Last night, a bunch of us got together to drink Squirt, eat slabs of vegetable-cheese-melt matter, down organic lemon buttercream jam swirls, and watch Mick the sprightly, knightly, manly kerry blue terrier take home top-dog honors in Westminster Kennel Club's "Best in Show" competition.

It was much better than last year's "mimosas and samosas" event, and not just because a ridiculous toy poodle won the 2002 title. Last time I went all out, inviting tons of people, making decorations out of cut-out pictures of doggies, buying special bowls from Old Navy that when pushed together formed the complete shape of a bone (originally marketed as food-and-water dishes for dogs, but whatever) and then filling them with gingerbread cookies, also in the shape of bones. Et cetera! So I was already prepped for a fall, because unless a party is AWESOME, and not that many Tuesday-night parties are, pouring that much effort into an event puts too much pressure on your guests, and maybe makes them feel just a touch sorry for you? Plus it wasn't really clear if it was a cocktail party or a "watch the TV" party, so everyone kind of did half and half. There wasn't enough seating room, so people stood or perched like they would at a boozy event, but they weren't chatting and making merry like they would over cocktails out of some strange sort of reverence for the television, and that cast slightly uncomfortable quiet over everything. Sexy!

But this year was a totally last-minute thing so I only had a couple hours to do my usual "company is coming!" panic wind-sprint clean and then fling together some food (Liz brought fancy walnut and olive breads, plus some individually wrapped treats from her bakery, Sunny brought beer, and Leila brought the Squirt). Plus only seven or so people came over, so there was plenty of ass-room and everyone seemed to feel plenty comfortable talking, yelling, or awwwing at the screen. And a good time was had by all. Bark at the moon!

In other news: More layoffs last week, another 25-percent hack. Once again I was spared (yeah, I don't know why either), but even so, it was a stressful, unproductive week. Between the pre-D-day gossiping and the post D-day scramble to discover whether the person I've always relied upon to do X is still here, or worse the sinking suspicion that now X is my job, it's next to impossible to get any work done. Gross.

Also, school started, and I'm taking a Directed Writing class, which means that every three weeks, I meet one-on-one with my favorite teacher of all time and we discuss whatever I'm working on in gory detail. Our first meeting is tomorrow and we're going over the piece I handed in last week, a 20-page story ... well, twenty Courier pages -- it was only sixteen in Times New Roman. How is it that I'm 32, in grad school, and still fudging around with font sizes and margins? So pathetic. Yay!

(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)

(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)