In which a full weekend looms! Finally, proof that God loves me and wants me to be happy!

Tonight, I have an all-girl dinner date with Aimée and Barbara, at Aimée’s house. Barbara’s making tofu enchiladas and I’m totally excited. (She’s in town for some battle of the bands thing Bambu did a few nights ago; normally I don’t see her so many times in a year.) After dinner, I have rehearsal with House 11. I haven’t seen my band in a week and dang if I didn’t miss those little rascals.

Tomorrow I’m working, because Buzz has been out of the office nursing his woman — who just had eye surgery — back to health, and he won’t be in again tomorrow for that reason. Since I need the hours, this working-on-Friday thing is actually good news.

And tomorrow night? A PARTY! A bona fide motherfucking actual party. The Holy Couple are having their engagement party at the Dead Cock, upstairs in the new restaurant for a small group and then a free-for-all down in the bar for the rest of the evening. It’s about time there was an event; no one’s bothered to throw a big party in this town in ages. I’m seriously thinking of taking seperate cars so that Bread can leave at 9:30* without utterly pissing me off.

I’m going to wear my tux pants and the shoes I bought for New Year. I haven’t made a decision on what top to wear yet, but I don’t have many tops to choose from. In fact it’ll probably choose itself by virtue of being the only one that’s clean and matches my slacks.

(*Last Friday Bread and I went out. Twenty minutes after people I actually knew showed up, Bread said, “Are you going to kill me if I tell you I want to leave now?” ARGH! We’d been there for two hours by that point, and I’d quietly sat by myself reading a book while he socialized and played pool with his friends and monopolized the juke box. When folks I knew showed up and the tunes swung toward dance instead of “classic rock,” he suddenly got tired and we had to go home. *bangs head on desk* Another chilly drive home where I fumed and stared out the window. Ah, wifedom.)

In which I get out of town and laugh my ass off.

So my girlfriend took me out on a date yesterday. She took me to Iowa City and we saw a movie and had dinner and coffee. It fucking rocked. I totally needed a girl day.

The movie was Chronicles of Narnia, which had killer sFX; the witch was Tilda Swinton, who totally fucking rocked; and the dinner was at the Olive Garden, where we split an appetizer and an entree and were still both too full to walk properly for about an hour.

The girlfriend was Tahm, who led me to believe that she needed her own blog nickname. So from here on out I’ll be calling her Nasty Little Whore, or NLW for short. (She seems fairly reformed nowadays, but I’m quite certain I’m not the first person ever to call her that.)

Anyway, it was unneccessarily cold outside so we scuttled from car to building, building to car like little crabs. Winter’s beginning to get on my nerves.

On the drive to Iowa City, I was complaining about my hubby. How his being home all the time is driving me nuts. How I could really use a few hours of alone time. How now that he’s doing the goddamned dishes he’s finally, finally started to rinse them rather than leaving them all crusty on the counter. How he’s constantly harassing me for sex.

“We’ve got time, we could pull over up here,” quipped NLW.

“Huh?” I said, not tracking.

“For sex,” she said. “We could pull into a field up here.”

“Oh my gawd! Stop it!” I yelled. “I came with you to get away from that!”

She laughed. “I didn’t want you to feel too comfortable,” she said.

“You, uh, you bastard!” I yelled.

Then we laughed. Then we talked about her business for awhile.

At the theatre, as we were wending our way toward the seating we wanted, she said, “You know, if you had just put out on the drive up here, I would have bought you those Junior Mints.”

“Oh Christ!” I exclaimed, then I started laughing.

“I almost wish I’d said that in the lobby, to see your face,” she giggled.

We sat down and wiggled out of coats, put drinks in holders, arranged purses and candy. I kept an eye on the screen, and when it exhorted me to turn off my cell phone during the feature presentation I said to NLW, “Put your phone on vibrate.”

“Why?” she asked, brightly. “Are you going to call me?”

“Yes,” I laughed, throatily. “Repeatedly.”

“Oh,” she moaned in Porn Star Voice, “Call me! Call me! Oh! Call me now!”

“Dial me again!” I hissed, giggling. “And again and again and again!”

“Call me! Oh my God, call me!” she said, laughing out loud. “CALL ME HARDER!”

At that, we collapsed into hysterical giggles.

“Oh my fucking GAWD,” I said, when I could breathe again. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.”

It’s just luck that we happened to the only people in the theatre at the time, because we’re pretty loud talkers when we’re busy cracking ourselves up.