this place just keeps trying and trying...

the first year i owned the casa, the porch got condemned and the tenants furnace got a cracked heat exchanger, which filled the place up with carbon monoxide. ever since, i've thought that the casa secretly wants to kill me. every few years it musters the courage to make another run at it. this year it's making a valiant effort. for the second time, we sat in the dark, feeling the place get colder and colder, as we waited for repair dudes. this time it was the electricity, not the furnace. and there was no dead bird. and it lasted hours, not days. but still.... anybody want a slightly used house with a small blood lust problem?

Dear Fox25 News Undercover...

okay, so the Fox 25 News at ten hasn't even been on yet, but i have been watching the upcoming promo's for it. and i wrote them a letter. here's what it said:

Dear Fox25 News,
I have an even greater undercover story for you than the ability walk right into public schools. It's shocking, and very troubling (especially in these dark times), but apparently you can ALSO walk right into the post office, city hall, and **gasp** the public library!!
I can think of more pressing news right now (especially in these dark times) than the fact that you can walk into a public building.
Sincerely,
-- bandit

so what i got back (so far) was an autoreply, thanking me for writing, and they seemed to feel awfully sorry that they couldn't personally write back to every person. they gave me some useful phone numbers. here they are:

MA Office of Consumer Affairs: 617-973-8787
Attorney General's Office: 617-727-2200

what do you s'pose would happen if i called up the Attorney General to say that i was very concerned that people were allowed to walk RIGHT INTO A PUBLIC BUILDING?

my year by the numbers

-quit smoking: 2 times
-started smoking: 2 times
-welcomed: 1 new nephew and 1 new niece into the world
-read: more books than i can remember
-made: 5 new friends at school
-earned: $13,060 total for the year
-baked: roughly 50 dozen cookies
-ate: roughly 40 dozen cookies
-tried: 75% of the frozen novelties available in the grocery store
-skied: once in utah for the first time ever
-fell out of love: 1 time
-fell in love: 0 times
-kissed: 8 people
-cried: about 156 times (working average of 3 times a week)
-laughed: about 1424 times (working average of 4 times a day)
-made loved ones cry: more times than i would like to count
-made loved ones laugh: more times than i can count
-applied to: 5 different grad schools
-bought: 30 new pairs of underwear, about 1/2 of which actually fit
-had: 1 root canal
-glued: 30 more rhinestones onto my car
-turned: 15,398 words of my life into essays
-wrote: 46 pages of academic work
-pub crawled: 70 miles on easter sunday
-made: 10 tshirts
-gave away: 1 blankie (i hope you like it, louisa)
-played: 9 days, 18 hours, 47 minutes of world of warcraft
-attended: 1 funeral, 0 weddings

and the stuff that can't be calculated in numbers: i'm less broken than i was at 18 and less grief-stricken than i was at 23. i'm more confident than i was at 22 and have a longer life expectancy than i did at 19. i'm more single than i was at 24 and more content with my current life and hopeful about my future prospects than i think i've ever been before. i have a nasty case of tonsillitis right now and the wind chill outside is -2 degrees fahrenheit, but these cruel realities aside, things are pretty good. i'm better than i used to be. let's hope the trend continues.