OK, I just sent this address to a bunch of people I know. I regretted it as soon as I hit send. This had a really good chance of making me look more foolish than is usual.

Hi, how are you? Glad you could make it.

I hope Chris calls before 5 and wants to go to the Penguin and eat dinner like he said he wanted to earlier in the day. A sentiment he retracted after he got his butt conforably in front of the tube and directed his eyeballs toward it. Penguin: good. Staying home watching rich ball players: bad.

The Penguin is a cool restaurant off Central Ave here in Charlotte. They have a very interesting afternoon drinking crowd that mills around in a corner talking loudly to each other while everyone else is eating and drinking. These people are professional drinkers. The real life Norms with their feet placed widely apart so they don't fall over and spill their drink. Not a person under thirty in the bunch. They look like the kind of people that populate all neighborhood bars. The question they ask themselves every Sunday afternoon is not" what am I going to do today" but "where am I going drinking today?"