18 Friends in 36 hours

Having said all that, I can't remember what all the pastor's sermon was about. It had something to do with David, ten concubines, a general, and a guy's head being thrown over a wall. Sacrificing one to save a city? Something like that. Way too much went on after church that day for me to remember it now.

After church, we went to Panera for lunch. Fish, Michael, Liz, James, and Joel were there. I had awesome conversations with Michael about eye contact, Liz about greetings, and Joel about his trip to China. The food was amazing; the company was even better. I'd forgotten just how terribly I miss zany, geeky conversations with at least five subject changes a minute.

After lunch, we went to Barnes & Noble. We managed to spend about three hours just hanging out. Michael taught Liz and me some games he likes to play with people. For example, he'll be talking with someone, making sounds of understanding ("mm-hm," "yeah") where appropriate. Abruptly, he'll stop responding at all, only maintaining eye contact, and observe how long they'll keep talking, trying to get him to understand what clearly confused him and made him stop making sounds. It's a lot more fun to be Michael for that game.

Anyway, we eventually made our way to the in-store coffee shop. We played Twenty Questions using Joel's iPhone and just goofed off in general. I love hanging out with them. (Writing this makes me miss them something fierce.)

Mindful of how limited my time was, I had to bail on the group. I wanted pictures, though, and Michael offered to take one of Liz and me. To get us to smile, he tried telling us a joke. The joke started out pretty tame, but had an awful ending. Here's the first of the pictures; scroll through the next six to see the progression of the joke.