beer, california, cougars, hope, change,

Here is your RDA for cute! Now you're set for the day.

Last night I got off work at midnight and headed to the bar to drink some beer and watch a band play. KT and I headed to my place at last call (passing through WHITE CASTLE on the way for a sack o' sides), where, champions we, we made it happen til 5:30 AM.

This did not seem so brilliant when my alarm went off. I got up at 10:15 AM and took a half assed shower without getting my hair wet because that would mean having to do this whole style/blowdry routine. I instead opted for a sloppy flat iron to give the illusion of grooming. I got dressed in an outfit comprised by maybe 80% of things I'd worn to the bar the night before, had half a cup of coffee, and left the house. Grubby, hungover, no sleep Bruce. I had to stop by the Science Pirate's place on the way to the shop because he had my shop key (because he is now not only my friend but my employee and I could fire him or dock his pay (haha, pay) if I wanted). So I walk into his house and he comes downstairs and he looks at me and says, "Hi. You look nice."

Now that will make a girl feel good. It's awfully pleasant to be told you look nice by someone you see every day, on a day when you didn't really sleep and you didn't really groom and you are pretty much feeling like a mangy old hooker. Feeling like Pabst is coming out of your pores.

Anyway. So that was a nice start to my day. I look nice! Excellent, so that's done.

I went to TNNA a couple weeks ago, were I met some nice people and talked to them about my book, and was also called a Cougar by a passing young man. Here's me and Karida and Stefanie moments before the incident:

Yes, seconds later a man walked by us and yelled, at us, "RAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! Cougars!" Lookit them cougars. Look, don't ask me, I don't know.


San Diego was straight up awesome. When Matt dropped me off at the airport, it was -10 in Columbus. San Diego? 76 degrees. Karida and I checked into the hotel and headed straight for sushi and the bay. Here we are, at this restaurant with wonderful sushi and terrible service. We were absolutely giddy at the warmth. We just kept saying things like "We are outside. We are outside. I can't believe we're outside. I wish I wasn't wearing socks."





These are pretty much the only pictures I have from San Diego that don't involve Karida sitting behind a 28 oz. margarita. I took, like, no pictures at TNNA because my camera was dying and is now dead. Where is my charger? Where? Where? Why?

I arrived back in the deep-freeze of Ohio at 10:30 PM on Sunday January 18. The next morning Matty and Topher and I hopped in the car and headed to DC, where , I don't know If you've heard about this, but they were having this swearing in ceremony thing for the new president. It's actually kind of a big deal. He's the first black president, they say.

We were lucky. We hit no traffic to speak of, and we were able to stay with our friend. (If you are a friend of ours in DC and we didn't call you while we were there, please don't be mad. We were in town for less than 48 hours and we just didn't have time to visit with people. We're doing a real visit in May, we'll hang then.) We pretty much showed up, went to the inaug, and left. My camera, as I say, was dead, but Topher took lots of pictures, which you can look at here. We were about as far from Obama as you could get and still be on the Mall, but man. Just being there, in that city, in that crowd, at that moment...I'm just really glad I was there.

It was a pretty exhausting 5 days, from San Diego to Ohio to DC and back to Ohio again. Totally, totally worth it, though.

So things are going pretty good here, except for the whole deep freeze thing. I'm pretty ready for spring now. February starts tomorrow. Be strong, folks.

Bruce