Bark Twice if You're in Milwaukee

This weekend seemed to last forever. I feel like I have so much to say and that' s why I broke up this weekend into this post and the one previous. Seemed necessary.

Saturday Allison and I embarked on a journey to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to celebrate Kat's 24th birthday. This was after I worked from 9-noon, dropped off my brother's suit in his apartment, found time to pack and put myself together for the trip up north.

I was shocked to get creepy text messages from the Alex guy from IIT out of nowhere Friday night. I met him two weeks ago and clearly did not call him back after that initial encounter. I didn't know who it was so I made the mistake of responding in order to understand the mystery person's identity only to be shocked to discover it was him. He then got psycho on me and started calling me repeatedly and when I wouldn't answer, would text me demanding to know why I wouldn't answer, and please could I give him a call right now because he "needed to ask me something real quick." I half expected him to jump out of the phone and attack me. It didn't stop the next day when he started texting me apologizing for the ridiculousness the night previous. It also didn't stop later that night, either. I figured that ignoring it wouldn't help, so I handed off my cell to Allison and let her craft a particularly poignant response. Seems to have done the trick.

She and I fought the Edens and won, and ended up in Milwaukee some 2.5 hours after embarking on our journey, but only after one failed attempt at exiting to get food in Kenosha, and one rather successful one. We rolled up to Franklin Street and raided Joe's place. Kat, her boyfriend James, and Joe were already drinking and ready to go out. It was 6 p.m. Allison and I then locked ourselves in the bathroom and started getting ready. James' best friend, Alek, came over and joined us in our pre-drinking festival of fun. When I laid eyes on Alek I felt slightly speechless because the man is gorgeous. I did a quick mental assessment and decided that if he was transplanted into Chicago he would be someone I would most likely be quick to negatively judge based on his striking physical appearance and the egotistical and frat-boy ridiculousness that I would assume to come out of his mouth. But no, this guy was shy, and seemed to have a very good head on his shoulders. We shook hands and I held my gaze with those smoldering eyes and pretended not to notice his playful stare.

By 7:30 we rolled into the Buckhead Saloon across the street from where the Bucs were playing the Bulls. Wristbands were free, and having one entailed us to $1 drinks from 7:30-10 and shots were $3. Things quickly got messy from there. A few shotskis later (translation: a shotski equals a ski with four holders for shot glasses. Pour the magic juice in four glasses, line up 4 friends, and instant fun shot time (see below). We were loose and our hearts beat a little bit faster.


Liquid confidence started the conversation between Alek and I, which then lasted all night. No one in the bar existed except us as we discovered we were both bibliophiles, history geeks, and soccer fans. He asked me what my favorite book was and upon hearing it got extremely animated and told me that he loves that book too (usually people have never heard of it or read it, nor do they care) and he even knew that a sequel was coming out soon. Obviously we're pretty much in love, ok? Couple that with hand holding, cooing in each other's ears, and other such instances of adorableness and I was already halfway to the moon. Soon enough we hit the dance floor and things went from there. For someone who is labeled as extremely shy by all of his friends I was rather blown away at his dance floor confidence, and sense of ease with me. If I walked away for any reason I would return to him waiting there patiently by himself, bursting into a huge grin when he saw me while holding out his hand. After he kissed me for the first time I noticed that several female party goers were blatantly staring at me with intense looks of jealousy on their faces. Insert smug smile here.

I don't know if it was because I was distracted the entire time or what, but I didn't smoke a single cigarette at the bar. I was beyond impressed. This realization was coupled with Allison's serious comment to a table full of Milwaukee-ans: "Wait, there is an NBA team in Wisconsin?"

(Silence)..."You do realize that you can see the Bucs stadium through the front windows, right?"

"No really? The Bucs? I've never heard of them."

"Um, yeah, they're playing the Bulls right now. In there. Across the street."

"Oh! I thought that was an exhibition game or something...like practice. The Bucs are a real team? Really?"

It's a miracle we made it out of that city alive after comments like that.

Allison and I like to stop at random local places on our road trips and today on the way home we opted for the Mars Cheese Castle on 94 right before the border. Hung over or not, we were looking for adventure.

One loaf of fresh cheddar bread and one mild cheddar block of cheese shaped like a spotted cow later, we were back in the Civic and almost back to the city of Destiny.

This weekend made me realize that I really like Milwaukee. I've always held this negative attitude about it, and the name always made me associate it with having a bad taste in my mouth. The area I was in is trendy, hip, fun, and modern. Allison and I discussed how it would be really fun to move there. Although I'm not sure we could handle that, I'm not lying when I say I really thought about it. So Milwaukee, please accept my apology. I am sorry for always thinking of you as the dirty little sister of Chicago- the one who is not as fancy or cool. You are neat in your own right. Rock on Milwaukee. Next time I think I'm going to go up for the entire weekend. I want to lay on Joe's couch again and play guitar hero. Plus Milwaukee started me off on my love for The Office. I was also introduced to season 2 of The Office this afternoon and I couldn't stop laughing. Sooo funny.

So Milwaukee's alright. I felt like I was on vacation. Definitely going to do that again soon.