I got ridiculously drunk in Malibu last night, and rather than brave the gauntlet of LA County Sheriff vehicles on Pacific Coast Highway, I chose to crash on the couch of a coworker. And I could have just crashed on the couch, but instead we stayed up and watched "Better Off Dead" and "Ladybugs," the latter of which starred my coworker's good friend as a high school student who dresses up as a girl to play soccer on Rodney Dangerfield's team. Stupid movie, stupid me for drinking a quarter bottle of Macallan 12 year old single malt scotch on top of the liquor that had stopped me from driving home.

And I finally did make it home at around noon today, at which point I promptly passed out in my own bed for a good three hours before Jen called to invite me down to Long Beach to see her new neighborhood ...

"But I'm really hungover," I argued.

"I'll buy you a Bloody Mary," she countered.

That was enough for me.

Long Beach was kind of fun and funky, East Coastish in a way. We went out to a cool steak house and caught up, and drove around the neighborhood a bit -- I recognized a lot of movie locations, like the Queen Mary and that big tall round apartment building from the first Lethal Weapon movie, the roof of which served as a highdive platform for some coked-up prostitute in the opening scene, to the musical backdrop of "Jingle Bell Rock."

That wasn't really a sentence up there, was it?

Friday night I went out with an old friend from grad school who's now getting her PhD at Princeton. It was a fun, if rather confusing, evening for me, since it felt to me a lot more romantic than it should have been. Which is not a bad thing ... or is it? I guess it all depends on how I look at it, but I'm looking back upon it in a different way each time I recollect it. There's a physical attraction there on my part, certainly, but that's not enough for me at this point ... and I'm certainly not interested in actively "dating" right now, since I'm still experiencing a slew of negative emotions surrounding the very recent conclusion of my last relationship. Why is it so hard to let go?

But back to Friday night ... what does six straight hours of incredible conversation with an old friend mean, someone you've never thought of "in that way" -- someone you're not even sure you can think about "in that way" -- someone you might be starting to think about "in that way" despite your better judgement -- but you're not sure if you should even if you are -- I dunno, I'm just confused ... about life, my wants, my expectations for myself. I'm not getting any younger, but what does that have to do with anything? Do men have a biological clock? Is mine ticking?

a moment in the car, on the way home, stopped at a traffic light, she said "this has been the most incredible night ... and the conversation was the best thing about it." and something about that struck me in a really good way, and before i knew it i had reached out and took her hand in mine, and she squeezed my hand, and i felt really warm, and the light changed and i had to shift gears so i took my hand back

What does it all mean?

I felt something go "crack" or "rip."

And thought nothing of it after that... ...until band practice on thursday. I was soloing on the B-3, doing a big slide from right to left on the upper keyboard, and I felt this intense pain in my upper right chest...

...and yesterday, the whole right side of my chest and back started hurting. Today I was having trouble breathing, and I thought I was dead when I got a case of the sneezes at dinner.

Does it make sense that this starts hurting nearly a week after the fact, or should I start worrying about lung cancer again?