First in high school and then in college, I was surrounded by the best thing in the whole world: girls. Lots and lots of girls. Smart girls. Pretty girls. Funny girls (though few and far between). Girls so kind you were afraid to talk to them because you knew your intentions weren't entirely honorable. Girls so beautiful they could launch a thousand ships. Soon, so very soon, this will no longer be the case, as I'm leaving this college town for the larger world. Loneliness and isolation are to be my only companions. I cannot and will not "pick up women" in bars, and I hate the idea of idiotic "office romance." I've spectacularly failed to interest girls in the target rich environment of my youth, and now I enter the wastelend that is adulthood. Sweet fancy Moses, I'm going to be a virgin at thirty.

On the plus side, tonight I'm going to see The Mighty Mighty Bosstones alone. Sure, it sucks to go to a show by yourself, but David has a class or something that he just can't miss, and I'm glad that Neutral Man has a class and The Plate hasn't called me (as a consequence, I haven't called him). As for Guy Zach Nie! or K. Steeze, who's back in town for the annual December BTW madness, I just didn't think to ask them in time. But it's okay, since nobody else loves the Bosstones like I do, and I can feel all 8 Mile driving into Detroit alone. (It should be noted that I grew up in the 313. Yes, this is just a technicality and Grand Blanc has not been part of the 313 area code for several years, but I can truthfully say that I grew up in the 313 and let people take away from that what they will.)

Neutral Man is a buddy of mine, but not my friend. I realized this last week, when I tried to talk to him. He was once again trying to reassure himself that breaking up with Miss Missy was the right thing to do. I've patiently listened to this same speech for months now. I tried to tell him how I was feeling, more to vent than seek his counsel, but he blew me off and went back into the same tired conversational loop about Missy. So, screw him. Also, Bachelorette No. 3 is becoming a real drag. Yes, she has genuine problems, but why can't she bitch about them to this new boyfriend she's so excited about? Once, just once, I'd like to have a conversation with her that didn't degenerate into what's gone wrong in her life that particular day. I'm a bad person because I'm sick of listening to Neutral Man and Bachelorette No. 3's problems, but I'm a good person because I listened to her whine for an hour and a half last night and I keep telling him he did the right thing with Missy (he did) and that he'll be fine once he's back on the dating scene (after all, he's good looking and inoffensively bland, just what girls say they like). As Major Kira once said (yes, I'm quoting Star Trek, so fuck you), "You can't judge a person by what they think. Or even by what they say. You can only judge a person by what they do." I hate listenig to them whine, but yet I do listen and try to help. Score one for me on the side of the angels.

Thanksgiving was exquisite. My mom finally figured out how to keep the turkey moist, thereby overcoming the only weakness in an otherwise divine Thanksgiving dinner. I ate so much I wanted to puke. And then I had pie. I did the same thing with leftovers Friday night, and Saturday I had way too much lasagna. I didn't get to see Skeeter or the high school gang at Little Joe's, though, dammit. I did get to play Risk until 4:30 in the morning with the BTW gang, though.

Three Coincidences Surrounding Lindsay
a) Friday at Conor O'Neill's, she told me about my new name, Wedding Mike. This is how her Berkeley friends know me, because we're going together to Emma's wedding. Her old boyfriend, Marrying Mike (I gave him that name when she said that if he hadn't dumped her she would have married him), is now known as Hockey Mike (since he works in the front office of the Carolina Hurricanes) to avoid confusion with me as Wedding Mike.

b) The feature "10 Things You Don't know About Women" from the most recent issue of Esquire, written by Cheryl Hines, an actor on Curb Your Enthusiasm: "8. More often than not, we use an adjective before your name when we talk to our friends about you, as in Squishy Steve, Flaccid Frank, Freakshow Charlie, or Perfect Paul. Makes you wonder, huh?"

c) Lindsay loves Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Wedding Mike, signing off.