February 5th, 2004.
Last night, the world had conspired against us. Last minute things were lost, Magic games were lost, so I had to play again, and devillishly slippery ice had encroached upon the surface of the world...

"Heather - watch out for the ice at the bottom of the drive- oh."

And so I was discouraged and disheartened and made a half-assed effort to tell Heather we should wait another day. Rather than race all the way to Philadelphia and probably miss sign-up for the open mic we wanted to hit, the slacker in me whispered that we should wait around Maryland for another night.

Thank God Heather slapped me down on that one.

It's what I need in a partner - when the going gets tough, I often get a little timid and whimpery, and I need the partner who's going to say "nope - we're DOING it"... just as I do for Heather on her bad days. So far it's worked, and we've steadily been one another's inspiration.

Anywho - on to Philadelphia. T'was an easy drive. We were waylaid by traffic just out of Baltimore, and again by a truckfire somewhere in Delaware, but we made it into Manayunk at 10.01pm for a 10pm sign-up, and we got a decent slot.

The Dawson Street Pub - from the moment I saw it, I Loved it. Just from the fact that there were beautiful cars parked around it - with tribal painted hoods and exotic makes. Still decorated for Christmas, it was incredibly inviting, and the interior was packed.

The Dawson Pub caused Manayunk to climb an extra rung on my "places I'd like to Live" ladder.

The music was really great, and - once a particularly noisy table finally left (much