Sunday, January 23

Well, sleeping in wasn’t really in the cards this morning. Stefy and I had to get up at 9 so we would have plenty of time to get around and make the drive to Dimondale so we could babysit Morgan and Kyra. We did have enough time to enjoy a really nice breakfast with Stef’s parents though, which gave us time to hammer out the dates for our trip to Orlando in March. Stef and I hit the road shortly after 11, and we needed the full two-hour window to make it through traffic to get to my dad’s with time to spare. Sherry was already getting ready to leave once we got there, but I had her fetch some photo albums for us to leaf through while she was gone. We managed to keep the girls occupied and entertained while we looked at pictures by popping in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”. I snuck out up to JB’s to pick up a pizza in the middle of the movie because Stefy and I were pretty hungry by the middle of the afternoon. The rest of our time with the girls was spent goofing around in the living room and watching old episodes of Pee Wee’s Playhouse (my favorite). Dad got back from his show at the Boar’s head shortly after 5, so Stefanie and I took off pretty much right away. We made a stop by PF Chang’s for our weekly fix of the great wall of chocolate on the way home—I swear they lace that stuff with heroin. Anyway, after our little snack we came back to the apartment so both of us could work on some homework for Monday. We wrapped up with our studying at around 9, and Stefy decided she wanted to watch “Se7en” on DVD, so I popped that in on my mom’s computer in my room. I absolutely love that movie, and while I think Stefy enjoyed it too, I think she was a little freaked out by it. Ernest Hemingway once wrote, "The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part.

Saturday, January 22

May I say…I love the bed in the guest room at the Spiros. It is so choice. I managed to drag myself out of it at 10 this morning, but I could’ve spent the day in there if I’d let myself. It was a pretty lazy day today. I think we got enough snow to last us through the rest of the winter last night, so it wasn’t exactly feasible to go out and see “Million Dollar Baby” like we’d planned. So instead we decided to stay in and watch TV and help Stef’s mom make some chicken chili. Sounds fun, doesn’t it? Actually…it was. I mean, there were free homemade cookies involved, so how can you go wrong? Well, despite the weather, we HAD to go out tonight since we had tickets to see “RENT”, so we left with plenty of lead-time to make it all the way downtown and still have time to eat dinner. Luckily Stef’s mom did the driving in her big-ass SUV, so we didn’t die or anything, but she was driving soooooo slow. I bet it took an hour and fifteen minutes to get to downtown Detroit. We eventually made it to the restaurant that we were meeting Stef’s sister-in-law at for dinner, but by the time we were seated we were left with just over an hour to eat our meal. The food was fabulous, but we were a little rushed to finish up what we ordered (it was this tappas-style restaurant with lots of different foods) so we could make it to the Masonic Temple in time for the show. It was about ten to eight when we pulled up to the theater, so Stefy and I jumped out so at least two of us wouldn’t be late for the show. Of course, Stef’s mom and sister-in-law Marina ended up missing the first two songs of the show, so we felt kinda bad about that, but at least we didn’t miss anything. The play was very well done, and I certainly enjoyed myself, but certainly not as much as the ladies did, I think. Anyway, after the show we had to drive Marina back to her house in Grosse Point, and since the roads hadn’t improved at all at that point, it took about an hour and a half or two hours to get back to Stef’s house. We were totally beat by then. Who knew that dinner and a show could be so tiring?

Friday, January 21

What. A. Busy. Day. Fridays are always hectic at the office, but today absolutely flew by. I finally started working on designing our new brochure/literature, and that helped eat up most of my time. This month’s invoices needed to get in the mail today too though, and that killed most of the afternoon. I finally headed out of there at around 4:30 and came straight back to the pad, because Stefy was already there killing some time before our trip to Bloomfield tonight. My girl welcomed me with five lovely flowers (for our five-month anniversary today), a brand-new mix-CD, and a huge “Harold and Kumar” movie poster on my wall. After giving Stefy the appropriate thank-you for my gifts, I took some time to gather my clothes and travel stuff for the weekend, and we hit the road at around 5:30. Stef’s house was empty when we arrived, and since it was already after 7 by that time, we headed out to dinner at the Pita Café right away. Our meal was perfect and delicious (like usual), and we went out for some Coldstone ice cream after dinner. It was well after 9 by the time we got back to Stef’s house, and we decided to relax in the family room with “The Graduate” on DVD, which Stefy had never seen before. We were both pretty pooped by the time the movie was over, so that was it for tonight. I’m thinking that a late morning of sleeping will be in order tomorrow.

