I swear they all coordinate.

I wasn't feeling good so I came home today and cheered myself up by making a flyer for my birthday party. This always cheers me up. This year is my "golden" birthday, meaning I'm turning 28 on the 28th. Although the party starts at nine, my nearest and dearest are invited to start early with me with a fried chicken dinner at 7:30 p.m. If you're reading this, you're invited to join me for a long night by coating our livers with a protective cushion of grease!

When I was done with the party flyer, I went to the bathroom to smoke a cigarette and call Love Affair back. I like to make hasty decisions after a long period of indecision. As soon as it doesn't seem like a big deal anymore, I can follow through on these stupid things that really aren't big deals. I was also feeling sad because I left school without my orchestrated run-in with PhD crush, so I needed to inject some kind of imaginary romance into the day.

It was a good conversation, one where I managed not to feel sad, bad, or even lusty. My only trigger was wanting to ask him how things were with his Ex, but refraining.

Then I told him that I'd sent him an invite to my Golden Birthday. To my surprise, he said he could probably come, because he'd planned on coming to New York that week anyhow. In the following three seconds it took me to say "Wow...that'll be so great!" I thought to myself: Yaay! No Shit? Love Affair? Here? Yaay! Wait--my head will explode in the presence of My Friend, Love Affair, and PhD crush (whom I haven't even invited). But I'm sure he'll be visiting his Ex. I wonder if he'll bring her. That'll probably be better. Then we can transition into the Friend Zone. But I still want to sleep with him. God I hate being in the same room with a guy I've slept with and still want to sleep with, and his new girlfriend. Grr. This cycle actually repeated itself in my head three full times in during my response to him.

To be fair, I did drag out the "Wow..." part.

I thought of this one night that I was at the Uptown in San Francisco (a fancy name for a really divey bar), when Karim helpfully pointed out that three of the last boys I loved (both physically and emotionally) were all kind of playing pool together. Love Affair was one of them. It made me happy more than confused. I knew I was leaving San Francisco shortly, and I felt like I would be leaving behind a legacy of love, although that night I slept alone.

Is Love Affair really going to be here for my birthday? I have to get to the place where I don't care again, to make everything okay. I don't know how I'm going to do that, but I wish it would magically happen that I would fall into a serious New Affair with PhD crush. That's the only way I know how to get over someone, is to fall in love with someone else.