My friend Tony was smoking a clove. We were at Jennie's Diner, a hole in the wall place that offered cheap food at low quality. I think I was the only person there not smoking. I sat with my finger around a pen and a pad of paper sticking to the not-quite-clean table. As I was trying to write a Rachael Lampa review, I didn't take the effort to light the cigarette currently between my fingers.

"Let me see that," Tony demanded suddenly. When I didn't respond, he snapped his fingers impatiently.

With a shrug, I handed over my pad, daring him to decipher my handwriting, citing frustrated teachers and professors everywhere who had at one point or another pleaded with me to just type everything, always.

He read it and exhaled. "Man, all of your reviews are effen stories. They're all sarcastic and crap. Why don't you try writing a serious review for once?"

I challenged his statement. "My last review was serious. Remember The Suburban Sound?"

"Yeah. And I also remember you gripping about how you'd rather have written some epic fantasy tale to go with it. You only wrote that one seriously because the band asked you to. Everything else you've done is an effin story. Remember that Mars Volta review? Or more recently your Slipknot sh--?"

I did, and felt that both of those reviews were my crowning achievements and told him so.

"Listen to this," Tony read a paragraph of the current review, "'From the ash burnt trees to the stone filled reservoir, the signs of war were all around. The cherry picked breeze seemed to be the only unaffected element of the landscape. Time was, indeed, cruel. And time would always be cruel.' What does this have to do with the lovely Miss Lampa?"

I opened my mouth to respond, debating between tell him about artistic license, or telling him shove it, or even pointing out precisely how it did relate to the cd. I lit my cigarette instead.

"Just write a normal review, please!"

I smoked. "Ok. Just to show you I can do it. Fine." I started to write furiously.