Last night, though it was Friday, was supposed to be spent chained to my computer, coding, making up for my late night out on Thursday. Fortunately, that was not to be. Patrick called around 8, to see if I'd like to go to Target with him. Naturally, I took him up on the offer (For someone who has a computer science minor, I have an amazing aversion to coding). We picked up Richard at the Queer House and were off.

Finding what we needed in the store was a fairly straightforward matter, but lacking other plans, we ended up wandering the aisles, amusing ourselves with what could be found. Passing through the small appliance section, Patrick and I pointed at almost every single item and gushed about how we should get one for our house. We all speculated on what kind of household would require a 64 oz. bottle of stain remover. And of course, we carried out an advanced critique on the packaging design of a line of 'upscale' (can that word be used to describe anything at Target?) home products. It wasn't until we were checking out and noted how short the waiting lines were that it hit us that we had just spent an hour or so at Target on a Friday night.

On the way back, we were just two blocks from campus when Patrick mentioned that he wanted Mexican food. As it turned out, all three of us had at some point that day had cravings for the same. That clinched it: we had to go get some. Not just anywhere, and certainly not the salsaria up the street. That would have been far too logical. Oh no, we had to go to Uptown to hunt down a place that Patrick had been to months ago. This was made all the more rediculous by the fact that Patrick's Subaru is no longer fit for freeway driving, so we had to make the cross-town trek by way of city streets, easily a 40 minute drive.

We finally found the place, and ordered our food. I made it my goal to spend as little as I could for as much food as possible- $1.60 bought me a roasted veggie taco, some corn chips, and a cup of water; I rounded it out with many many trips to the free salsa bar to fetch limes for my water and to suck on, and fresh chunky tomato-y salsa for the chips. Altogether, very satisfying. While still at the Mexican place, we decided that the snack/meal should be continued at Sebastian Joe's, a local ice cream place comparable in tastiness to Ben and Jerry's. I continued to satisfy my craving for lime with some lime daiquari sorbet. The seating area was full, so we headed back to the car and took a roundabout tour of the neighborhood, and then headed back towards campus.

After returning, I had far-fetched plans of still actually doing some coding, but that was just not meant to be; I went to Patrick's and we chatted for awhile while he cleaned his room and tried to make an electronic music do-hicky he's been building function. We had a good conversation, talking in-depth about how we relate to others. Discussions like that always help me to clarify my understanding of myself, and this one was no different.

It's become pretty clear to me that I function something like this: I have a rich and complex 'inner life', with which I am often occupied and of which I am quite aware. Because I have this centered sense of self, I have no problem experimenting, chameleon-like, with 'outer personas'. With each of my various groups of friends, I reflect elements of each of their personalities blended with those of my own. That's probably part of the reason why I never settle down with just one group of close friends- I have to have outlets for all the aspects of my personality, and I also need enough space for my 'inner life' that I have a hard time tying myself to closely to one group of people.

Eventually, our conversation trickled, and we decided we'd best be off to bed- to be well rested for the next day of coding. Heh.

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Hearing: Minnesota Public Radio- first a jazz show, now back to classical.

Quote of the day: "What? No challah for Easter?" -a religiously confused bakery customer.