So, couldn't go to Lauren's St. Pat's party (dad wasn't willing to drive me all the way to N. Vegas) but Sarah pulled a last-minute bday dinner at Buca di Beppo.

Highlights of the evening: Jaron's scratchy balls, flirting unabashedly with the waiters and buss-boys, all the crude topics of discussion, shocking all those around us, and Francesca's laughing.

I tried being cheerful during the whole affair, and I did manage to pull it off early in the evening, but that damned dream kept me more or less docile. I... in the dream, I found myself with someone. And it was quite bizarre because this person is someone I never would've thought of as... anything besides a friend. But...

I'm happy to say that it was not Matt who was the target of my wandering eye that evening. Even though he did feed me a cherry Lady-and-the-Tramp style... a feat that sent the entire table cringing.

Can't help but feel like a damper during the entire evening.

But in other news, I've noticed something. Blues and Jazz is a very nostalgic genre of music. First off, the very personal and intimately expressive improvisations makes the performance of each song more or less unique. What's interesting is that most standards are from movies or shows, and are very rarely completely original. It's more about taking a well known, or at least popular, song and playing it in your own way, embedding your own emotions into the piece. And that's what I love most about this genre; it's highly personal, although it's enjoyment when played live is a bit too transient for my tastes. Which is why I buy CD's.