So, today was Howard’s last day. I now I will miss him very much, and I suspect that most everyone else will too. I hope that he liked the going away presents we gave. I think he did. For the curious they were a pocket watch with a bass on it and a stuffed deer that had been summarily shot thanks to some black and red markers. The latter was to establish the deer was, in fact, dead. (A play on some of the wisdom Howard imparted.

I was supposed to play racquetball today, but it got cancelled for a trip to the health center. I was still having some chest pains and trouble breathing from the allergic reaction last night. Jonathan, possibly the nicest person ever, walked me over and waited to walk me back. They gave me a breathing treatment and an emergency inhaler in case of another reaction.

A lot of people just kind of crashed after class today. However, a number of us went out to dinner. Oddly, the group got separated into two groups and ended up at the same restaurant anyway.

After that the larger group split into a number of smaller ones, and Matt, Tammy, Ryan, Sean, and I all ended up going bowling. It was a tremendous amount of fun, and I got a personal all-time high score of 99. This actually put me in second place for the whole game, right behind Matt who bowled a 100. It was interesting because I was one point behind matt the entire game, and he and I were in last place until the ninth frame. Then that frame each of us got a strike, followed by another strike the next frame, and to finish scoring for that strike each got nine pins. Tammy accused us of making a deal with the devil to pull it off. Or perhaps I should say Bubbles. Each of us was using a special “bowling name”. I was Gigi.

Part of what made bowling so great was that we critiqued the game. Things such as "Bowling is hard" and "For me, the pin was never down" or "You're bowling around the edge of your game" were just hilarious. These people are just incredible to be around and phenomenal writers to boot.

When we got back a bunch of us: Ryan, Matt, Sean, Jonathan, myself, and later Tammy, played a really deranged game of Apples to Apples. We went through the deck of red cards (the ones played, not the ones played on) twice. For those not familiar that was 324 cards. I won the second time through where winning is defined as having the most green cards when everyone was out of red ones.

Anyway, that was a blast. I also got about 261 words written. I know it’s not a lot, but this damn story just does not want to be told. It’s dribbling out in monosyllabic grunts. I may have to put it aside and start another one, but this is the idea tat really sticks with me. I don’t know; I’ll figure it out in the morning. For now it’s sleepy time.

Night, all!