Hanging out with Abbey

Abbey met me right as I got off the train, and the two of us made our way shortly thereafter to a local bar called the Cellar. As we opened the door, I heard the Ramones and figured we were walking in to a good place.

Abbey and I haven’t seen one another in about 10 years, and it was great to see her again. We talked a bit about me visiting for a few events… and when she told me about her party this weekend (one that had a Midsummer Night’s Dream as its theme), I decided to take her up on the invite.

Over some beers and scotch, we talked a lot about where we’ve been and what we’ve done since college. I got to hear a lot about the English Department at SIUC, and the graduate program in particular.

A bit later on, we were joined by a friend of hers (Chris I think was his name). And nearby, there was another Abby who was also part of the English Department (and who I’d meet, about 24 hours later). For a Friday night, the place was relatively laid back. It got pretty loud after a while, and a lot more people showed up… but all in all, really pretty slow for a Friday evening.

This was a shot I snuck, towards the end of the night. I had the camera flipped around, pointing behind our table and the flash turned off.

Along the stairwell.

I didn’t really see all that much graffiti around, but this was one instance. On my trip back out to the railroad station, I’d see another such tag scrawled along the side of a large electrical unit by a streetlight.

When there’s not much graffiti around, the few bits that exist really jump out at you.

Outside the cellar, after closing time. Al (who joined us towards the end of the night) and Abbey indulge my drunken photo-taking.

Afterwards, Abbey and I went back to her place and hung out in the backyard for a good while. We caught up some more and reminisced a lot about Bloomington, as well as our time working at the Indiana University Library.

Relationships, jobs, school, we talked about a lot, sitting out in the dark of her backyard. It was pretty cool because while there was a little ambient light from inside, we were half-illuminated. I felt sort of disembodied, the two of us talking about ourselves in the present and occasionally dipping far into our pasts. All of this in a good way.