good times

A few weekends ago when I was sick, I laid on the couch, moaned a whole lot, and watched a lot of HGTV. This, in the end, was a mistake. I saw lots of programs with 22 year old couples either looking to buy or to spruce up their first house. I saw "What kind of house does $600,000 buy you" shows? I saw plenty of youngsters much better off than me. I wanted to punch them all in the left eye.

Normally, HGTV has a lot going for it...the general joy of watching a television network full of personality-driven shows but with hosts who have utterly no personality at all. The horrible production values. The sheer number of annoying idiots. All of it is generally hilarious. However, it does entirely too good of a job of stoking my class hatred and making me a bitter man.

It's funny how much good a weekend changes things. And indeed, it was a weekend in a number of ways:

1. Friday night started with sushi with my wonderful spousal unit. Mackerel might just be my new favorite.
   
2. Out to the best bar with good friends makes a Friday night just go right.
   
3. Discovering a very good local band also really helps.
   
4. Later that night, a friend asked if I wanted to get together and play some music. In an hour, another friend was recruited. I wasn't expecting to get into a band. However, it is awesome.
   
5. It's a good feeling to close out the bar...especially when you get to walk home with very funny-drunk friends and wake up with absolutely no hangover the next day.
   
6. Day two had a post-dissertation party at a friend's place with many more friends. Oh yeah, with homemade Bucyrus bratwursts. The weekend went from awesome to tremendous.
   
7. Out to another nightclub, which I also ended up closing down with more friends. Minus the karaoke, the sweet sixteen party wearing weird costumes, and a truly awful Belgian beer, it was still a blast.
   
8. Sunday? A day with my darling spousal unit, which is about as perfect as imaginable.
   

There are times when I start to feel left behind in life, stuck in a non-tenure job, stuck as a renter, living year 11 in a town I thought I'd only be in for 4. Then there are weekends like this one, where all I wanted was my friends to get full time jobs in the area so it would always be like this.