Last night I started to feel that familiar lonely tug of nostalgia and what-if, but before descending down in a grief-spiral of Leine’s and So You Think You Can Dance, I called Kari to come rescue me. We spent a few hours outside Ce Fiore, eating Italian fake ice cream (it’s actually really good), going over her ATL resume/application, and taking pictures. I’m experimenting with a roll of 35mm in my Holga (which shoots 120mm but can be taped and cajoled into different formats), but have no idea how it’s going to turn out, as the rolls of film I sent to Dwayne’s way back when have yet to arrive. After a lot of people watching and red ink, Kari and I headed over to ear-x-tacy (bought Mates of State and Cat Empire), and then were ready to call it a night. On the way back to the car, though, she saw some co-workers of hers, Ty and Seth. She’s got the hots for Ty, but can’t get a good feel on his level of has-the-hots-for-her. She all but dove into the the gutter to avoid passing them on the street, but I steered her decidedly towards them, and we launched immediately into “we don’t notice you, boys” engaging girl-discussion.

Playing casual, turns out we’d “bumped” into the guys on their way home from work. They’re researchers on the campaign side of Bruce Lunsford’s office—Kari works on the hipper side, Hart-Lunsford Pictures. They were all smiles and button down shirts, with handshakes like only fresh-out-of-DC recent graduates have. Ty all but tongue-kissed me on the street, actually clasping my hand in both of his, leaning in, and announcing his “great pleasure” in meeting me. He’s, like, 25. The boys—ahem, men— told us they were heading to Cumberland Brews, and Kari (gifted) asked how long they’d be there, casually suggesting maybe we’d stop by later on. We made a stop at Heine Bros to discuss strategy, while waiting the ten arduous minutes for my Let Love tea to brew. Finally, tea and foul-tasting ginger ale in hand, we made the trek to CumBrews (can’t tell you how much I love that we all call it that…) and met the guys inside. Karina and I ordered some drinks that accidentally ended up on the guys’ tab (whoops!) and for the next few hours I repeatedly and unsuccessfully tried to discern the legality of the two offices—Hart-Lunsford, and the Lunsford Campaign—working in the same office, presumably with some overlap in staff.

“So, if Karina made a photocopy for you, would that be illegal?” Ty reminded me that we don’t live in Communist Russia, and then went back to his furtive, under-table texting conversation that Kari and I later deduced was with “the girlfriend back home.” Damn. Although Ty appears to be taken—or at least is trying to give off unavailable vibes—and Seth is gay, we all had a pretty good time together. That the first “Seth” I’ve met, since Seth, happened to be gay was a small, silly gift and I’m sheepishly grateful for the easy transition into meeting-boys-named-Seth that it allowed. At one point in the conversation, they mentioned the conviction that campaigns should never turn away volunteers, and Ty told a cringing, horrific story about a blind woman stuffing blank pieces of paper into blank envelopes. All the same, they’re cute, smart, liberal boys, and they’re only in town until November.

They’ve worked together on a couple of different campaigns and moved to Louisville for the Lunsford campaign, with the express purpose of getting rid of that fuck-tard Mitch McConnell. It was fun chatting politics with the guys, and I was able to keep my head afloat in the conversation, dropping Feingold’s name and mentioning I went to Carleton and lived in Madison for awhile. Kari swears I’ve got game, but I don’t buy it, and chalked this one all up to my time at Carleton and conversations with Kate and Adam. Mention Paul Wellstone, and you’ve got any french-blue-shirted liberal misty-eyed and melted in the palm of your hand.