You're Never Too Old to Rock

So they say. But I have reached a point where I'm too old to stay up past 2:00 in the morning!

We headed out to Champaign this past weekend (nothing says excitement like a trip to Urbana!!) to see some rock. Well, actually, I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Saturday morning, we dropped the girls off at the in-laws (thanks again!) and headed off to look at cars (you already know that part). Saturday evening we headed to Berwyn (a close second to Champaign when it comes to exciting destinations) to hang out with some friends. We had some awesome Mexican food, complete with lots of margaritas. The theme of that evening was pretty much "kid-free!" It was the first time our friends F and J have been without their one-year-old. Ah, freedom. It's still sweet not matter how brief.

Then Sunday morning, after an ill-advised, hungover, six-mile run, followed by the longest wait for breakfast EVER, we headed off to Champaign. My history with Champaign is brief and bittersweet. I was actually supposed to attend school there but made the ultra-wise decision to attend school with my boyfriend instead (we were totally going to get married someday)--a decision my dad found very tough to swallow (gee, I wonder why?). You probably don't have to guess how that relationship ended. But that's okay, because he was sort of a jerk. I hope my girls listen to me when I impart my parental wisdom about the fleeting nature of high school romance. Fat chance, right?

Of course, my college town was so lame that Champaign held great allure, and we'd take the occasional road trip there. In Champaign, you can get into the bars at 19 (and once you were inside the bar, it was pretty easy to score some alcohol), which was pretty enticing back then. It was also in Champaign, at a bar called Mabel's, that I encountered Dean for the second time in my life and introduced him as "nobody." Guys love when you do that.

Anyhow, Dean (and most of his friends) went to U of I, and this show featured a lot of the bands from back then. Theme of the show? "1993 Revisited." [Editor's Note: I'd just like to point out AGAIN for anyone that missed it the first five times I said it over the weekend: I was in *high school* in 1993.] Bands included Mother, Honcho Overload, Corndolly (I might not be spelling that right), as well as a host of others. I'd never heard any of this stuff before, but I did quite enjoy Mother.

I had wondered whether I might run into anyone I knew from MY college days, but it did not happen. Oh well. There was really only one person that I thought I might run into that I'd have (sort of) liked to see.

Good weekend. I did miss my girls fiercely though. I guess the last time we left them for two nights was for my friend Alex's wedding. I don't remember missing them quite so exquisitely that time, but I was pretty preoccupied with MY college friends. Perhaps that was the difference. Not that Dean's friends (well, OUR friends now, I guess) aren't super cool. But conversation inevitably leads to The Coach House or 806 or the Catacombs (the place that had several inches of water on the floor at all times and cockroaches the size of someone's hand that Gale eventually started keeping as pets). Or some chick named Amy that I've never met in my life. Or the summer their friend Gale got this weird flesh-eating virus of some sort (trust me: you don't want to know). Or the time Dean hid all the silverware in the house because no one was doing the dishes. Or the ill-fated trip to Minnesota to eat Subway and turn around and come back home. That's actually my favorite story. And my favorite place that they all lived that I've never seen is the Catacombs, just because I can't believe people would willingly live with an inches of water on the floor and cockroaches the size of rats. Granted, I lived in a place with cockroaches when I was in college, too. But they were smaller roaches--more like the size of small mice. Ah, Bloomington. Even your cockroaches were inferior.

[Edited because my spellchecker changed all instances of "Champaign" to "Champagne."]