Saturday, moving on, the party continued, or resurged, I came downstairs to Joanna and Laura flipping banana pancakes as discussed the night before, listening to Blood on the Tracks, and soon a brunch crowd had assembled, the regulars as mentioned before. We had to give up on pancakes flambŽe, but they tasted fine as they were, with bilingual syrup and company. It was a lazy gray day - i came to campus to connect, but found everything locked except for LPAC, which surreally hosted a ballet academy recital, the wall down to accomodate more parents. So lay on the bed watching Orson Welles' Touch of Evil, which is just fun, and returned downstairs to sate hunger.

A snack became dinner: sweet-potato and black bean burritos, minus the cilantro and chili, and prepared in a blender so ancient that I'm convinced her parts started to smoke, was still as scrumptious as it sounds, topped with a little cheese and salsa. Nobody joined us for that but Mark arrived and, after an interval of hearts, proceeded with us and Rebecca to the third party in a row, this time in Christy's spacious, spare and indie flat in Philly. I did drink at this one - a vodka cranberry and a rum coke - there was little else to do but flip through the record collection, watch Jarvis Cocker's body and face contort silently on the TV sceen, Iggy Pop-style, while a too-loud stereo blasted Blur, the Jackson 5, noisepop and Le Tigre remixes. Fewer Swattypes than expected: Mara, Adrienne, Sproul, and Handler were about the extent of it, while Sconieczny blurred into the crowd of styled-out post-undergraduates. Fun enough, but after a few flips through the Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook Boardgame, and limberly honoring Christy's attempts to make a dance party of things, we took off again.

Sunday (which seemed odd in arriving because the previous day had felt so much like Sunday) was sunnier and more active, Ester and Becca arriving for lite fare and catch-up talk and plunging us out into the world for errandry and visiting. E had another co-mo do at 1:30, so we walked her to PPR and proceeded on to the co-op (itsakadoozie!), the Angelillo-Finney apartment, Ben's (like Gabe, not home). We found Stef and Liz on the second try, watching the greatest gift you can give your family, and as they talked about gossip I went into Ali's room to use her computer. Unlike the brief stop with Rae on Thursday, this trip to the Barn made me strangely gleeful, checking on stuff in the basement and particularly looking through the empty 3S and seeing lots of familiar furniture and stuff, slightly rearranged and put to revitalized use. A copy of The Boy with the Arab Strap was sitting on my stereo, and I'm almost positive it's mine. Another reunion.

In those all those travels we collected potential joiners for dinner and movie, and though it took a while to wait for them all to arrive, we eventually assembled Ester, Mark, and Dan Shargel for a happy six. A trip to Genuardi's to spend too much on ingredients for peanut-sauce rotini, salad, asparagus, and fruit and ice cream and then hilarity assembling (to U2 and the Kinks) and eating the meal. The high point of the lively discussion was the thought of a "Lord of the Woody Allens" (another retelling of the Abe saga somehow led Rebecca to mutter "one Woody Allen to rule them all, one Woody Allen to bind themÉ") which required markedly little extrapolation to set us all in fits of laughter so hard that it caused my latent asthma to poke its head up gently. Frodo is responsible for carrying Woody Allen along, perhaps on a leash, while Woody perpetually turns to the camera and makes neurotic complaints. We decided to forgo the rush to the cinema for Hornby adaptation and instead enjoyed leisurely dessert and Jarmusch discussion.

I'm trying to make these paragraphs shorter, I really am. Today, just to finish up, it is nice an warm, a warmth seemingly emanating from the air itself rather than having been put there by the sun. Library-spottings today include Jocelyn, Corey, Ben, and Bryn. Another psych experiment left me richer and fuller. Also: Rising Songs and Get Lost. Perhaps Kingdom and a video tonight.

it's a little bit stop on the road to Rome