I had dinner last night with Heather, Brad and Darius at, of course, the Cowgirl. The dinner made me realize a few things:

1. I have never had a meal anywhere with Darius that wasn’t the Cowgirl and this is his fault.
2. I have been blogging for way too long (last night there seemed to be a general agreement that I am the first blogger some of my friends ever knew) and
3. my memory is really really terrible.

It was great to see Heather, though; she and Brad were visiting for the first time in too long and hopefully they will remember how bomb Santa Fe is and move back immediately.
I have to say (no, really I have to), coming back from Philadelphia on Sunday was one of the first, if not only, times when I didn’t get back to NM with a sense of epic relief (Hawaii was the other time). I am still puzzling through what a great, great time I had in my hometown. I mean, OK, I grew up there so maybe it’s normal that I would go back and have fun except in my memory (which sucks), I ran away screaming with no memories of there being anything good about it whatsoever. If I was so wrong about that, who knows what else I am wrong about? What if I’m wrong about everything? That would totally wreck my sense of identity, which is based on being right about everything. It’s kind of fucked up.
But, seriously, and in no particular order, things that made my trip to Philly super fun:

1. The Roots and The Roots. Two nights, two shows, one in my beloved Theater of the Living Arts (which used to be a movie theater, that’s how old I am). The other at Penn’s Landing. So great.
2. The conference, particularly Seymour Hersh, who was the First Amendment Speaker. So smart. So bloody depressing. But smart always trumps depressing for me.
3. David Carr, who spoke, as he often has for AAN, about the changing media landscape and the internets and all that shiite. It’s kind of hard to explain what makes Carr so funny and engaging. I guess that’s it, he’s really funny and engaging.
4. Winning stuff. Yes, I do love winning stuff.
5. Lastly, but probably mostly, seeing Jen and Anne, who were both really close friends of mine back when I was a juvenile delinquent. We all agreed we look exactly the same (improbable, but we believe it). And I just had so much fun seeing them. And here we are, 20 years older, but, at least in my case, just as sweaty as ever.