I think I need to stop watching baseball. Something happens to me when the Yankees play the Red Sox, specifically, when they lose to them. I just never knew I was capable of so much hate, I’m starting to think I’m a bad person.

A long time ago I can remember watching baseball with my dad, he was raised a Yankees fan, so I was raised the same way. My dad was always relaxed, if the Yankees won, great. If not, no big deal. I didn’t even know the Red Sox were a rival team until I was almost 13. But something in me has changed.

Now I find myself despising every Red Sox player that comes to the plate. Each one more than the next. I think Dustin Pedroia is the worst… Anyway, hating the Red Sox has taken all the fun out of loving the Yankees. You see, my disdain for one team, has lead to an even greater disdain for a team that can’t seem to beat them. I hate Jonathan Papelbon for being such a good pitcher, but I hate Alex Rodriguez more for not hitting off him, and I hate myself the most for getting so worked up. It’s a vicious cycle.

Full disclosure: When the Red Sox came back from 3 games down to beat the Yankees in the ALCS in 2004 I’m one of the people who didn’t get out of bed the next day. I’m not lying.

In conclusion, I am officially done caring about baseball. Starting tomor- fuck who am I kidding? Please God just let them win tomorrow.

One of my jobs at CollegeHumor is to maintain the Cute College Girl section. It actually started my first day as an intern almost two years ago, back then we called it Cute Cheerleader of the Week. When I found cheerleaders were hard to come by we broadened our search. I sent out email interviews and girls sent in pictures. The ball was rolling. Then that Summer we got a bunch of new interns, including my friend Jeff “Rosie” Rosenberg- who came on to help me with the growing Cute Girl section.

We started putting up two girls a week, and to get the interviews done faster and make them more fun, we started doing them over AIM. The submissions kept coming in and soon we began adding three girls a week. We got even more help this past Summer from a new intern, Jake “Tick Tock the Klock” Klocksien.

Doing the interviews over AIM really felt like the heyday of Cute College Girl. The section was always supposed to be sexy, but it was becoming genuinely funny as well, since AIM allowed for some great back and forth banter. Take for example, this piece of conversation between Rosie and a Cute Girl named Diana:

Diana: Ew I hate meat!

Rosie: Are you a Pagan?

Diana: Isn’t that something religious?

Rosie: I know what I said. Answer the question.

A few weeks ago, we ramped up to 5 girls a week. And while we wish we could keep the conversational tone of an AIM interview, it just isn’t possible to devote that much time to the section. It’s almost bittersweet. We now have the ease of an automatically generated set of interview questions for a girl to fill out, but we no longer have the witty banter that made the interviews so fun. Rosie and I did our best to come up with hundreds of amusing questions (If you could be any insect- excluding a butterfly- what would you be?) but it’s not the same.

I had to set all this up so you would understand the breath of fresh air and the unintentional joy that I received from our latest Cute College Girl, whose first language is not english. We usually edit interviews for grammar, but we decided to leave this one intact. I’m happy to know that even as the site grows and by default becomes slightly less personal we can still find ways to keep things funny- even if it’s not on purpose.

I think I’m about to take a bath. This is going to be weird. I haven’t taken a bath in a many years. When I was younger I used to get these really intense migraines every once in a while, and it seemed like the only thing that could ease my pain just a little bit was to sit in the tub for an hour. I don’t have a migraine right now, but my legs have been killing me from running and I think I still have some faith in a bath’s healing power.

Still, I’m nervous. Taking a bath seems like such a sad, lonely thing to do in an empty studio apartment. I’m kind of afraid that the bath will help my muscles, but not my state of mind. At least I don’t have candles. But what do you even do in a bath? I guess I’ll listen to music? I don’t know if my taste in music is conducive to bathtub relaxation. Blink 182 isn’t exactly soothing. I think I’ll try to read, and to ponder. As long as my thoughts don’t keep bringing me back to “What the fuck are you doing in a bath?”

I’ve been on vacation with my family in Nantucket for the last week. You see a lot of people dressed in really obnoxious clothing out here, which is fine, it’s just their style. But among all the seersucker pants and boat shoes there’s one thing that I really take offense to. Popped collars.

The thing about popping a collar, first and foremost, is that it’s out of style. Even when it was popular among assholes and posers, it was not cool. Now, however, it’s not cool and also dated.

I think the thing that gets me most about it though is that it’s a conscious effort to look like a dick. It’s taking an otherwise perfectly normal shirt and sabotaging it. It’s not as if you bought a pair of pants that have since gone out of style, only you still wear them when you haven’t done laundry. That fashion crime would be like manslaughter. Popping your collar is murder one.

Since June 8th I’ve been running around fifteen or more miles a week. During this time I’ve dramatically cut down on my drinking, going from drinking four times a week to just twice in the last two months. Surprisingly, it’s been much, much easier than I thought it would be. I was talking to my friends Christine and Brandy last night and I think I came to a pseudo conclusion as to why I’ve gotten so into running so easily.

It’s a lot like drinking.

At least right now. You see, I haven’t grown to love the long runs where my calves burn and my head and neck feel heavy- I think I will, but it’s gonna take time. What does motivate me, is the euphoric feeling I get when I reach the door to my apartment after a hard run. And in a way, going on a run is like taking a shot.

Before you take a shot, you are aware it won’t be easy. You have a sinking feeling in your stomach that you may not be able to do it, but you know you’ll feel like a pussy if you don’t, so you go for it. The beginning is the worst. Everything starts to sting, and you wonder why you’re even doing it in the first place. Just as you feel like you want to give up though, you hit the middle of the shot, and you realize it’s not so bad, you’re halfway there. You can do this. But then, the end is almost as hard as the beginning, you start to think “God, is this a regulation shot? This is lasting longer than I anticipated.” You want to slow down, you want to stop early, but you’re motivated by having the bottom of the glass in sight, so you give it one final push. You’re done.

The feeling now, even though it’s leaving a terrible taste in your mouth, your stomach hurts and your throat burns. You have that feeling of accomplishment, you’re working towards a goal of getting fucked up. And you’ve just taken a giant step in the right direction. You feel dizzy, a little sick, but you feel good. Proud.

And that’s how I feel after I run. I’m pumped that my will power and determination is going into something that’s not actually hurting my body and driving me to text my entire contact list at 3 AM. I almost just ended this by typing, “I hope I can keep this up.” But that would have been stupid, I know I can.