Congratulations to Yul and random happenings

My man Yul won $1,000,000. He actually won. He won Survivor. How crazy and great is that? He played the game extremely well, and there's a great video on cbs.com where he talks about how the game went down--he made the comment that the game could have very well come down to the white alliance picking off the minorities one by one, but they managed to get one of them to flop, and that completely changed the outcome of the game. That certainly was the turning point. He also talked about what he was going to do with the money, and one cause he said he was passionate about was minority bone marrow awareness because of a friend who died in college from leukemia because he couldn't find a match. As a side note, Justina Chen Headley's next novel Girl Overboard coming out in January 2008 also addresses this issue--one of the main character's friend's younger sister, who is hapa, is unable to find a bone marrow match because she's biracial.

Our mutual friend James's birthday is today. I wonder if he'll get a nice present.

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Last night I went out with my roommate Rose for happy hour drinks in the 'hood. We were planning to just hit our regular spots a half a block away from our apartment (although places I haven't been in over a year!). We walked by the Banshee which was empty, went back to Session 73 which was closed for a private party, and then back to Stir, a martini bar I had gone to only once before with Tracy when I first moved to the apartment. We had two drinks before moving on, and decided to check out Session 73 again--no doubt there would be people there completely drunk from their office holiday party, and that should be good for a laugh. Was it ever. We walked in, and saw one guy dancing alone crazily on the dance floor. All other eyes were on us. We made a beeline to the bar for a drink, and immediately I turned around and there was a big guy standing behind me with glassy eyes. Just standing there, not speaking. He came up and stood right between Rose and me, but wasn't saying anything. "Uh...hi." we said. No answer. A grunt. Then he sat down on the stool that Rose was standing right behind, so it looked like he was sitting on her lap. I couldn't stop giggling and had to excuse myself to go to the bathroom. Sorry, Rose. When I got back, thankfully he was gone, but there would be more of the same. Turns out it was a hedge fund office party. And every time a guy started talking to us, a girl would come up and swoop them away. Haha--I guess I would have done the same with my guy coworkers--you can't help but feel protective/possessive. One guy--really, really drunk and still drinking Long Island Ice Teas--kept talking to me, but couldn't remember things I had said from ten seconds ago.

"Oh...so...you're a student."
"No, I just told you I was a children's book editor"
"So...where do you go to school?"

and then

"So, do you want to walk me home?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Uh, because I live half a block away from here."
"Can I walk you home?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm here with my roommate, and we'll walk each other home."

and a little later,

"Our company makes billions of dollars. I made a billion and a half this year. I could buy you some lloiud vitoiuoid"
"Uh, what?"
"I could buy you some Looouuuiiee Viiitoooon"
"I'm sorry, I can't understand what you're saying"

I finally realized he was telling me that he would buy me some Louis Vuitton. Uh, okay. "I don't care about labels" I said. I mean, I had to google it to figure out how to spell it, for pete's sake.

Anyway, I hadn't gone out like that in a loooong time, talking to random guys at bars, getting hit on, and it was fun and entertaining, especially knowing that nothing would come of any of it.


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In other news, besides having a weekend full of fun parties, the Randoms, and other friends both new and old, I finally received my refund from the MTA today. A month or so ago I tried buying a $20 Metrocard and it took my money and also ate my card that had just $1 on it (leftover from trips to NJ or on the Airtrain or something). I followed the directions on the customer service line, and finally today received two letters and a Metrocard. One letter said that it was refunding my $20 to my credit card account, and the other said "enclosed please find a Metrocard with $1 on it." Great. Reminded me of when my old roommate Jon received a refund check from the IRS for ONE PENNY. $0.01. No kidding. Anyway, for some reason, the Metrocard I've been using also has and odd amount on it, so I have two Metrocards that I will have to use to go to NJ on two separate round-trip journeys, or separately for one leg of a JFK Airtrain trip--except of course I'm flying out of Newark this time.

Speaking of, I'm off on Thursday evening for Southern California where I'll be until the 29th, then back to the city for New Year's. No doubt I'll write more there, update my blog to beta, learn how to add links to the side of my blog, and figure out how to cause World Peace.

Happy Holidays everyone!