm still trying to process this.

I've been first class, low class, pleasantly surprised, exhausted, liberated, responsible, irresponsible, victorious, angry, calm, and heart broken.

While I was writing this, a coworker asked how my weekend was, and I just said, "Fine."

I'm afraid this was more journal-like than usual, but I feel like there's a lesson in here somewhere, one that doesn't need to be drawn out. One that I don't have to go into much detail beyond what's there in the history books. One that reminds me that I'm never quite going to get the hang of this thing.