Jim James from My Morning Jacket has said this about Louisville: “You move away, but you’re always going to come back.” This would have horrified 17-year-old me, but now I’m proud to say that it’s true. I think a lot of Louisvillains have had love/hate relationships with this city, but these days, I’m loving it. As high school friends gradually trickle back into town, it’s been fun to catch up with folks. I’d been wanting to get together with a group of guys from school—Matt, Travis, and David—for awhile, and this past weekend I finally used the excuse of Josh being in town to get something organized. Josh, Travis, and I met at Outback where Matt works as a waiter, and then the four of us headed to Lyndon Lanes for some high-quality white trash bowling. We took two of the ten lanes and thanks to Emily’s coaching, I held my own—in beers and pins alike. There were some sweet characters at the bowling alley, including an ex-marine with a pinup tat on his forearm that Travis spotted, and some drunk jackoff that kept shouting and then demanding why everyone was staring at him. Good times.

After the bowling, we walked next door to Joe’s. About two or three rounds in, we spotted a fellow alum and though most of us were fighting the urge to duck under the pool table, Travis started calling out his name. Loudly. So Andy came over and we all did a pretty good job of acting like it was good to see him. “Hey Andy! Good to see you!” Eventually he moved on, and surprisingly was the only other KCD alum we ran into. I tried calling DenisLiam several times, jeopardizing his future with Nickelodeon with each one, but it was all to no avail. Sorry, Den. You were missed.

Later on at Joe’s, our conversation evolved into displays of freak-show hidden talents, as all bar conversations generally do. I did my arm-deboning trick, Matt put me into a headlock (a friendly headlock) and told me the fancy jiu jitsu name for thusly cutting of someone’s air supply with your thighs, and then I got to feel half of a plastic BB embedded into someone’s forehead. We had a blast.

Much to everyone’s surprise, David actually did eventually show up with girlfriend in tow, but it was well after 3:30 at this point, and I didn’t stay too much longer. Completely sober, I drove home and crashed by about 4:30am. At one point in the early morning hours, I remember one of the cats knocking my battery-powered alarm clock onto the floor, and me blindly having to shove the battery back into it. What seemed like many, many hours later, I rolled over and looked at the clock. Thinking it was late afternoon, I hauled my hangover out of bed and into the shower. Made some breakfast, fed the cats, snakes, and gecko, and it wasn’t until I went to check my email that I realized it was only 9 in the morning. Already too awake at this point to go back to sleep, I spent most of the day pushing fluids and watching episodes of Spaced.

Finally it was time to start getting ready for Saturday night’s festivities… which you’ll hear all about soon enough. =)