Talk of visiting Philadelphia continues amongst my friends. If you know anything about the city, email me.

Last night was a blast. The view from Coach Insignia at the top of the RenCen was great. I tried to take EB there for dinner last Christmas but it wasn’t open yet. I’d planned on going this Christmas. I’ll have to save it for someone else now I guess. Anyway, the event was nice and not nearly as boring as last year’s. Great food, great company, a great view. I couldn’t have asked for a nicer night spent at an event for work.

There’s drama within my group of friends now though, as this whole deal with Peanut and wife-to-be heats up. wife-to-be tends to be a bit on the manipulative side and seems to think she’s in a battle with his friends to control him. So myself, Beaker, Cannons and Do have had protracted discussions about the way we see wife-to-be treating him and the rest of us, especially while she’s drinking. If you boil down our conversations, essentially what we are saying is that we want Peanut to be happy and we want him to be happy with wife-to-be. We just want her to treat him better, whether that means him learning to stick up for himself, her changing her behavior, or a combination of both of those things.

The problem is, wife-to-be got wind of our concerns and tricked Cannons into spilling everything. Wife-to-be talked to Cannons under the guise of wanting to fix everything with her and Peanut’s friends. Cannons told wife-to-be everything, how we’re worried about her drinking, how we don’t like to be around her when she drinks, how we worry about Peanut, etc.

I told Cannons that night that wife-to-be wanted to get all that out in the open so she could manipulate it and turn Peanut against us. She doesn’t like Cannons, that much is established. She doesn’t think too highly of the rest of us either. After talking with Cannons, she called me and apologized. She also said she needs my help and the help of everyone else, to change her behavior. These were completely unsolicited thoughts on her part. I told her that I accept her apology and will do my best to help. After all, I really want my friend to be happy, I told her.

So last night I called Peanut. He hadn’t been feeling well lately and I wanted to see how he was doing. He told me he’d prefer not talk to me, as he’s pissed. Anything he has to say to me he’ll say to my face Friday at Johnny K’s poker tournament. He told Do the same thing. Turns out, wife-to-be took everything Cannons said, spun it around and told Peanut we all hated her and wanted them to break up.

The drama is ridiculous. I couldn’t care less what happens between the two of them. I just feel bad because I see how Peanut gets upset when wife-to-be gets drunk and treats him like shit. I’m sure he’ll have a word or two for me Friday, but I’m so done with drama that I’ll be loathe to hear it. Let him figure it out for himself, that if the issues in their relationship aren’t solved jiffy quick, he’s in for a very long life.

I’ve been thinking all day, somebody called me last night while I was on the phone with Rojo Grande. Nothing showed up on the caller ID, but the call waiting was beeping. I didn’t answer it, and the caller never left a voicemail. Was it you? If so, call me tonight or drop me a line.

So my birthday is this weekend. I think I mentioned before that the celebration will be slightly lower-key than last year. Last year was a very, very bad time. I have no interest in repeating that. The one thing that will make that vow a difficult one to live up to is the fact that generally, EB goes out of her way to make my birthday special. I’m without her this year, and that continues to be a difficult thing to deal with. Cute interns and poker tournaments aren’t enough to make me forget.

That said, I’m job shopping. I actually talked to the Talented Mr. Ripley today for the first time in forever. We actually caught up, had some laughs and then he forwarded me links to all kinds of job boards for the Washington D.C. area. I fell in love with that city a couple years ago when EB and I visited. Add that to the fact that I’m itching for a change and the myriad of jobs out there looks like a smorgasbord. I can’t wait to get home so I can start putting resumes and clips together. I need to add the MPA awards from my last job to my resume.