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Friday/Concert: 

Went to a concert with a couple friends and saw a mutual friend drumming for the band The Happy Alright. I got a neat little sticker out of it.

I also got there early, around 7, when social media posts said doors would open at The Prophet Bar in Deep Ellum (music/arts district in Dallas, TX). No such luck. No entry, even to the bar, until 7:30. Once everyone else showed up, we were told music didn't actually start until about 8, and since we were all mostly there for the headliner (mutual drummer friend's band), we decided to go drinking. 

I was planning on only having two beers and the gigantic Serious Pizza slice we had on the way back over to the show, but a couple mixed drinks during the pop-punk sets had me feeling pretty good (it's also a nostalgic genre for me, which is funny, since the actual band members and other attendees were about 7-8 years our juniors; so is my best friend's girlfriend, so I guess it all blurs together at this point) and I decided to follow the same friends and some band members this time to other bars after the show. This resulted in me having two more slices of Serious Pizza and a Blue Moon to sober up, going way beyond my calorie limit, and sleeping at 5 a.m. when I got home. The show had ended at around 11 or so. 

Only other thing of interest is a band from New York, Young Culture, hung out with us for a bit and people had different takes on New York and Dallas. The lead singer from New York said preferred "southern hospitality" to what he experienced in New York and that Dallas shows had a better vibe than Austin, despite it supposedly being a music city (personally, I suspect it has more to do with the type of music and how accepted it is in either city, but I like hearing compliments of my hometown). Coincidentally, friends I was with had worked in New York over the summer last year and said they loved it. I guess grass is greener on the other side just applies to everyone. 

Saturday: Hangover

Almost literally nothing happened. I didn't actually have a hangover, since I don't really get them, but I was knocked out during the day, had dinner at night and that was about it. I wasn't going to push it with my usual running. 

Sunday: GLASS and CheeseCake Factory

Saw Glass for a whopping $17.38. My best friend is in from out of town for work and thought he had bought normal tickets at the Parks Mall in Arlington. I told him that sounded wrong, but whatever, living in Nacogdoches long enough probably makes you assume everything is more expensive in the city ... which it is, but not by that much. It made a  lot more sense when I found out our theater was a "Dolby Theater," which apparently means you get reclining seats (not sure if that's only Dolby Theater or they have them in the regular theaters at that AMC now) that vaguely rumble when the audio clips, I guess. Yeah, I'm not a fan.

Glass was more enjoyable than I thought it would be, given I've seen Split but not Unbreakable, and reviews have been split with critics saying it's bad/fans saying it's good. I enjoyed the concept and storytelling enough to overlook some pretty glaring deficiencies and had fun with it. 

Then my best friend lost his phone, we thought in the seats, but he just texted me he recovered it today at the ticket booth. Becuse of this, I figured he'd want to go home and sleep before work, but instead he agreed to go to Cheesecake Factory with me. Things looked to be turning his way when the waiter told him about a great-sounding vegan burger (he is vegan), only for them to be out of said burger, so he ordered a skimpy pasta instead. I had the Carne Asada Steak plate.

I also brought home the bread and some cheesecake to go, since the steak plate took up basically all my daily calories (1300 out of 1500, since I didn't exercise) and figured I'd ration it out.

Monday: Book(s)

Instead, I ate all the cheesecake at 3 a.m. today, along with some bread and butter, and have only 100 calories left after eating a banana, drinking an Atkins protein shake, and exactly one Danish cookie. I need to work out.

Only other news is Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I deactivated my social media for now, and I finished A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. and started Population Wars by Gregory Graffin. 

As far as A Confederacy of Dunces, it's a quicker read than a 400-page novel usually is for me, but I have mixed feelings. It is funny, and I do understand some of the subjects of its parody and how they're being parodied, but as far as it being a classic I feel like there is maybe a larger point I'm missing? It's fun, I can recognize some of the characters in my own life, and I've been enjoying the story surrounding the book, but I chuckled more than I laughed and didn't think there was anything too profound in it. I actually really liked it, but I guess I was expecting something a little different? I'll be reading a lot about it and may make next month's fiction book The Neon Bible by the same author, regardless. I do wish I had him as a teacher. Everyone seems to have loved him in that role and he's definitely a gifted comedic writer. 

Population Wars is my pick for this month's non-fiction book club I'm a part of. I read the introduction today shortly after putting A Confederacy of Dunces down. I will say, it is funny reading a first-person account from an intellectual after having Ignatius J. Reilly's pompous, arrogant character talk the same way in Confederacy, but there are of course some marked differences in the worldviews of these men (one being a fictional, educated dunderhead, the other a punk rocker with a diverse scientific background). Population Wars does seem to have some interesting points and should be a much lighter read at about 260 easily digestible pages. You'd think the opposite given the subject matter, but I find non-fiction easier to get through, I think mostly as a result of how much news I read. 

Anyway, that's all for now. Hope everyone is having a good day.