Well, you know me and travel. Our Bold Hero missed two trains and arrived at the Museum of Contemporary Art slightly after the agreed-upon meeting time of 4:30. Live parrots notwithstanding, the first floor of the museum was underwhelming.

Breaking the most basic rule of a getting-together, Jinx had turned off her cellphone so I had to resort to asking a series of progressively less interesting-looking employees if they knew where this intern girl was. The assumption was that Jinx had sought out the most interesting people, as is her wont.

They had no clue, but she showed up a few minutes later and all was well. The journey to Evanston was mostly uneventful, we sat across the aisle from each other on the train. A woman in the seat behind me started knitting and Jinx found it strangely fascinating, so much so that I had to work very hard to establish the fiction that she was merely staring out the window at something.

At one point I was momentarily baffled when a crowd of disembarking passengers forced me to stop talking mid-sentence. A woman whispered that I should "just press pause" as she left. Best random encounter this week.

(Though on the busride home I sat behind, and eavesdropped on, the most well-adjusted undergraduate ever.)

The Squid and the Whale is... a good movie. I can see why it got good reviews; there's certainly no denying that it's got some quality scenes, mostly with the teenage son Walt. However, my general impression of the movie was that it was sort of like The Royal Tenenbaums except really, really awkward.

The father, especially, stood out as an accurate and irritating portrayal of a certain cultural type. For me, he was a bit of a Donny Don't, the twisted version of Our Bold Hero's daydreams about the future. The monster elitist. I was half-expecting him to lash out at his wife for using Elements of Style.

I'm not a fan of the whole uncomfortable-character-sketch genre, and this movie was full of awkward awkward moments. Though much better, it reminded me of The Office and Roger Dodger, neither of which I enjoy. I was cringing for probably sixty percent of the time; if I'd watched it at home no doubt I'd've been yelling advice to the characters instead of hiding in my hood.

Afterwards, sharing some terrible Mexican food with Jinx at a place nearby, I tried to tease out exactly what I mean by "awkward." It's a work in progress.

This was probably the longest I've ever talked one-on-one with Jinx, and though I'd like to think we discussed any number of things, the conversation was especially interesting when we got into one of my favorite topics: the people we dislike or hate, and the people who hate us. There's a good story or two there.

Jinx was apparently oblivious to the countless times I hung out with Ben? I guess that makes sense; she never played Illuminati or any of our videogame drinking games. When I think of Mariokart, I taste Kool-Aid and vodka. And I shudder.

For some reason, I find intense dislike extremely humanizing. It was good to know that, though she readily puts up with a half-dozen people I've no respect for, even a hopeless extrovert like Jinx has her limits. There's a certain solidarity, too, in telling someone who your enemies are. Not that I made a list, per se — this might have been one of those rare occasions when I get more information out of my interlocutor than I give out about myself.

As far as I can tell, and Jinx agrees, no one at Lawrence really dislikes me, which is actually a bit of a blow. Maybe I kept too low of profile. If I had taken myself a bit more seriously, would others have followed suit? Were my views transparent enough on the issues I thought mattered? Perhaps I picked the wrong issues.

I could tell that a few people disliked me somewhat, but by the end of college I was sick of unproductive confrontation. Perhaps I should have called more people out? Suffered fools a bit less often?

Is it possible to lead a rich, full life without making any enemies? Probably as unlikely as living such a life without regrets.