Last night I met up with Ozwald, Bethany9, and Ohio21Boy for a fundraiser for the Chicago Gay Men�s Choir. I�m not only a supporter by holding season tickets, but I also love getting drinks for a good cause.

As the party wound down, extra drink tickets were handed out. We ended up with more than the three-ticket allowance, which then seemed like a good thing.

After leaving the bar, I drunk dialed Benito and informed him that I was heading for some sushi dinner. Seeing that I only know one sushi place in Chicago and he knew it was a mile away from where I was, he said he�d start in my direction and walk with me there.

So I continue walking down the well lit and populated street, continuing with the drunk dialing to those who deserve my love. As I�m getting to the point of my drunken story to a friend in California, a silver car pulls up next to me and the driver gives me a smile.

Dear, sweet Benito.

We got little sushis for our mouths, and then we went grocery shopping so we both could eat for the rest of the week.

I got front door drop-off service at home, had a cart to carry my groceries up, and again used the cart to haul my new grill into the condo too. Gotta love it.

After my shower, I was o-u-t.

And as my alarm was going off this morning, I was still o-u-t.

I stumbled into work where I was met with laughter and a pat on the back when it became known that I went out boozing last night.

Today I�ve been ravenously hungry. I ate a granola bar, a bunch of blueberries, a frozen vegan curry potato pocket with tofu, and some Wheat Thins. Now I�m ready for lunch. I guess I need something to refuel after last night.

While shopping at World Market a couple months ago, Benito mentioned that he once got his mom some baking mix that made cookies for cats. I just googled it, and I found a recipe for kitty cookies.

The next time I got to Whole Foods to get stuff like soy flour and wheat germ in small quantities, I�ll make this for Hammus and will report the results.

Then again, offering anything food-like to a 15-pound cat will be eaten enthusiastically.

If you try it, let me know

Have you registered to vote yet? Here�s an easy link where you fill out the info, and they pop up a form that�s all ready to fill out.

So warm your printer up, address an envelope, and date and sign the freshly printed form when it�s spit out.

And while you�re at it, write a quick email to your representatives. I�m writing a new two-line email to Danny Davis each day.

Yesterday�s was on taxes since it was fresh on my mind. Today I�m starting at the top and working my way through his pull-down list.

I have 23 topics with two sentences already written that I can copy and paste into the auto-mailer each morning.

See. Ta-da! Writing your representatives is that easy.

Tonight is quite possibly my last volleyball game for the season. We�re in the lower-level play-offs, and it�s a single-round elimination. You win, you move on. You lose, you don�t have to show up ever again.

This season has been out-right crappy. There�s a huge split between the players because of one particularly bad attitude. Whenever that player�s around, we lose like you wouldn�t believe. It likely has something to do with the loud sighs, mutterings under one�s breath, completely giving up if we aren�t winning, and the excuses made when that player messes up.

Yeah, but what do I know?

On Wednesday I have a double-header in softball. Since we play in the ghetto, at least both games wrap up before the sun sets. I don�t care for playing Cabrini-ball.

Pretty soon I�ll be back to my regular workouts instead of these distractions that are actually just an excuse of an exercise.

Um, riiiight�

At volleyball a couple weeks ago, I ran into someone I hadn�t seen in probably a year. Word�s gotten back to me that he asked one of our mutual friends if I�d gotten a boob job.

A boob job?!

Holy crap, fellas. If I�m going to torture myself with the pain of plastic surgery, I�m going to come out with something more impressive than an improved rack.

Like putting a thin sack below my back�s muscles where I can carry Diet Coke and drink it from a straw sticking from my shoulder. That would be great for getting lost in the desert.

Or maybe I could get an actual fanny pack with my backside able to hold stuff. How great would that be? No pick-pocketing if someone would have to lift a skin flap to get to the goods.

I�d definitely go for useful stuff.

No bigger breasts that make it hurt to run and even more difficult to shop for fitted shirt. Mine already look great, but thanks.

Okay. A quick run-down of the weekend�s events.

I flew to Texas without any issues. Everything was on-time. I wasn�t there excessively early. I didn�t even feel hungry enough to purchase anything prior to the flight. I always try to sit in the back of the plane to avoid having someone in the seat directly next to me, and this strategy worked again. Yahoo!

I spent the night hanging out with my folks and my brother. Benito sent him a couple new videogames, and Kyle was thrilled. He immediately opened MLB Slugfest as my dad was reading the cover to Psi-Ops, but he was easily persuaded to switch out the disk so we didn�t have to watch anything baseball-related. (Having a brother who is so into baseball, there�s always been baseball overload in my house.)

He immediately got to task with Psi-Ops, and he happily reported the next day that the game was beaten. Six hours of game play, and the game was beaten. Sheesh -- And the game�s developers were concerned that the game play was too difficult! Let this be a note to the Psi-Ops team: It wasn�t too difficult.

I got a picture of my brother pointing to his finishing time to prove to Benito that he was indeed victorious.

As soon as Psi-Ops was beaten, he was back to Slugfest.

Benito drunk dialed me at about 2 in the morning, so I talked with him a bit. It ends up that Ming didn�t initially remember me. She let me pet her like she let everyone else, and then she went off to play with the other cat, Monkey. However, after a couple hours, I caught her by herself and gave my usual, �Hello Mingus,� as I scratched behind her (now-bald ears). She gave a loud, �MING!� and then followed me all around.

Yes, her ears are bald. Apparently she somehow got ear mites, and her solution to the internal itching was to scratch her outside like crazy. And scratch she did. She�s now getting ear drops to help with this, bit right now she has a crazy mohawk and you can see how her skin folds all around her ears. Gross!

She�s also gotten allergies of some sort where she�s licked the fur off her belly, hind legs, and tail. I googled the symptoms, and the causes ranged from stress from a new situation or disliked situation, allergies, or fleas. Since she has no fleas and she acts happy at my parents� house, allergies it must be! They�re spraying her with some cortisone, so hopefully she�ll not look so busted in the near future.

The next day I ran errands with my mom. We stopped at a thrift store where I got a Versace shirt with the authenticity hologram tag for $1. I�m not shitting you either. It�s a sparkly, long-sleeved shirt, so it�ll get plenty of use in Chicago. Whee!

We got everything together for the baby�s b-day party, and people started showing up. There were people in and out all day long, and I saw a lot of people I hadn�t seen in a long time. A nice time was had.

Branden played in his new pool, and I took pictures. He played with GramMaa, and I took pictures. He ate his cake quite messily, and I took pictures. He got a bath afterward, and I took pictures.

The kid�s going to associate a flash with the name Aunt Jo, but that�s okay. I�ll certainly post something once I get the pictures off my camera. He�s really too dang cute not to!

All right. I need to get some stuff done. It�s been a busy day at work. �