This evening was the anual Journal banquet. It was a blast. In attendence were 45 or so journal members, many of whom brought guests, a large contingent from the faculty, a congressman, an appeals judge, and an open bar which the judge regarded as "bitchin'."

There was a cocktail hour in the crystal ball room, a signing ceremony for the organization's recently adopted constitution, a few short remarks from a few of our honored guests, and then dinner was served in the banquet hall. There were several round tables with 12 guests at each.

Emma and Michael sat next to me and were making plans to go out after the event. "We're agreed, though. We want to go out after, right?" asked Emma.

"Oh, yes." Michael offered. "We're gonna go out."

"Where should we go?"

"Listen, Emma, I'm tired of the same old shit, you know? I'm just tired of it. I don't want the same old shit."

"Oh, I know, Michael, I know."

"I mean, the places I usually go are just full of the same old shit, and I'm tired of the same old shit."

"Yeah, I know. I'm with you on that one. None of the same old shit. So where should we go."

"Well, there are all those gay bars around my apartment, but they're full of the same old shit, you know?"

"Well, what about something in Old City?"

"Old City? Maybe. But we need to come up with a place that isn't full of the same old shit. I mean, I just don't want to go somewhere and see hundreds of twenty year old girls, blonde (natural or not), with their little purses that they wear like this roaming around in packs of thirty. Thirty identical girls with little purses."

I had to interject. "Michael, what are you talking about?"

"Oh, you know just what I mean. I don't want to go where there are all those little girls with the little purses. The little purses that are like this on their shoulder. I don't want that. I don't want to even see that. Come on, Brian. You know what I'm talking about, Brian. Come on. You know it's just the same old shit."

"Well," Emma said, "those places with the girls that you're describing--"

"Girls with little purses that they wear like this. A pack of twenty girls each with a little purse on her shoulder like this," Michael corrected angrily.

"--Um, right." Emma continued carefully. "The places with the girls with little purses that you're describing, that's all of Old City. Every place I know of there has those girls with the little purses and they wear them like you're pantomiming now."

"See, Emma? See? Same old shit. That's why I don't go out in Philly anymore. That's why. It's those girls with little purses that they wear like this. I just can't take it! I can't take it! I can't. They have their little purses and they wear them up like this!" Michael went to demonstrate again and fell off his chair.

Did I mention how the open bar was "bitchin'?"

Posted at 11:28 p.m.

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