I got distracted there for a bit people, but I'm back to my "normal" misanthropic self. So don't worry!




I had a bunch of things to write amusingly about but I forget now.

I saw one of my favorite singers, Basia Bulat, on a whim at the middleeast up Saturday night. Such a good decision! She was so cute, I have a girl-crush. Check her out, everyone should love her.

Back to teaching, trying to not let it take over my life but...it does.

Congrats to Dayna and Paul who just got engaged! I'm so happy for you guys.

Erik and Branwen are on their epic trek of a belated honeymoon to Peru. I told him to bring me back an artifact. Maybe a cursed one.

Button killed a mouse tonight! I'm so happy for her but squicked out for me!

Here she is watching it, trapped behind the oven, for a good hour:



And here she is, playing with it in the bedroom:



She batted it in and around her cubes for awhile. I distracted her with treats and took the cube outside and shook out the mouse.

Very exciting!

So I finally made it to the trivia Tournament of Champions on Monday, and we came in 4th! What's fourth, you ask? Only the booby prize. But it was this fabulous monstrosity, straight from the home of Al the Trivia Guy, which I can only assume is part of an effort by his out-of-his-league girlfriend to purge certain things from his life.




And then we carried it home like this:




As Justin said, like Newsies, but with Legos.

Also, Happy 31 to my big brother! Woo!

Have you seen these big red pins now at notable spots around Boston?




I thought they were lollipops.

Had an amazing time seeing The Luxury open for Coldplay last night, I'm so glad I went even though I was exhausted from the Sociology conferences the past 5 days. Jason gave me one of their guest tickets and they were awesome seats, directly to the side of the stage.

We got to go backstage after they played, which was quite the journey, and I got a bit lost and had to get escorted back there. I walked past Coldplay playing ping pong. We were only allowed to hang out in the Luxury's dressing room and nowhere else though.

Coldplay left the band a note:



Then we went back to our seats for Coldplay and sitting right near us were Gwyneth (beautiful) and Blythe Danner and Kate Bosworth (needs a sandwich) and Jerry Seinfeld (not very happy looking). So exciting!



Gwyneth and Blythe are the two blonde heads in the middle there I swear. And Jerry is two seats to the left.

Everyone was great. So much fun.

The Luxury:


Coldplay:

Johanna: i saw a homeless guy bleeding from his face today
Johanna: it was gross and upsetting
Dave: i'm sorry
Dave: the birds beneath my deck havea nest
Dave: the babies hatched
Dave: and the momma tossed one over board
Dave: cause he was deformed
Dave: i was going to put him back in
Dave: but i noticed
Dave: so i moved him to the shade
Dave: and put a leaf over him
Dave: i feel so bad
Johanna:
Dave: he is still breathing
Johanna: thats even sadder
Johanna: at least the homeless guy was being helped

it's been a hard week.

My grandmother died last night around 7pm. She'd been declining since Christmas, but we didn't really expect it to happen this soon. I'm glad I got to see her one last time on 4th of July weekend. Right before she started getting bad, she actually made it to my apartment at Christmas and sat in my papasan chair!




I'll be going to New Jersey probably Tues to Thurs for the funeral.

to Baba, I hope you're at peace now.

This weekend my never-married aunt announced that her boyfriend of 17 years proposed to her! I'm so happy for her, it's so cute. And not something we ever thought would happen, since this guy always acted like he never wanted to get married. Now he's all gushing about how my aunt will never want for anything. She wrote a happy email about how she got to pick her ring from all this family jewelry of his. He has his mother's, grandmother's and great-grandmother's rings plus some other ring that she ended up choosing. Looks like we'll have another family wedding this year!

It's also just a nice reminder that it's never too late. She wrote to me: "keep looking for mr right--just don't let it go on for 17 years!"

Because I am excited about my new cell phone with video capabilities, here is a terrible video from the weekend in jersey with my brother and my uncle, and the awesome Rainforest Cafe cup I was drinking out of:



And here's a pic of us cousins:



It's so funny that we can all go out drinking together. I don't know why that should be so amusing to me, as we've all been legal for quite some time now.