The birthday girl busts a move.

Sjanneke seems to know every African international student at OU. Last night was the birthday party of her friend, Joann, who moved here from Uganda for graduate school this summer. The birthday girl made a huge spread of Ugandan food for her guests, and set aside a special plate for us because she knew we'd be late. A party packed with perfect strangers has never been less awkward, all night people just approached me with right hands extended and big white half-moon smiles.

Sjan and I danced to thumping and wailing Afropop all night. Best party I've been to in years.

24 Hour Party Penguin.

"And so she said unto the people, Black Sabbath is just ripping off Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin is just ripping off T.Rex, T.Rex is just ripping off Donovan." -the Gospel According to Ana

Tonight I was invited to watch the Office at the apartment of a girl in my cohort. I like the dissonance between Kip's PTA president looks and her sharp, subversive wit. So, for those of you keeping score at home, Athens friend count: 2.

My evening ended in an impromptu yet cutthroat game of Pretty, Pretty Princess at Sjanneke's. In a Gollum-like lust for The Crown, we accidentally managed to forgo any sort of strategy in favor of maniacally usurping eachother. It sort of sickened us when we realized how twisted the game is. For example, the winner is encouraged to admire herself in the bejeweled mirror as the most "pretty,pretty" of all. So that children's board game is a sociology dissertation waiting to happen.

PBR from the future.

B and his friend Crys celebrated B's new tattoo and payday (freaking payday!) by getting me very drunk before 9 pm. They showed me another comfortable dive bar in Athens besides Tony's. Who wants to drink someplace where your shoes don't stick to the floor?

I guess a couple weeks ago they replaced the splintering, hardly-doing-its-one-job-of-being-a-horizontal-plane bar with this acrylic, illuminated number. So now I know what it's like to get bombed on a spaceship.

Brenda and Lara had their bon voyage party today. They're spending a school year teaching in Spain and France, respectively. The ghost of Hurricane Ike was an uninvited guest, causing tall backyard maples to genuflect and leaving most of Columbus without power. Being at a party during a power outage was a relief, in a way. You couldn't see anyone's face and it was completely acceptable to just stand alone, watching the sky. We took this photo with the aid of flashlights.

I've felt the impact of moving overseas (albeit only for a summer) and I'm still rattled from this regional move. It's not a cinch. They're gonna pull it off with grace, though.

Here is Ana, being socially magnificent.

About what I said about reining in this kind of behavior..

Man, after two teetotaling weeks in Athens, I'm a cheap date.