Liveblogging jury duty

The rumors are true, there is Wi-fi in the waiting room! But, for reasons that have not really been explained even during the handy video introduction from some of your favorite national news personalities (including graphic depictions of the trial-by-ordeal that we should be grateful for supplanting with this "jury" thing, a reminder that some day when we're on trial the awesome jury we get will justify all the waiting around, and the specious assertion that jurying is more important than voting), the demand for jurors is incredibly unpredictable. Anyway, we arrived at 8:45, the first people left at 10 something, and around 11:15 they dismissed us from a 3 hour lunch. Now, an hour later, 1 batch of folks has left and the rest of us are sitting around. A girl in front of me has read 150 pages of In Cold Blood so far. Highlight of the day: bubble tea. Yum.

Math makes intoxication classy

Saturday was the long-awaited exponential decay bar crawl. Thanks to a handy-dandy planning notebook, some fuzzy math, and Rohit's task-mastering, things went very well, whiny-trooper-friends-without-any-girls-to-enamor-them-between-64-and-8 notwithstanding. We went to Baker Street @63 (cute bartender), Blockheads @34 (cheap frozen margs), Petite Abeille @20 (very alcoholic Belgian -beer), Bua @8 (espresso martini!), Stillwater @4 (outdoor seating!), dba @2 (mollie bought me framboise!), one and one (dancing! late arrivals! more booze!), and double happiness (more dancing!). All in all, about as ridiculous as you might expect. Luckily, the hangover was not so bad.

My new running secret

A few weeks ago, I discovered that it's possible to cut across Manhattan pretty quickly on Houston, and this pretty much changed my life. Anywhere north or south of Houston is pretty crappy due to a combination of lights and pedestrians - best I've done is Tribeca, but there's a lot of annoying twists and turns involved in that. Today, Ak tagged along on my second 10 miler in the past few weeks, and he was annoyingly in shape considering he doesn't run that much, but fun was had.

I'm also getting a lot of, ahem, mileage out of my new Fuel Belt, which keeps me from buying lots of overpriced and heavy Gatorades en route. It took some getting used to and weighs me down a bit, but it was totally worth it. I'm going to try tracking my runs on Sanoodi, although it's a little annoying because I can't list a date without also listing a time, and I never precisely time anything.

Whence Union Square?

Susannah and I were debating what Union Squares around the US were named for. My vote was railroads, hers was labor unions rallying. We're both wrong.

10 things I learned at my 5-year reunion

1. People don't change much in 5 years
2. Except that all the girls are engaged
3. And everybody is now a lawyer, doctor, or grad student
4. Guys age less attractively than girls
5. Yale runs a stingy open bar
6. The ghetto mall has been turned into upscale apartments with this surreal indoor courtyard thingy
7. When Yale says they are going to serve you $50 tofu ravioli with a side of quinoa, they may decide to omit the ravioli
8. Large groups of people you haven't seen in 5 years are intimidating but fun
9. Skipping out on getting a room and trying to take the 4:40 am train (last train at 11 pm = wtf) is possible, but unpleasant
10. Bars in New Haven are cheap, but close too early

Personal space

Apropos of almost nothing*, I was thinking about how it is that although my first first kiss definitely occurred when I was sober, pretty much every other first kiss since then has not. The idea that I could ever brashly invade someone's personal space like that without some sort of lubrication seems pretty absurd.** Who knew that girls would actually get more intimidating as I got older?

*I could try to argue the fact that the rental company's smallest car on Monday was a Ford Mustang is a symptom of some deep-seated American need for a maximal radius of inviolability, but I'm not going to play that card.

**The exception to this is of course the oh-right-you're-one-of-those-girls-who-hugs-goodbye goodbye hugs. These are simultaneously awkward and pleasant, but still less awkward than the goodbye handshake with another guy, especially a good friend (When did our personal friendships start to so closely resemble business acquaintanceships? "Thanks for hanging out"? Foolishness.) that turns into a half-handshake half-hug with manly back-patting after a confusing are-we-going-shake-hands-or-hug-i-mean-we're-really-good-friends-we-should-probably-hug-right(?) moment.

Things

It's been a while since my last post, so, for narrative simplicity, I have done some soul-searching and grouped recent events into 3 handy categories: things that make me unaccountably sad, things that make me happy, and things about which I am ambivalent.

Things that make me unaccountably sad:

• Truffle oil isn't really infused with truffles
  
• Online dating. I spent some time trying to fill out a profile on Ok/Cupid before deciding being lonely was probably easier than fabricating and documenting ways in which I'm unique and exciting.
  
• Freya. Will I ever beat Guitar Hero on expert? Not at this rate.
  

Things that make me happy:

• SpamKarma. Saved my life, where by life I mean, you know, blog
  
• New music. Car Wash for Peace. Wax Tailor. Heartbreak World Silversun Pickups. Cloud Cult. Peter Bjorn and John.
  
• The Burg
  
• Parties themed around food wrapped in dough
  
• 7th Inning Stretch in Milwaukee
  
• Man Diego
  
• San Francisco in the daytime. Significantly reduced sense that one will be attacked and killed.
  
• Mojitos, as always.
  
• Grilled cheese at Tiny's. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
  

Things about which I am ambivalent:

• Frost/Nixon. I'm glad Zan convinced me to see it, and it was very well staged and provocative and well-acted, but it's somehow annoying that facts were manipulated for dramatic effect (real video, real transcripts)
  
• Autograph Man. Entertaining, but a little disjointed and not as good as White Teeth.
  
• Orthotics. With new shoes, they're better, but not perfect. Am I doomed? Discuss.
  
• Zombie Movies. Somehow Dolapo dragged me to see both Grindhouse and 28 Weeks Later (even though I was much more excited to see Kirsten Dun...Spiderman 3). They were fun and all, but especially Planet Terror (the first part of Grindhouse - the second part is an awesome Quentin Tarantino flick that inspired me to rent Reservoir Dogs) had me cringing the whole time and left me wondering what sort of terrible thing was around the corner in everything I encountered from then on. Damn you, Dolapo, damn you.