I'd like to thank the academy, jen, and wine everywhere

Listening to the freezing rain clicking against my windows is not exactly motivating me to leave the house. But I want to buy a paper. Perhaps a walk up the street for a NYT and coffee will do me good? Or will it just leave me all ice-encrusted and unhappy? What a wimp I have become...

Jen & I attempted to support our favorite, failing coffee house last night as they tried to raise funds to pay some back rent they owe. It was a little too reminiscent of painful open-mike experiences from our past, all earnest folky boredom, I'm afraid, with a sprinkling of overwrought spoken word. It's awkward, because I feel like I should watch the person, that it's rude not to, but in my head, I'm rudely begging them to stop. Time just crawls in that situation; one needs a distraction. For me, the distraction was my infected cuticle on my second finger.

I used to be a master of distraction. In some high school math class, I got through the boredom of it all by systematically training my fingers to bend at the first joint, a skill which I have retained:

Anyway, in the past, Jen and I would suffer through this open mike bizness because we knew a friend or someone we liked a lot was coming up, eventually, but last night we had no such reason to stick around. We had our coffee and cookies, gave our donations, and went to the bar instead, where Jen put my life all into perspective for me. Or was that the wine? I think it was a little of both. Thanks, Jen. Thanks, wine.