Jenna and I were talking at some point, as housemates are wont to do, and Jenna pointed out one of those things that we all accept implictly: you can't be alone on New Year's. Most of us have internalized that social expectation to such an extent that we would feel like we'd failed if we spent the night alone.

As for Our Bold Hero, having grown up with my parents' huge New Year's parties at our house, I'd go one step further and say that for New Year's, I almost have to be doing something big.

Some holidays need to be saved.

The savior in this case seems to have been Katy, who got more than a dozen Lawrentians together in Chicago for New Year's Eve, etc. I had been certain that the whole thing was going to fall through, but early Sunday morning Graham dropped me off at the Megabusstop at William's Arena and I was on my way.

(For your consideration: a girl on the busride out, a Megabus veteran like myself, claimed that if you check every day and buy your tickets really far ahead, forget paying $1: they're actually free. I'm dubious, but in any case I rarely plan a trip to Chicago more than a few weeks in advance.)

I arrived late that afternoon, and met Katy, Alan, and Jubb at a red line stop in north Chicago. I hadn't seen any of them for almost a year, and I was full of the giddiness peculiar to a reunion of old friends. That feeling, much like the "mancrushes" that all of us in Hiett 218 experienced at one point or another after meeting particularly cool male friends, is a distant cousin to the initial love-giddiness known as "periphesence."

One of the first things I did was apologize to Alan. Saturday night Jenna and I had crashed a party at the Muddy Pig, and my drunk-dial to him (his first apparently?) was only the fifth stupidest thing I did that evening. I had the whole hierarchy worked out at one point: basically, I'm sorry if I interacted with you. But Saturday was still kinda fun.

I was among the first to arrive for the New Year's party, so while we waited, I re-met Kirsten, the party's host (who also deserves some kudos), and caught up with some of my favorite Lawrentians.

I noticed two odd tendencies while I was in Chicago: all these Ultimate people seem to have forgotten that, as Frisbee Mom and the roommate of a captain, I've met prettymuch every player who was at Lawrence while I was there. Also, it's Lawrence! Another bit of weirdness was that, since I was so hardwired into writer-mode for three of my four years, most of the Lawrentians seem to at least pretend to assume that I'm (cue tight Stewie voice) "still working on that novel."

It was strangely fascinating to see where everyone had ended up, and more importantly, where they plan to end up. Their responses definitely confirmed my suspicion that Minnesota is "stickier" than Wisconsin; Lawrence's graduates have scattered to the four winds.

What's more, all these tales of adventure gave me the courage to re-apply to that job in D.C. that I've been really wanting, we'll see if I can actually get it. Though as per usual, I got a full-time, permanent job offer here in the Cities about 24 hours later: frustrating. I should start pretending to make life decisions, because this happens to me every. single. time.

There was ample beer and other alcohol, and when everyone had shown up (including Ben and surprise guest Jinx) and gabbed to their satisfaction, we went out for some delicious pizza. I was pleasantly surprised to find that no one I hated or really disliked had shown up, which was both a minor miracle and a testament to my judgmental and cynical nature.

For New Year's Eve itself, we grabbed some cheap champagne and went to Navy Pier to watch the fireworks. They were pretty far away, but it was still a pretty cool experience. The night ended back in Kirsten's basement, eventually, and was a success.

Monday was less successful. Ben, Will, and Jinx left, Nora showed up, and we spent several hours at a cafe with particularly bad service and food, hours which were especially boring because, while Jubb's friend Logan is a good party acquaintance and knows his beer, we have prettymuch nothing in common on any other level, and Our Bold Hero was the only person sitting next to him for that entire period. Luckily, I could listen to him and Jubb could talk about climbing and such in stereo.

We wandered out to the beach, and then, because the cafe had eaten so much of our time, made plans to head over to Beth's, where we planned to spend the night.

The guys took the train, and while I spent most of my time increasingly less-engrossed in Accelerando, by far the most interesting thing to do was listen to the guy a few seats up from us talk about the various murders his brother, people he knew, and possibly he himself had committed, in Black Vernacular English that Alan later described as near-incomprehensible.

After some Indian food, we arrived at Beth's and watched what was probably the perfect after-New Year's show, the "Fifty Most Devastating Hits in Sports." We also finished off the last of our original four or five cases of beer and watched enough of the latest Harry Potter to make me want to see the end again the next morning.

Someone had asked me my favorite word the night before, and I woke up thinking "notwithstanding."

The ride home on Tuesday was uneventful, though as usual the culture shock of going from Lawrentians to Hamlinites was somewhat jarring.