about a third of the way around the charles river i ran by some guys who were saying something to me but i couldn't hear them over the music. turns out they were warning me that the nicely plowed path quickly came to an end, becoming a trail of cratered ice puddles. i ran it for about 500 yards before i turned around, defeated, unable to continue. i walked back through the slush before continuing my run in the opposite direction once i hit dry pavement again. by then my shoes were soaked, which made me even bolder when running through puddles. once i made it back to where i started my run along the charles, i went home.
earlier, my father had dropped by to reclaim the 13" tv/vcr combo from my guest bedroom. sometimes i'd watch some television in that room if i wanted a little variety, but now that it's gone, i don't think i'll ever go into the guest room ever again, other than to find some clothes from the closet or to get a book. i should do something with that room to make it more hospitable, maybe convert it into a study or a secondary living room, get a loft bed, throw a small couch underneath it all.
i also watched dogtown and z-boys on cable, the documentary about the evolution of skateboarding. it was one of those things when once i started watching it i couldn't turn away, not even to make some breakfast, not even to go use the bathroom. i think it's a good documentary if you're a skateboarder, because it presents skateboarding in such a favorable light, giving credibility to something that probably most of society cares not a great deal about. but watching this documentary, you'd think you were watching the birth of cool or something, it was that riveting.
i ventured out to buy some groceries since i thought i'd be making dinner tonight. they had a sale on various meats, i don't think i ever bought so much dead animal flesh. coming back with armloads of shopping bags, i caught one of my neighbors sitting on her front porch lazily smoking a cigarette. i smiled at her and she replied, "oh, i'm just watching the snow melt." "i heard we might get rain on saturday," i told her. "oh, i hope it doesn't flood the basement," she said. i smiled and nodded in agreement and walked the three houses down to my place.
i got an e-mail from amy littlewood asking if i aim. do i aim? come on, i don't want to brag, but i'm the aim master! my aim persona is many times more articulate and interesting than my real life counterpart. when i got back from grocery shopping i was surprised to see that amy had pinged me for a response. i then chatted with her for about 2 hours, it's been a long time since i've aimed for this long. she remembered my birthday and was freaking out about her own 29th anniversary next month.
i was going to make gnocchi with pasta sauce, but manny called me just as soon as i was getting ready to make dinner, 
asking if i wanted to do wings. for us, it's always about "doing wings," never about "eating wings." like the very act of wings consumption was a journey or a task that involved "doing." i of course said yes, and waited for manny to arrive with our order from wings works (i got the 10 pieces medium, manny went with the 14 pieces 3 flavored sampler). we "did" wings while watching the michael jackson rebuttal documentary. when that got too boring, we switched to resident evil, playing on one of the movie channels (funny, they never say "zombie", which makes me think that word might be a trademark, so i suggest using a substitute like "zambie"). before he left, he gave me some belated birthday presents, a bobble-head dog figurine and a wooden chess set.