Thursday, January 20

Film Day. History was good this morning. We talked more about the movie “It” which we watched on Tuesday, and our discussion was actually pretty interesting. I’m starting to realize how much easier this class is compared with any of my film classes in the past. We have this huge textbook with a ton of readings, but the prof covers everything so thoroughly in class, I feel like I can get by with just skimming the stuff, so I guess that’s a load off. Dad picked me up for our requisite weekly lunch at noon, and we headed up to Cosí to eat. Of course Dad knew half of the people in the place, so he had to stop and chitchat with everyone while we were there. Actually one exchange turned out to be pretty funny though. He recognized the mayor and city manager of East Lansing sitting and talking, so he decided to go over and say hello. Right off the cuff, after my dad introduced me as his son, the city manager said that he was pretty sure he’d just met my “future father-in-law” at a function at Beaumont hospital last week. It turns out that he somehow keeps similar company with Stef’s dad, Tim, who was talking about my dad’s Holiday party with him at this thing at Beaumont. I guess it’s not that big of a shock that our dads know the same people, but it was just funny the way he referred to Tim. How prophetic. Anyway, I came back to the apartment after our lunch to kill some time, and then turned right back around to head to Film Theory at 3 p.m. Our professor was going nuts talking about our screening of “Play Time” from Tuesday because it’s one of her all-time favorites, so our class time actually flew by. I came straight back to the pad after class to unwind, and spent the evening with the Sopranos. Stefy came over to hang out for a while later at night after she was done with her O.C. partay, and it was nice to see her. So yeah. That was Thursday.

Wednesday, January 19

Okay, I’ve been typing these events for far too long now, so I’ll keep today’s as short as possible. I woke up, blazed thru that 1 page paper for English, and ran out of here to make it to work on time for our staff meeting. The meeting itself dragged on much longer than I think any of us were expecting, but it was actually really productive, and I got a couple of cool assignments in the process, so it wasn’t too bad. Plus, we got a really great lasagna lunch from the Pizza House, so there’s really nothing to complain about. I bugged out of the office shortly after 2 to head back to campus for my English class this afternoon. I think I’ve decided that this is my new least-favorite class of the semester, and possibly the whole year. We blabbed for two hours—two SOLID hours—about Beowulf, and it was just more of the same meaningless chatter we had in there a week ago that had me crawling the walls. We were set free a whole 5 minutes early from class, and they were the best five minutes I’ve been spared in my whole life. Anyway, I met up with Stefy right outside of class, and I gave her a ride back to the apartment so she could grab her car and head out for the night (it’s a long story, but let’s just say her evening involved Donnie Osmond). I ate a quick dinner, and then headed out to Meijer for some long-overdue grocery shopping. Once I was fully stocked I came back to the pad, unpacked, and dove into some pretty heavy Film Theory reading, which actually went by really fast. The rest of my night was pretty uneventful—just writing events.

Tuesday, January 18

Well, it was back to the grindstone today. I started the school week off with Film History this morning, and our screening for the day was another silent film called “It”. The movie was actually really good, and I managed to stay awake the entire time (a rarity). There was enough time in between my two film classes to squeeze in a few couple at the office this afternoon, but it ended up being my third workday in a row with nobody else around. Still, it was nice to take the time to get caught up on some things and relax a little bit before heading back to campus for my afternoon Film Theory class. Our screening in there today was this French film—this one was in color and had audible dialogue—called “Play Time”, which my professor described as one of her top-five favorites of all-time. Ordinarily I think I might’ve enjoyed such a film, but since it was my second movie of the day, and since the seats in our classroom are God-awfully uncomfortable, I was in a bit of a sour mood throughout the whole thing. Plus, it didn’t really help that there was no discernable plot to follow for the entire two-hour screening. Anyway, Mr. Sharp was kind enough to swing by Bessy to pick me up from class once we were set free at 5:50, and he gave me a ride up to the ramp where my car was parked so we could go straight to Holmes to pick up Stefy for the basketball game tonight. Nate finally got a full-fledged faculty parking permit (well…sorta), so we were able to park relatively close to Breslin, which made the unbearably cold walk a little more manageable. The game was a lot of fun, and was definitely the closest one we’ve been to all year, but Purdue had no business making it as tight as it was. Oh well…at least we won. It was pushing 10 by the time we made our way back to the apartment, and by then I was really in no mood to start working on my 1-page reading response paper for my English 310 class that’s due tomorrow. So, I decided to throw in the towel and head to bed early so I could get up early tomorrow, skipping Sociology so I could write it before work. Halfway into the second week of the semester isn’t too early to start skipping classes, is it?

Monday, January 17

And now, let us bow our heads and say a prayer thanking the Lord for Dr. Martin Luther King…especially the part about getting his birthday off. It was definitely nice to skip class today, and Stefy and I soaked it up by being as lazy as humanly possible. We started things off by eating leftover pizza for breakfast/lunch, and watching “In & Out” on DVD. Then we took a mid-afternoon nape. Then we watched an episode of Sopranos. Finally at 3:30 we ordered lunch/dinner from Jimmy John’s, and then actually left the apartment for the first time all day. We made our way up to Eastwood for at 4:45 showing of “In Good Company” with Topher Grace and Dennis Quaid. Stefy was really excited to see it, and I’ll admit to some mild interest since it was done by the same guy who did “About a Boy”. I think we both walked out of the theater a little disappointed. So, to cheer ourselves up, we headed over to P.F. Chang’s to pick up some chicken lettuce wraps and a great wall of chocolate cake to go. It’s a rough life, let me tell ya. Anyway, I finally took Stefy back to the dorm so she could get unpacked and settle in for the week after stopping by the apartment for a bit to eat our snack. I spent the rest of the night doing some reading for my film classes and getting things around for the rest of the week…nothing too strenuous. So yeah, that’s how I spent MLK Day. Keep the dream alive!