fun

apparently i'm having too much of it.

i've heard from more than one family member/friend/classmate/acquaintance: "it seems like all you do is party all the time. i just don't know how you get things done."

well folks, here's my secret: you only hear the good stuff.

the key to being a storyteller, to being the life of the party, is to leave out all the banalities of your everyday existence. give people the reader's digest version. tell the same great story to more than one audience in a day. if it gets a laugh the first time, it will most likely get a laugh the second time. (the only downside is when there is one person who is there for multiple tellings of the story. then you preface it with, "i know joy's already heard this but...") problem solved. everyone gets to hear about the highlights of the Flip for Life tournament (edited per audience) and you seem like the coolest person in the world.

am i the coolest person in the world? hardly. but who wants to hear about my 4 hour round trip commute every day? no one. don't want to hear about the paper i'm writing about the failure of community development organizations to revitalize the central city and possible regional revenue sharing as an alternative? SHOCKING. i can almost certainly guarantee that when the words "inclusionary zoning" come out of my mouth in a room full of acquaintances, the audience is lost. totally lost. and now i'm known as the snooze who cares about expanding the stock of housing.

the few people who actually hear the boring stuff - the ones who get the full nerd-dom that is my life - feel honored (or bummed, i'm not sure). i trust you. you will be invited to the wedding. for most of the rest of the world: they just get the highlights.

some stories i've been telling:

- flip for life was a brilliant success. didn't know who was putting it on, but when joy and i got there we found out it was put on by the penn state alumni chapter of baltimore. they raised over $6000 for the children's hospital there, which was cool. it's a brilliant fundraising idea. i might've gone a little crazy with the beer in between the flip cup games, but oh well. once again, joy is responsible for my safety. someday, when i have resources, she will be paid out first.

- because of flip for life bruises sustained, i am forced to wear tights for this saturday's Trachtenberg School semi-formal SPRING FLING. yep, that's right. it's called SPRING FLING. we didn't even have something as childishly named in high school. we're headed into middle school Fun Friday land, here, and i'm not a fan. i'll keep my kelly kapowski scrunchie in my fanny pack just in case things get a little out of hand dancing to the latest New Kids jam.

meh, whatever. i love my classmates almost as much as i love an open bar.

- nerding out here, but i get to interview someone from the Urban Institute tomorrow about prison reentry policies and homelessness. the Urban Institute is my research mecca. so that's cool.

- going to the tropical vacation spot of TALLAHASSEE, FL next thursday to visit Mr. Andrew Winters. we talked about it when we were home for the holidays and we actually made it happen. we're gonna road trip to Orlando and see our college friend Karl, too. debauchery will ensue, a Waffle House will be attended. that's the only thing i have on the agenda. Winters needs a breath of fresh non-applied mathematics air, poor schmuck. a recent status update of his, proof that i need to bring in reinforcements: "‎6 hours of debugging to discover that the issue was an 'i' count variable where a 'j' count variable should have been in the nested loops calculating the flux. Oh grad school."