Still, you gotta love the guy. He's so vulnerable and sweet and smooth.

Like, after about 30 minutes of him asking about my job and the wedding and the holidays and such, he digs right in (because there's always a bonified reason he calls, a main objective, never just a friendly hello):

"So, you know that freelance work you were going to do for [his cutesy girl Jeweler Friend, who he sucks up to in the hope that he'll get cheap baubles]?"

Yes, of course I know that freelance work. You mean, the work I fretted over for months after I left my last job, wondering if I should call Jeweler Friend to see if she still wanted me to work for her, terrified that she wouldn't want to talk to me at all because I'd abandoned TT. Then I was hopelessly guilty because months had passed since I told her I'd deliver the goods. Then, deciding to put it behind me, I finally just tossed the file and decided not to think about it any more. That work?

"Yes."

"Well, JF won this major award [an award I know well, given my years in the jewelry biz] and she really needs that press release now. So you might want to give her a call."

Of course. Because TT wants a free trip to Tucson to go to the awards. Where he's going to be hobnobbing with the same crowd of people I fled when I left the industry three years ago.

Is this irony? Perhaps at least the Alanis Morrissette brand of irony? Because the coworkers I ran screaming from in 2000 and the coworker I ran screaming from in 2002, who have absolutely no reason to be at all affiliated with one another, are going to be attending the same awards dinner next month?

My life is all about full-circle. It happens again and again.

Anyway, TT and I are having dinner on Thursday. [20 bucks says he'll cancel at the last minute.] And I'm roped into doing freelance work for a client I shafted four months ago.

Drag.