Happy Thanksgiving, Gees. I hope you all had a lovely time with your family, friends, posse, running crew, chain gang, whatever your circle is made up of. I went home to Chicago last week and had a great time. It was nice to see my family a bunch, play with Auggie and I got to see some friends.I went downtown and hung out with Melissa and saw Little Miss Sunshine (which was far darker than I expected, and absolutely hilarious).  I only know Melissa a little from my adventures at Notre Dame, but she was really fun to hang out with and a really smart girl.  We sat in a little hole-in-the-wall burger place and talked about work and life until it closed.  Then I slept at Colin’s phat apartment (can you believe that he saved one of the bottles of Orange Cream soda that I bought last time I was at his place? what a guy), and hung out with an ex-girlfriend of mine, Katie. She and I hadn’t seen each other for, I’m gonna say… 30 or so years. We emailed back and forth on facebook for about 2 weeks, writing each other a novel each day, catching each other up on our lives. It was fun and a nice distraction on my lunch break at work, etc. It was really interesting to hang out with her after not seeing her for so many years. She has really grown up and changed for the better. Back in the day (which was a Wednesday, by the way) she was kind of shy and a little repressed (very conservative, religious parents), but she has grown into an adorable badass.

I also got to hang with Josh, who is currently living with his cousin Jason in a giant 4-bedroom house in Des Plaines, and none of those bedrooms are occupied. I kid you not. The two of them have their blankets and pillows on the living room couches and sleep there after they play video games at night. In a 4 bedroom house, they share one bathroom and 2 couches.

As we were driving to my house from his, he looked into a soccer field and goes, “Wow, that’s a lot of penguins.” then looks at me and realizes what he said and says “Penguins…. are not in Illinois.” I love Josh.

By the way, is anyone else a fan of the movie Blast from the Past? Brendan Frasier (it’s Fray-zer, not Fray-shher, did you know that?) plays the naive ignorant role very well, and come on….. Christopher Walken. The man cannot be stopped. He is scheduled to play Ozzy Osbourne in an upcoming movie about Motley Crue! It’s better than if baby Jesus comes to Earth. Walken and Ozzy, together at last!

In other news, I got a raise at work! I’m now up to $18/hour, and I’m going to be doing some freelance work at the same pay rate for my friend Conor’s roommate Kelsie’s company that teaches people the French language and culture. I went over there today on my lunch break to meet everyone, and it’s exactly what you think. The head guy is named Jean Francois and has a THICK accent. Hilarious.

Also, I am more or less moved into my new apartment in Capitol Hill, which I have named The Launchpad (as is demonstrated by the name of my wireless network that lives within my apartment). I still have some stuff in boxes and bags from moving, and I need to do some cleaning at my old house, but I got my parents’ old couches from Chicago, some sweet tables off Craigslist, and I just ordered a 37″ HD LCD for $700! What a steal.

Jake is back in town! After working and living on a boat in the Long Island Sound for five months, he has made his glorious return to Denver. He is homeless and jobless, and is therefore crashing on my (extremely comfy) couch. It’s awesome having him back in town – he and Paul and I have been hanging out a lot, going to Dazzle for live jazz, watching a near-unhealthy level of Entourage, and being boyishly handsome in general. We’re pretty good at that.

I have a pretty awesome story about my first night in my new apartment, which I’ll write out soon. My post is already way too long.