What I've discovered over the years during which we've been visiting Kendrick's family in Ohio is that an eight-hour car ride followed by several days of sitting by fireplaces eating things and drinking things presents you with an excellent opportunity to wear the clothing equivalent of pajamas: your very favoritest, most comfortable stuff. Over and over again, if you want to, because no one's keeping tabs on whether you changed out of the shirt you were wearing yesterday (or maybe just slept in it and wore it again, ssh).

In other words: some serious vacation-wear.

And in my world, serious vacation-wear means those same distressed jeans that are apparently glued to my person these days, that same plaid shirt that you've been seeing me wear for a good five years now (talk about a good buy; I think it was like twelve bucks at H&M), and duck boots. Because duck boots are THE BEST (and these are extra-the best, because they're also affordable and ridiculous-comfortable).

Friday night was epic and meandering. And so for this post, I shall meander epically. To be thematic, you know.

OK, so whenever Francesca is in town I move earth and sea in order to find a way to hang out with her for real - not the way I usually hang out, which is by going somewhere for a drink and then panicking that it's SO LATE (meaning 7 P.M.), because I am old like a tortoise and exhausted. No, I mean hanging out like we used to: sitting in bars and talking for hours and laughing until we cry and then getting pizza afterwards because we've got nowhere else to be.

Friday night Kendrick and Indy stayed at home and I took Goldie into the city to hang with my mom so Francesca and I could go out like we haven't gone out in years. (Or…well, we went out like this in L.A. a couple of years ago, but I ended up clinging to the DJ booth like it was a life preserver because I was too tired to stand up anymore, and the night ended with the DJ actually telling me that I really needed to let go because I looked so weird, so this night was arguably more successful. Except I fell. In a gutter. We'll talk about that in a moment.)