oh, the goodness of today was totally removed from the mediocrity that was last week (post mad tuesday loveliness.) friday nite things looked precarious: ilana, becca and i hung out but got into a mood to do something and found that there was nothing to do. went to the silver diner to check whether their midnite movie was worth watching. as it turned out, no. we lounged around in the parking lot for a while, shrugging off ideas; then ilana just returned to her house and becca and i came to mine where, w/o much ado, we went to sleep.

this morning, revitalized, we organized the trip to baltimore which ended up including rick, liz, and jay. the five of us smooshed into rick's car and headed off to this festival. interestingly, as it was held in a fairly ethnic area, we mingled, sweated, and laughed at bad performance art w/ quite a mix of people: black locals and white touristy-looking folks, oldsters and youngish punks. after collecting all the free samples we could hold, both in stomach and in arms, we met up w/ jamie and decided to walk down to the inner harbor. we returned in time to see etta james (or, rather, liz and rick left; jamie and jay wove their way thru the crowd to get w/in viewing range; and becca and i found a farback seat and half-listened to the music while we discussed Marriage and Relationships.)

came back to my house, toyed w/ the idea of going out again, decided against it, and split amicably w/ promises to meet tomorrow for more walking and lunchtime margaritas as rewards. the whole thing successfully distracted me from yucky emails, unsatisfactory phone calls, and peer angst. everyone got along swimmingly: laughter is definitely social lube, and we all have a sense of humor in common. to top it off, i got home and talked to ben. yes, this long distance thing sucks, as do arguments w/o hugs at the end to diffuse the negativity. but i'm glad he's there.