Month Nine

Happy Valentine's Day to all; the romantic "holiday" brought the first notable snow out here today. All the other snows (about two) this year were light and gone by the afternoon. This one required some work to clean up the roads.

Jonathan, Doc, and I just got back from Austin, TX where we tried out for VH1's World Series of Pop Culture. All day Saturday we waited while many groups of teams took a written test, hoping to be among the final 8 that would compete to be Austin's champion, the finalist going to the New York taping to compete against the winners from all the other cities. The test was pass/fail, and we were among the few that passed. We did an interview, and about ten minutes later we were told, "Um, sorry, but you are not among the final 8." Well, naturally, we wondered what the hell we did wrong--was it that we scored lower than all (or most) of the other teams and we just didn't give enough oomph in the interview, or did we score well and were turned down on the basis of the interview? Whatever the case, we were elated and disappointed in a span of ten minutes.

Last month I turned 30 and I have no clue what it means for me. But, I did have an excitingly drunk time in New York pondering that question. Went to a BBQ place (Brother Jimmy's) off 92nd St and 3rd Ave and had this disgustingly fantastic drink called "Swamp Water," served in this huge fish bowl with a hundred multi-colored straws and a plastic alligator. It tastes like Kool-Aid, which is of course dangerous, because it's easy to forget how plastered you're getting while knocking it down with friends. Then, off to St. Mark's Place and this Irish pub, where a bartender everyone lovingly refers to as "Bono" works.

But, being drunk and taking the subways late at night is a horrible experience. Usually, you get the benefit of sleep before the hangover, but I got it while waiting for the trains. And at that time, the trains arrive slowly and nothing is express. So that sucked, but man was it worth it.