My Weekend with Superboy

One of my friends, who will remain nameless, decided to confront me this week with her worry over the fact that I allegedly "spend every weekend alone". When I casually argued that this is not true, she went on to inform me that no, it really is, and that I also "kind of hate people".

OK, for the record, I do not hate people. I like working with people, but the problem is that I spend all day, every day, interacting with people in person, on the phone, and over email, often at the same time. Because of that, I often need at least part of my weekend to just decompress, and exhale, and not have to talk to anyone. That way I'm all recharged by the time the weekend is over and I have to go work with people again. I tried to explain this to my friend, and got the response that "it's not healthy to do that."

"But it is! I'm an introvert!" I totally am. A number of reliable sources on Facebook said so.

"I don't think you are. I'm just telling you this because..." (insert weighty sigh here) "I'm worried about you. It's not good for you to be so alone."

"I'm not alone. You just think 'alone' means 'lonely', and I'm not lonely."

"I'm just really worried about you."

I kind of stewed over this all week. I understand the concern, but I also don't need an intervention. In the end, I decided that the best thing to do would be to not spend the weekend alone, so I looked around and decided to spend it with the first man I saw:



I spent my weekend with Superboy, and oh, what a time we had.

Our weekend together started with breakfast:



Superboy didn't really eat, but I enjoyed a delicious bowl of generic Kroger brand "Life" cereal. After that, I showered alone so that Superboy's paint wouldn't wash off, and then we headed out to pick up some groceries:



I didn't want my friend worrying that I spent the whole weekend locked up in my apartment with Superboy, though, so I decided to show him the town, starting with lunch:



It's hard to read the logo on the glass of Coke, but I had a nice late lunch at the S&W Grand, a nice historical restaurant downtown by the movie theatre. It was a cafeteria for many years, then closed in the 1980's. The building sat vacant and crumbling until being renovated in our new urban boom, and reopened last year as an upscale restaurant. This was my first time eating there, and it was delicious.

For a starter, we had homemade potato chips with blue cheese fondue:



and then I had the Italian four cheese pasta bake with Mornay sauce and parmesan crust:



I was so full that I didn't have dessert, and I certainly didn't get on the S&W's historic vintage scale:



Instead, we felt like walking around for a while and taking in the sights:





I even took Superboy past the graffiti boards on Wall Avenue:



to see if there was anything new painted:



Lunch out was just the prelude to the day's real excitement, though, which was roller derby. The last home bout I went to was the one at the World's Fair Park when the sprinklers exploded, so this was my first one at the Civic Coliseum even thought it was the second one there. I have to say, derby suddenly feels legit:



There are bleachers instead of folding chairs, a scoreboard that's not projected onto the wall from a laptop, and a huge flag:



that they spotlight during the National Anthem:



On the one hand, I like the changes, but on the other hand the team seems so far away now:



They still knock people down, though:



so it can't be all bad. We won both bouts, and had a great time watching:



We also saw a rather familiar halftime show:



Yes, Vinyl Michael Jackson and Lisa Turtle stopped by, and they're still dancing to "Thriller":



It did seem a lot better here than it did at the Smokie's game, but that might just be because they weren't dancing on grass this time.

After derby, we headed downtown to meet a few people at Patrick Sullivan's:



where someone who wasn't me (because I was driving) had a Red Stripe:



This morning I decided that the weekend still wasn't over, so Superboy and I headed to the university gardens:



and walked around for a while. I saw another one of those black butterflies that I saw last week, and was able to get closer this time:



I like the gardens because it's quiet if you go early in the morning and there aren't many people there, and it's pretty:









After that, Superboy and I decided to catch up on a little work at the office:



and then I decided that yeah, that was enough weekend for me and Superboy. My friend should be a lot less worried now that she knows I didn't spend the weekend alone, but instead spent it with an action figure.

There's totally no need to worry.