Last night, after the wakes, me and both my older sisters’ husbands went out for drinks. All day, Frank (Volvo salesman, father of Brenna) and I kept joking about how we should go to “Hurricane Betty’s” smack dab in an industrial zone, which from the outside promised to be a deliciously fucking dive-ass strip club with $10 lap dances and Bud Light flowing freely. But when we finally ditched the women-folk, we wound up at a fake Irish pub with huge shitty TV screens (Paul - the history buff - didn’t want to go to HB’s - Frank and I both were disappointed, but didn’t want to drag anybody into anything).

Once there, we proceeded to down Guinness after Guinness, getting good and moderately drunk. Man, it was a blast. We talked about all kinds of shit. About like girls, and about building stuff, and sports and like whatever. Everything. It was a blast. My family is sorely lacking in the man-ritual department. My dad isn’t into any of the typical male bonding things, as mentioned above, nor does he drink, nor would he even be comfortable in a bar drinking sodas while we all got trashed. So, yeah, it was fantastic to discover this like fledgling brotherhood of men or something funny like that. It was totally great actually.

I also talked and hung out with Paul a bunch earlier too, cause he picked me up from the train in New Haven. I guess we had never really gotten a chance to talk or bond before that. He’s cool though, a lawyer by trade, but a carpenter at heart, and he homebrews beers and ales and like wines and all sorts of shit. And they are really good. But yeah, we talked about all kinds of shit too, especially about my upcoming cross-country sojourn. I talked about that with everybody. Everyone seems to think it’s a fantastic idea, and lots of people admitted being kind of jealous.

Anyway, it’s too bad my brother couldn’t make it in from Pittsburgh, cause he would have been a great addition to the whole thing. Plus me and him have sort of a history of drinking together now (not to mention going to strip clubs - I first introduced him to the beauty of the game shortly after his messy divorce).