I find myself grateful for the lack of fireworks. The music's quiet enough to be muffled by conversation and the crackle of cooking meat, and while there are more pleasant smells in the world, I find I'm okay so long as I stay upwind of some of the more deodorant-challenged guests. It's not a bad way to spend an afternoon, though I find myself reminded of how isolated I've come to be from most of these people -- the only people here I have left, short of Ellen and Natalya. This time next year -- if there is a next year, for me -- I might just have a son or daughter on my hip, and there's not a person here I've told yet. Having had the minute details of my life plastered all over the papers at home, I've tried my hardest to avoid that here -- perhaps heading too far into the opposite direction, playing everything so close to the vest as to become a recluse.

I frown around a strawberry and debate making the rounds.