I think everything is complete now.

Last night, after knowing Casey for one year, six months and two days, I was finally able to introduce her to Heather. With Heather and Bryan moreso than with anyone else, I get that carefree, it-doesn't-matter-what-I-have-to-do-tomorrow feeling and the night just flies by. It's like being back in college but without the depressing aftereffects of wishing you were back in college and then realizing you never will be again. With them, I'm perfectly happy to be where I am at that moment, because our friendships have held up through the years and the miles.

In the back room at The Ginger Man (which is related to three others around the country), I reached for my coat to pull out my cell phone in the event Heather needed to call me before she got there, and at that moment, Kerry said, "Is that Heather?"

Over where the back room opens to the back bar, Heather scanned the darkness and saw me. What turned it into an even better evening an hour later was the arrival of Alan, who had gotten off work early enough to join us, his 7:30 a.m. call time today be damned. As I handed him the beer menu, Heather turned to me and said, "He's not a beer man."

I stared at her, trying to comprehend.

"I know! I know," she said, with a soft shake of her head.

"It's like Casey not liking football!" I said.

Later, I tried to tell a story about that involving Bryan, but since I apparently hadn't told Kerry or Heather yet that Bryan is gay, that sidetracked us a bit. I had to backtrack and recount that story.

But what I meant to say was how, back in college, Bryan and I would joke about one day owning a house on Cape Cod and spending vacations there with our respective families, or of spending weekends biking while our wives shopped.

When Bryan came out and introduced Jim, he said those plans we'd made in college wouldn't necessarily have to be scrapped.

"Jim doesn't even know how to ride a bike," Bryan told me.

"How can you stand for that?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said.

"Well, you and I can go biking, and Casey and Jim can have dinner ready for us when we get back!"

"Great idea. Jim loves to cook."

So, to recap: Casey doesn't like football, Jim doesn't like outdoor activity, and Alan doesn't like beer.

But it didn't prevent us last night from becoming one big, happy, beer- (or cider-) drinking circle of friends talking in the dark back room of The Ginger Man.

If it was going to happen anywhere, it was going to happen in Texas.

A restaurant manager in Austin has created a 24-pound cheeseburger. I can hear Homer now: "Mmm ... 24-pound cheeseburger."

My sister, who owned most if not all of the books, was a bigger fan than I of the Berenstein Bears. But I'm still interested in seeing the exhibit at the Norman Rockwell Museum. I've always wanted to go to the Rockwell Museum anyway, so I think this exhibit of the illustrations from the books is a good enough reason to find an inn in the Berkshires and plan a weekend there this spring.

The problem with coming in early is that I get hungry earlier.

My stomach is saying, "It's about time you start thinking about heating up that tortellini in the fridge."

But my mind is like, "Eyes: Check the clock."

Then my eyes report back to my brain that it is merely 11:02 a.m., and my brain relays this on to my stomach.

"Fuck that," my stomach says, sending out operatives who take over my brain, which then commands my hands to reach for another Hershey's Kiss or two, unwrap them and pop them in my mouth.

"Take that!" my stomach says. "Chocolate at 11 a.m. Don't fuck with me."