I woke up fairly late and hung out with Chloe. She had a Genuardi's doughnut and I think I did too but I know she gave me the last bite of hers. She folded most of my laundry while I did the dishes, and we watched part of a documentary about an abortion clinic right across the way from an anti-abortion center.

I don't think we had lunch before we went to CN Skate Palace so that she could learn to skate backward. She rented skates but I brought my own. I thought it was going to be full of hooligans like it usually is on Friday and Saturday nights, but it was actually just a couple birthday parties other than us, and none of them were for hooligans. Chloe spent a lot of time against the walls learning to skate backwards and got it down pretty well by the end of the night. I didn't realize how nice a wooden surface could be to skate on; I am once again convinced that they're quite good. You can go ridiculously fast on them, and you have good control, too. Apparently I scared some kids by going too fast, and some people came up to Chloe and said that I was "really good" and hoped she was doing well learning to skate backwards. She didn't win the Gator sock contest and I was really upset by that (not really). I thought this one Asian woman was really good lookin, and also that she was a mom, and I told Chloe that I thought so, and she was like "DUDE SHE WAS FOURTEEN." I swear to god she was helping her kids out of the car with her husband and hanging out with a bunch of other moms all day. Eh. I need to make Chloe a Certificate of I Can Skate Backwards.

Afterward I came home and forget what I did for a little bit, but Rory's party was the next big thing on the list. I went and there wasn't anyone I knew at first, but Stefan showed up soon after. Dana M came, too. We were talking to Rory's friends from Boston. Stefan started talking about all the things that have almost killed him. Some of Rory's friends were really upset and just left the conversation; only one named Dom stayed to talk. It all made me sort of upset. There wasn't much that I liked to eat there. Rory's friend who loves Thai language was there and we talked about that. His friends were cool. They were all girls and I think most of them were non-straight, though I didn't ask outright. Some of them had spent time in Bali and Thailand recently so we also talked about that.

At one point Rory said there was a request for me to play piano. "Oh, you play piano?" one of them said. "Yeah. I'm pretty good." They laughed a little bit. I went to play, and they followed a little bit after I had gone up to the piano. I played Mr. Brightsides, and then people asked for more, so I played Thanks for the Memories, and then they asked for another sing-along, so I played Scenes from an Italian Restaurant, and then I played Paparazzi, and then I was done. Then there was cake, which was pretty good. I sat on the steps and talked to Rory's friends and his brother, Connor, who works for a union. I asked him to explain to me EFCA and where I should stand on labor issues, and then asked his friends to explain what current opinions were on gender and what "third wave" referred to.

I went home and played piano a bit and then Emily came over. She helped me wrap a gift for my mom, and we tried to find fireflies outside but there were none. We looked at my fishes, and I improvised some songs on the piano, and then improvised a Happy Birthday song to her friend on Facebook. Then wrote a song to sing to Walk of Shames walking around PSU. I might make a preliminary recording of that soon so I can send it to Tarik to practice =P

(The chords are just G C9 Em7 D/F#)

Peace out.

posted by Singing Farewell 9:26 PM on Sunday, August 15, 2010