It's late on a Friday afternoon.

So how are you?

It's been a full week. Monday I wrote query letters for publishers - they're going out tomorrow. Hopefully.

Wednesday we went to see Chicago, the musical. Do you underline musicals? Anyway...it was fun - very funny, very sexy. Before the show me and Sonya and Jen and James went to the Pier. The Premier Club (the twentysomething Orpheum subscriber's group) was having a feed. Free food, cash bar - how can you beat it? Sonya and Kathy have connections in this club, so we got our tickets through them. And an invitation to their soiree. We met Ward and Kathy there and then headed over to the theatre.

Everyone looked very nice. Sonya had on a rose-patterned skirt of Jen's and her Jane Russell-esque platforms. Jen looked like a cross between Lisa Loeb and Monica Lewinsky (her words, not mine). Ward and Kathy looked sickeningly fit. I told them I had started running - they seemed very proud. James and I looked like stockbrokers. We didn't look like particularly trustworthy stockbrokers, though. We looked like the kind of stockbrokers who would give you a really sweet deal if you paid for your shares in the Brazilian bank with cash.

Sonya once told me that when I'm wearing a suit and tie and when I loosen the tie and unbutton my collar I look like a politician. After the show we went to Cafe Expresso in the Peabody for ridiculously large desserts. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror - tie loose, collar undone - and I have to amend Sonya's earlier statement. I look like a losing politician when I'm dressed like that. I could never go in to politics...I don't look good in the clothes.

It was a fun night, though...we were all being such young professionals. James says Sonya and I are yuppies, but I'm not sure that he's right. Yuppies, I think, drive better cars than Sonya and I. They lounge about in khakis, too. And I think they listen to Kenny G. and Mariah Carey. Sonya and I don't have the details down.

Got two books yesterday...The Vampire Armand and Lady Cottinton's Book of Pressed Fairies. The vampire book is Anne Rice's latest - it should be a fun read. The pressed fairy book, though...see, the premise is that this little girl would catch fairies in her little book and then write about them. So the book is full of handwritten journal entries and horribly smashed fairies. It's wonderful.

Oh, yeah...Me and Sonya and Kathy had lunch at the Pancho's downtown yesterday. First, when we told the hostess how many were in our party she made the "follow me" gesture...and then she took off. We lost her immediately. If she hadn't come back through we would have never found her.

Then my menu smelled like urine. I kid you not - it was wet when I opened it but I didn't think much of it 'til the sick-sour smell hit me. I threw it in the corner.

"Why'd you do that?" Kathy asked.

"'Cause it smelled like pee."

"So you threw it in the corner?" Sonya raised her eyebrows.

"Yes," I told her, "it smelled like urine."

It turned out okay, though, 'cause the waitress had left like six menus on our table. I don't know why.

Then the little man who brought us our drinks and chip and dip would just hold out his tray to us. We looked at him for about five minutes before we figured out that we were supposed to take the food from the tray ourselves.

Pancho's needs a little work in the customer service department.

Speaking of going to lunch, Sonya and I went to the Arcade today. Great food, horrible service. Colorful clientele, too. They have a really neat mix of businesspeople and freaks at lunch. The mix skews much harder to freaks at night. The employees are kind of weird, too.

After observing the workers today, Sonya said, "you know, you have to love a place where the waiters smoke."

Our waitress was cute, too. She had a husky late-night DJ voice, dyed-black Bettie Page hair and lots of servant-o'-Satan jewelry. She was precious.

And the service wasn't actually that bad today.

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