twenty people looked at my blog today.

they are suckas!

i love pizza. that is probably something you should know. i can't believe it took me all semester to figure out that 1. there is a pretty rad pizza place right at my t stop and 2. the walk home is exactly how long it takes to devour two pieces of cheese pizza. i'm kind of worried now that i have.

yesterday, my grandparents stopped by with two enormous bags. each contained a winter coat. i actually have three or four coats - they know this - but they were worried that none of them went down far enough and that i would be cold. so they made me choose one, and took the other back. first, it says a lot that they bought two and let me choose instead of just buying me one and handing it to me. second, it says even more that this is finals time, so instead of making me pick one out myself, they just brought them to me. third, they were worried enough to do it at all. i LOVE having relatives. even more than having pizza.

also, right after that they took me out to lunch and then gave me a ride to school. when we were done with lunch, poppy went out to get the car and pull it around (he ALWAYS does this, i never have to walk from the car to anywhere or from anywhere back to the car, this is a thing that a gentleman does) and while we were waiting my grandma apologized to the boy at the table behind us for interrupting his solitude (my grandma is the queen of starting conversations with strangers and being incredibly well-received). he thanked her, and then went on to tell us how lucky i am to get to spend time with my grandparents. don't i know it, i said.

INCREDIBLE

aaaand that's it for youtube today.

i just do what i'm told

i got told to go here and they were right. i liked it.

conclusion to yesterday's dilemma: NONE

finally, i found someone else who is into this video:


for some reason it just never caught on with anyone but me. here are some things i like to think about it when i'm watching it:
1. do they say "i love you," or am i making that up?
2. is that her real voice?
3. would this be considered pretty risque?
4. is that a culturally insensitive question?
5. what is up with the girls' pants?
6. how much of the dance moves are based on traditional dance moves, and how much are they based on michael jackson?
7. is that a culturally insensitive question?
8. do people really roll like eight dozen deep in india?
9. is this india?
10. i think you probably know what 10 is.

goodbye, sneakers. hello, boots.

just one week after retiring my converse (too cold, too wet) in favor of my sambas (fewer holes, more popular*), it is time to switch to boots for the winter.

obviously it snowed last night/today. at school, james and i were all excited because, hey, IT'S SNOWING! we threw about two dozen snowballs and missed each other mostly, and then we realized that NO ONE ELSE WAS INTO IT!!!! what?! it's snowing! where are the snowmen! snow angels! snow forts! none of this was happening! no one was even charmed by our antics! we got some dirty looks and NO LAUGHS!!!! yes, it's cold. no one knows that better than i do. and yes, finals are pretty much on. but come on! there's got to be at least like two other people from the west coast that find this mildly exciting!

then it stopped snowing and got maybe even a little bit colder, if that's possible. here's a dilemma. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO WALK ON THE SIDEWALK WHEN IT IS ALL ICY. it took me like twenty minutes to walk home from the t today. also, boots: you are warm, but not that convenient.

*recent conversation.
me: "yeah, my feet were getting pretty cold, so i retired my converse for the season. everyone is wearing sambas now anyway."
howard martin: "who wears them besides me and that sean kid?"
me: ". . . that's it."

update: it . . . it's just too cold to do anything but go to bed!

finally, my scrabulous tyranny is over

lizzy beat me after about a dozen games in which i savaged her consistently. while it did feel pretty good to have such a long winning streak, i think i did gain some empathy for dictators because it takes a lot of energy to rub things in other peoples' faces for so long and then wake up every day knowing that all of those people are going to try and stab you in the back. the good news is, losing at scrabulous doesn't hurt as much as actually getting stabbed.

the other thing is, i'm really glad that i can root for the underdog even when i'm the top dog. that's a nice thing to know about myself. for a while there i was watching a lot of nature videos, and they depressed me because in nature the underdog NEVER wins, ever, and i was worried that underdogs were a fake idea, but now i know they're not and i am on their side.

in memoriam

evel knieval died yesterday. he had been suffering from diabetes (bad diet), pulmonary fibrosis (smoking) and hepatitis c (contracted from a blood transfusion) for several years prior to his death. i assume you all know about his accomplishments, but just in case you don't, he jumped over a lot of enormous crazy things on his motorcycle, some of them on fire, and broke most of the bones in his body. he once spent a month in a coma after attempting to jump the fountains at caesar's palace in las vegas. the following are some quotes of his that i found poignant, touching, and hilarious by turns.

"I foresee the Chinese ruling the world. What are you going to do to stop it? No president of the United States will ever have enough power to stop the Chinese when they want to take over the world."

"I've been in a treatment center for drinkin'. I stayed for two days, then escaped. "

"But you come to a point in your life when you can't pull the trigger anymore. "

"The other thing I wanted but never got to do had something to do with Liz Taylor but she's getting a little old and a little fat. "

"I thought I was bulletproof or Superman there for a while. I thought I'd never run out of nerve. Never."