In between the cartoon and the feature presentation, Mark said something to Steve about circles, and Steve asked who'd told him about his circles. Mark pointed at me. After a pause, I said, "I only told him you'd been around." And I was promptly chased out of the room. Steve and I came in the back and ran around the other side. I got up on the desks, where he couldn't follow with his injured leg. He caught up anyway and tagged me. I patted him on the head.

After The Rutles had started, my brother came in. I went back to him and chatted a little, quietly. Then I returned to my seat up front. The mockumentary was just as wry and satirical as I'd remembered it. It was only about the third time I'd seen it, and I was still noticing new details, like the fact that Lorne Michaels plays the guy who sells Leggy Mountbatten tacky Rutles paraphernalia.

Rob Lindsay had a confession for us. He told us that a friend of his is in the Young Republicans and that they had told him about the Monty Python Society rushing in and tearing down their flyers. He'd arranged for them to do the same to us this meeting, but he says that when he went over tonight and tried to get them organized they'd said, "No, that would be rude and offensive."

"What!" I cried. "And voting Republican isn't?!?"

They did make a pathetic attempt to get our goat — a few of them came by during The Rutles and asked if this was the Young Republicans meeting. When we said it wasn't, they asked if it was the Socialists meeting. Mark spoke up, "No, we're centrists." They had no reply to that, so they left. I think that if we hadn't been engrossed in the movie, we would have had more of a reaction towards them.

The attendance sheet for tonight asked what you wanted for Christmas, who you had leaped into recently, and whether you'd been naughty or nice. I said that I wanted "No more Quantum Leap jokes (just kidding)" and afterwards Joe pretended to take offense at my remark.

"The first skit I write that isn't a McLaughlin Group, and this is how you react."

I told him to take it easy; it was just a joke. If you're wondering what my other answers were, I said, "Rosie O'Donnell (no, that was last week)" and "Call the 1-900-Santa-Line and find out (nudge nudge)."

We didn't tear down the flyers from the Young Republicans meeting tonight. Doesn't really matter, though. They were gone by the time we got to it.

Our primal scream was a reference to the Ren and Stimpy show we'd just seen: "Maybe I should make another mistake! Maybe I should make TWO mistakes! Aaaaaaaaaaa!"

A few of us went down to the[College] Diner, then: Mark Sachs, my brother, Joe, Bernhard, Sarah, Linda Tripp, Carl [either Haicken or Congdon] and Neale. Andy, Mark and I sat at a table behind the others. We had a strange conversation ranging from American burial practice to Marxmas carols. That's when we hit on the idea of going Marxmas caroling. Mark wanted to do it as our Great Ides-of-October Mystery Event, and he suggested we do it in February. I like the idea, but I wanted to do it during finals week. Mark insisted that we'd never get it organized by then, so I consented to February.

After the Diner we all wandered aimlessly down College Ave., singing "The Twelve Days of Marxmas." We ended up on the corner near the McDonald's, and we must have hung out there for almost 20 minutes.