Spilling Ink: Day 2 (Or, How much fun was Dillo Day? TOO Fun!)

Alright, here is the obligatory post on Dillo Day. For those of you who aren't NU students, let me explain:

Dillo day is an annual celebration of almost-summer. The university always intends for it to be a simple day of fun in the sun, with about four free concerts (two big names, two random bands). Vendors, free food, kites, paint, the lake. In a word, perfection. Simple, innocent, perfection.

It never turns out that way though, does it? Because we the students do our very best to turn Dillo Day into Woodstock (part 2). Alcohol, hookah, random make out sessions (and who knows what else), and inevitable nudity on someone's part (maybe I'm exaggerating a teensy bit, but still). Innocent or no, Dillo Day is NU's only reparation for the extra two or three weeks of school we have to put up with.

I've attended three of these wondrous events so far, and this year's was the best. By far. Why? Oh, there were a ton of reasons, but the main one was REGINA SPEKTOR.

Can I repeat that?

REGINA SPEKTOR CAME TO NORTHWESTERN!! YES.

Naturally, my day started off on a high point because of that. Second row, baby. Then I hung out with some of my writerly friends. Danced around a bit, got sunburn, listened to Guster, got more sunburn, watched kites in the air, got really really sunburned, and then painted my arm red, blue, pink, and green. Why? I have no idea. It seemed like a good idea at the time though. I laid on the rocks by the lake for a while, then went to my friend's house for a few drinks and more than a few laughs. We stopped at Hop Haus for dinner, watched a bit of the Hawks game (ok, they watched... I pretended to understand hockey for .5 seconds), then went back to the Dillo Day field to see Nelly.

Nelly was... not Regina Spektor. He played three songs that I knew, and people pushed me around. But that's ok, because the moon was red and there were fireworks afterwards. Fireworks make almost everything acceptable. For real.

So that's how my Dillo Day went. Pretty cool, huh? The only downside: because of the immense sunburn (don't look at me like that, I put sunblock on like twice! SPF 50!), I've been recovering for the past three days, and I'm almost out of Aloe Vera (which I slather on like it ain't no thang). But for Regina Spektor? Second Row? Totally worth it. Check the pix. Oh. And this vid (not her best music video, but one of my favorite songs):