Okay, I've had way too much going on this weekend, so I'm going to post a quick update now so I'm not too overwhelmed trying to cover everything in tomorrow's journal entry. I only have half an hour to do this before I need to get into the bathroom to start getting ready for the day.

Friday evening started with Happy Hour with Laney, at Fogón Cocina Mexicana, on Pine Street. She had said we could meet at 5:30, and I wound up accidentlly arriving at 5:00. This was my own stupid mistake, because Google Maps said it would take me forty minutes to walk there. That meant I really should have left work twenty minutes late. Instead, for some reason I got it into my head that it meant I should leave ten minutes early, and so that's what I did.

And when I arrived at 5:00, for a few minutes I was only paying attention to the 0 at the end of the time, so I was standing on the corner wondering why Laney wasn't as punctual as usual. Then it finally hit me that I had arrived five minutes early, so I just started walking north to kill time, and ran into her only half a block from her place. Then we walked back to Pine Street again together.

This has apparently been the third driest late October Seattle has on record, and yesterday was beautiful, sunny, and actually only a few degrees warmer than normal -- which allowed us to sit comfortably outside on those benches they have that face the sidewalk with a long narrow sort of bar-like table in front of us. I had just done a lot of walking so for the first little bit we weren't even wearing our jackets, but after a while we both put them back on. But with the jackets on, we were still totally comfortable.

I kind of forgot how good their margaritas are. The Happy Hour prices for them aren't the cheapest -- they're $8 -- but I still had two. They come with a tiny margarita glass full of ice into which you pour your margarita from a tall metal cup, like when you get served milkshakes in those metal cups sometimes. I actually hesitated at first to get two marharitas because that tall glass made it seem like a lot. "If I get two, I'm not going to get wasted, am I?" I asked the waitress. And she replied, "You might, actually. We have pretty strong pours."

She actually had the second margarita ordered before I was certain I had made my final decision, in the end, but whatever. I didn't get wasted. And I technically didn't drink all of both of them, because the third and final pour from my first one (metal cup) was so watered down that I let Laney drink that, because I already had the second one and I didn't want that one to get watered down too quickly too.

Anyway. It was also good food -- better priced on the Happy Hour menu; we both had the quesasillas fritas, which were good but nowhere near as excellent as the ones I specifically go to La Cocina Oaxaqueña for -- and lively conversation as always. We didn't stay quite as long as we often do, because not only did I intend to get to Northwest Film Forum by 7:30, but Ivan had messaged me asking to come home first to give him a "quick fashion consult" before we headed to the movie. So, I left the restaurant at 7:00, giving us exactly ninety minutes for this month's Happy Hour. Usually we're hanging out for at least two hours, sometimes more. But, I had my next thing to get to!

There's this guy Ivan dated briefly when he lived with me in 2014 who he has really yet to get over. Sometimes it's kind of heartbreaking to witness, to be honest. The guy volunteers at Northwest Film Forum on Fridays and it just so happened that this presentation of Suspiria, one of Ivan's favorite movies about witches (I watched it in January 2015 with Evan -- all of about two weeks after Ivan moved out that time -- on his recommendation; at the time I wrote, "I'm a little mystified as to what Ivan sees in it." Last night he noted that there just aren't a lot of movies about witches, which I suppose is sort of true.) The "fashion consult" was so I coul see what he's chosen to wear when he pretends to be surprised to be running into this guy. I thought it was kind of sweet that he wanted that from me, actually.

And he clearly had thought a lot about this: he was wearing jeans for the first time in maybe a year. Ivan has taken to track pants for about a year now, and if he's not in the scrubs he wears for work, he's in track pants. I'd almost forgotten how good he looks in jeans. I mean, he looks great in track pants too (even though he weirdly pulls them up way too high above his waist) but whatever. He did wear his new track jacket with its stripes down the sleeves.

We had to stand in the lobby of the theatre, which took no time to get to because it's only two and a half blocks away down on 12th Avenue, for a few moments. I said, "Is he here?" and Ivan immdiately said, "Shh!" as if he'd hear me -- he was about fifteen feet away working concessions. Ivan had told me walking down there that he was nervous. And once he finally did say hi to the guy, I didn't even notice: they opened the house, and when we got inside, as soon as I turned around, Ivan was on the other side of the room taking a few seconds to spot me. I had selected seats in the second row on the other side.

I didn't find out until after the movie was over that he had said a quick hi as we passed right by concessions coming in; they hugged briefly and that was it; it took about ten seconds. Ivan did not approach him again after the movie as we left, and declared the whole thing "kind of a disappointment." I don't know what else he expected, but then, rational thinking does not always come into play in scenarios like this. I did say to him at one point, before the movie started (and before I knew any interaction had actually taken place), "You seem a little . . . on edge." He replied, "You're very perceptive."

As for the movie, well . . . it was not what I expected. The score was to be performed live, or so I thought, which made me think that would make it easier to stay awake after a couple of cocktails. Not so! I dozed off several times, and several things made it much easier than anticipated for that to happen. First is that none of the original soundtrack was audible, which I did not realize would be the case -- the live music completely replaced it all, making it a lot like watching a silent film, except that we did still see the subtitles.

Somewhat ironically, when I watched this movie in 2015, I wrote that I found the score obtrustive. This live music was clearly not a live rendering of the original score, but its own original music. And it was not at all obtrustive, and instead lulled me to sleep.

Furthermore, the "instruments" were only two: one very large contraption that was like a colossal xylophone, and some electronic thing that basically was used to make electronic music. I was expected something like an actual band. This was just a single young woman, playing what amounted to one computer and one xylophone.

They did have the lead actress in attendance, though, and seeing her speak before the movie was kind of interesting. Overall, however, I'm not sure it was worth even the sixteen bucks I paid for it, although admittedly that's not some huge amount of money. It gave me something to do with Ivan, anyway, although he was kind of fixated on other things.

We walked back home together, and within minutes he was zipping up his jacket by the door again. "Heading out again?" I asked. "I'm going to buy some marijuana," he said. "I need it." Ivan hasn't had a steady long-term relationship since splitting up with his husband in . . . I think he said 2012, if I remember right? For his sake, I really hope he finds someone else sooner than later. I'll never forget the time he made some crack about what a pain in the ass it is to be married, while observing Shobhit's and my bickering, and when Shobhit said, "It's better than being lonely" -- a simple but potent observation -- and Ivan replied, "I would agree with that, actually."

Well, I was going to try and also write about yesterday, but there's no time at the moment! So that was Friday, at least.