I still smell like a beer

So last week I scored two tickets to see the Dropkick Murphys on St Patrick's Day at the Paradise in Boston. Needless to say, I've been buzzing with excitement since last week. I surprised Ken with them, all he knew was that we were going Somewhere on Monday night and we would be out late. He did figure it out yesterday morning, but that was okay, because that way he got a full day of the Excitement Buzzing as well.

The show was really amazing. A bit rowdy, since we found ourselves in the dead CENTER of the little mosh pit that started out of nowhere when the DKs came on. I have fun in that situation, it's fun to be kinda thrown around a bit, and to keep your balance and shove people back, but when I looked up at my very quiet tempered boyfriend to see if he was having as good of a time as I, he looked positively ALARMED. I looked in front of me again and realized that it had changed from a fun little bit of moshing to an all-out testosterone infused, beer-and-aggression fueled, sweaty man-fest in about the blink of an eye, so we moved to the back. I still got knocked into several times, but about half way into the show I realized that if I just kept my fists ready at waist level, if some stupid boy knocked into me I'd have the perfect opportunity to do something I've always wanted to do but have never had the opportunity or guts: randomly throw punches without any recourse to speak of, since my punch would simply be an anonymous one of many.

:D

So the Dropkick's were way cooler than I ever thought they'd be. So much fun! I find that one of the better feelings in life is knowing a song well enough to punch your fist in the air and scream "OI! OI! OI!" at all the exactly right moments. It fosters a warm sense of camaraderie, much like when you've crashed your plane into some snowy, mountain-top tundra and you band together with your fellow passengers to kill and eat the most annoying one of the bunch for survival.

I've also realized how incredibly OLD I've become. We left and instead of talking about how KICK-ASS the show was and how PUMPED we are and LET'S GO GET MORE BEER AND TEAR UP THE TOWN! It was all "Oh my goodness I thought those boys were going to hurt themselves!" and "man is my back sore" and "what?! speak up! I can't hear you for all the ringing in my ears!" Not to mention a few choruses of "It is NOT 11:30! Oh, my god, it is WAY past our bedtime!"

Yeah. So there you have it, my old-lady-already slash young-kid-still experience of last night.

Meanwhile, some friends of mine really came through on the Belated Birthday Present front last Friday night. I got 2 kickass books and the current issue of Interweave Knits Magazine. One of the books is about opening a specialty business, something to read when I'm getting closer to opening a yarn shop. Still a dream for me.

The other, however, is a REALLY amazing book on fiber dyeing.



I also received this in the mail last night, which I purchased off of Amazon for like $6.



Also a really great book.

I plan to bring both to SnB tomorrow night, should anyone want to look them over, and maybe plan a dyeing day sometime soon.

On the sticks: I have one and a half Embossed Leaves socks completed, knit in the Trekking XXL I scored in our Secret Santa Swap. I had actually put it down for several months while I did other things, and I picked it up to transfer the stitches to another needle, so I could use the needle it was on to start the Monkeys I'm planning on with the recently-deflowered Socktopus, however when I picked up the Embossed Leaves I found I couldn't put it down, so I decided to finish them. I finished that sock that night and am now halfway through the second, so hopefully by this weekend I'll have a new pair of socks, and be started on my second pair of Monkeys.

Aaaaaaand that's it.