The unexpected pleasures of a pretty great weekend.

Yum!

So my friend had a release party for her book yesterday (a book you should totally buy) that I went to. She’s had other events leading up to the release but I avoided going to those since I figured my ex might be there. But I couldn’t miss the actual party! And of course my ex was there, which was totally fine, though it was weird since I haven’t even seen her in person since early January. But I did the right thing, and left her alone, aside from briefly talking to a mutual friend she happened to be standing next to. I reckon when she’s ready to engage with me again, if she’s ever ready to, she’ll let me know.

It helped that a close friend of mine went to the party with me, and she’s known me a very long time, and my whole story, so it was nice to have that support. I’ve spent too many months trying to navigate these waters through my own sheer will and am learning that help from friends is not a bad thing, though it’s not the sort of thing I ask for naturally.

The party itself was a huge success! It was wall-to-wall packed and there was quite the line to get my author friend to autograph copies of her book. It’s been fun to see her doing her media tour to support the book. And a ton of previous Chicagoist writers were there too, so it was nice to see so many familiar faces.

Come to think of it, this weekend was pretty great all around. On Friday, I saw The Joffrey Ballet’s Midsummer Night’s Dream with the same friend who went to the release party, and it was mind-blowing. Mich stopped taking me to the ballet a few years ago since I tended to start snoozing by the second act, and would instead bring friends of hers who could really appreciate what was going on. But this ballet was just bonkers, wild, and weird, all in excellent ways. It shared much more with modern dance and a stage play than with a conventional ballet. I’m only sorry I waited until almost the end of its run because now I just want to tell everyone to go see it.

Saturday started of with a friend of mine coming over to give a painting estimate on some work I need done in the house, and that stretched into an all day hang that ended with another friend’s birthday show at Liar’s Club. It was a totally unexpected way to spend Saturday but I had a lot of fun, and again, learned that sometimes just talking to other people in person about the stuff going on in your life helps a whole lot.

So yeah, I'm going to say this weekend was a pretty much full win all around.