Charlie's birthday gathering culled old/new/close/distant friends from all over.

I was glad to give him my birthday well-wishings, but goddamn if it wasn't unbearably smoky in that house. I used to hang out in smoke-filled bars, diners, venues, houses without even realizing it except for the reminder of stale smoke in my hair and jeans the next day. Since Ohio enacted its smoking ban in early 2005, something I voted against but privately hoped would pass, I am rarely exposed to indoor tobacco smoke except for the occasional house party.

And now I can't stand in a small enclosed space while my beautiful friends smoke like fishes without my eyes burning, my throat getting raw, and my head starting to spin. The latter may just be the booze though.

O'Reilly's. There's no way to say this without sounding like a snot, but I am sort of bummed that all the ipsters-hay found out about this cozy, neighborhood bar.

After we left, I got face-down on the floor at Erin's house and she aligned my stubborn old spine with her tiny but powerful hands. Is there a greater sound than the sound of a back cracking?

Back at the farm.

Kate and I became friends when we were hired at the Restaurant at the same time and went through training together. During our last training shift, she waited on a man that we dubbed, uncreatively, Creepy Guy (if only we knew how many creepy guys we would come to encounter..). Exerting no responses save for neanderthal grunts during the meal, as she dropped off the check he suddenly jolted to life with an unctuous smile and asked for her number. Like the other wackjob regulars that showed their face several times a week at the restaurant, Creepy Guy would enter the cast of irritating, imposing characters in my Columbus life. One time he hit on me at Target while I was shopping. With my mom.

So it makes sense that Creepy Guy would show up just a few minutes into my first shift back, chomping on a stupid toothpick, smirking his stupid smirk. As I rang up his carryout order he mentioned that he hasn't seen me around in a while. And because I often forget that I'm under no obligation to run my mouth at all times, I geared up for the dialogue about how I moved, blah blah, I'm back temporarily.

But I paused. And just offered a dismissive, "yeah".

Ana and I made dinner at Kurt's tonight.

Besides being a good guy, Kurt served in the army in Iraq, spent a year in Washington state mastering the craft of wooden boatbuilding, and is leaving in a few months to study agriculture in Africa through the Peace Corps.

I suggest he list these things on his resume under the heading, "Pantydropping".

I found a disposable camera among the precariously stacked mountain of things on Nick's desk. Since he's not much of the picture-taking type, and I'm very much of the picture-taking type, I was sure it was mine. I carried it carefully in my purse for a few days, so that the next time I passed by the camera store I could get it processed. It seemed so delicate, some lost weekend wedged between 2006 and 2007, a forgotten party spent laying across a couch in a pile of people, some throwaway shots of my dog before she died in June. These quick moments had long passed, and now were just light on gelatin. They hardly existed at all.

Unfortunately, the camera that very well could have been mine belonged to Nick's ex-girlfriend. I flipped through the photos of beach vacations, uninspiring costume parties, smiling strangers; these memories were not mine. Feelings of foolishness, disappointment, and jealousy settled in my gut as nausea. But the last picture on the roll was vintage Nick, smiling with his whole face, and that made it worth paying for someone else's film.

I went on a visiting-friends-at-work tour of Columbus today. I have some literate, pretty lady friends. Priterate. Literetty.

I shake 'em down for handouts. Free shit tastes better.

Tin Armor show at Chop Chop.

Is it ever possible to talk frankly about your friend's/boyfriend's/sister's band without sounding clouded by the cataract of your own squishy fondness for them?

New songs sound great, guys. I'd say that even if I hated your guts.