Graham's b-day party yesterday at Lee's Liquor Lounge. There was also an Oktoberfest event beforehand that I'd wanted to attend, but couldn't for reasons both elaborate and mundane. Instead I spent the first part of the night at home, watching Heroes with my brother. That DVD set = good times.

And it was good to have a few hours of relaxation in my tank before the night ahead.

I got quite lost on the way to Lee's: my Google Maps directions went something like "Exit on Lyndale, follow Lyndale N, turn on Lyndale S, get back on the exit, follow Hennepin, follow Lyndale..." and Graham at first would only tell me that it was "downtown, but... you know, not downtown."

Eventually, seeing that I wasn't going to give up and go over to his place, Graham went on his computer and directed me to Lee's over the phone.

Even though the party started "at eight," only Carly and her friend Meghan were there when I arrived at about 8:45 pm. I'd forgotten that most of the Hamlinites still use college math, although I'm still surprised that no one else showed up that early. Anyways, it was a pretty good time, hanging out with a relatively small group before the music started. We got to watch a guy get thrown out rather roughly.

(After drinking in St. Paul, Lee's is an experience. They don't take plastic and they don't have tap beer. This is indeed a liquor lounge.)

There were three musical acts, the first terrible and the second not bad at all. I got to talk to a fellow copy editor about her job at Harper Collins — I'm jealous, but I don't envy the marketing work so much as the impetus to get out there and take a chance in the big city. Whether by design or through sheer force of extroversion, Graham has a few really cool friends at any largish gathering of his.

Less interesting was the conversation about the morality of lying to the government that Graham once again sucked me into with a friend of his. I'm not sure if they realized this, but it was nearly identical to the one I'd had with this same friend of his last time the three of us hung out together. The same straw man representation of my beliefs (by Graham, to get us going), the same false dichotomies, and the same result: ten, fifteen minutes in which two people talk right past each other.

Frustrating. But more importantly: boring. When I'm buzzed, I'm not really interested in having to defend distorted versions of my beliefs in front of acquaintances. Or at least, not this particular stance, which Graham continues to bring up when he knows the audience is on his side. While I've become leery of arguments that have the potential to become excessively personal, I'd to love to debate any of my libertarian or grammatico-political positions.

But that annoyance, however familiar, was just a minor bump in the evening, which was all-in-all a pretty decent time.

The big wave of people — and the cake, courtesy of Amelia — arrived sometime before the final Danceband show at 11:30, which was about when I ducked out. The last of the group I'd been talking to all night had left by then, and also, I do live in freaking White Bear Lake.