Blogger, I have abandoned thee, and I am moving on to bigger and better things.

Sometimes, I wonder if I really like New York as much as I think I do.

I went to Pittsburgh and back yesterday on a megabus. I paid almost no money at all to sit on a bus and on a bench for about 20 hours. I'm not really sure why I did it. I suppose I knew that I wasn't going to be doing anything productive anyways, and I figured I'd be able to get a lot of reading done. Well, joke's on me, because those buses have Wi-Fi and of course I probably spent 4 of those 20 hours on Facebook.

The bus made a stop at Penn State. At first, I was like, "Woah, a real college! I wish I could go here! This is so cute!" Then, after about 2 minutes, I realized that I was already bored. The charm of college towns never lasts very long.

Pennsylvania is really pretty. I caught myself thinking, "I want to quit school and just go be Amish," a couple of times. We don't get a lot of full, green trees and rolling hills in Manhattan. The Pennsylvania countryside is probably the most beautiful place I've seen in real life. If Pennsylvania is the Caribbean, Texas is the East River.

But when I got back and stepped off that bus at 7th Avenue and 28th Street, I felt relieved. Other places are nice, but they're nothing like Manhattan. I'm comforted by the endless sidewalk and the shouting halal cart workers at 2 in the morning. I embrace the cry of police sirens. I don't like being away for too long. I think 20 hours was cutting it close.

Note: I bring this blog post to you readers via free Wi-Fi in Union Square. Score.

So far, I have been out of school for one week. So far, I have not accomplished anything important. Perhaps it was a well-needed week of laziness in order to set off my summer of productivity? We'll see.

Okay, all of you dedicated followers of my blog, here is my summer reading list. Feel free to nag me on occasion to make sure I'm getting it done.

This evening was quite grand. Travis was kind enough to treat me and Josh Wright to the 99¢ pizza on 43rd between Lexington and 3rd. If you haven't been yet, I highly recommend it. It's probably the best of all of the assorted super-discount pizza places in the city.

Travis got a whole pizza for us ($8). There was an old refrigerator sitting conveniently out on the street, so we made use of it as our dinner table. Time went by, and we ate, drank seltzer water, conversed, and people-watched. One man came up to us at one point when there was one slice of pizza laying out on the fridge and he said, "Hey, your pizza's getting cold!" We told him we knew, and then we asked if he wanted it. He replied , "No, I meant because it was sitting on the fridge." Funny man. I laughed.

I won't disclose the specifics of our conversation. It was pretty top-secret. We're like a gang now. Or blood brothers. Minus the blood exchange. You can't be too careful about HIV when it comes to NYC. Maybe in Idaho, but not here.

Okay, I might as well breathe some life into this old blog again. I made a tumblr, thinking it would be an alternative output for all of the writing I was planning to do here. Alas, it was not that simple. Tumblr functions more like an extended Twitter for me. It consists of mostly quotes and conversations with my friends that I find amusing - so, not too amusing for anyone else. Also, I tend to only want to write when it's 3 o' clock in the morning. I've been a good student lately, and I've been going to bed fairly early and waking up before the crack of dawn. These are my excuses for not maintaining this blog. However, I'm not too sure if anyone missed me.

The reason I'm reviving this is not self-motivated, I'm afraid. There's been a lot of pressure from the 5C crowd. Josh, Tim, and Travis have all started up new blogs recently. Check them out. Unfortunately, these fine lads are all a little more witty than I am. What can I say? They are in the House of Lewis.

I'm not quite sure what the purpose of this post was.

I suppose that I'm somewhat worried about my newfound dependence on caffeine. I'm completely unproductive with my day unless I've got a constant flow of caffeine in my system. I find that it's best if I drink about 1.5 liters of Diet Coke a day. That's not good. I would drink coffee, but I don't like the taste. Tea isn't really strong enough. So, I'm left with the aspartame and various other chemicals of the scorned diet soda. I don't like the idea that I have to put something in my body just to be able to concentrate more in my classes or have the spunk to initiate conversations with people. I'm not sure if caffeine gives me the ability to feel like myself, or if it just changes me altogether. Perhaps I'm making too big of a deal out of it. Who knows. As I've written this, I've drunk two tall glasses of Diet Dr. Pepper in preparation for my two classes from 9 to noon. I'll surely have some more before my class at 3. There's still a liter left of poison for me to finish my day. Huzzah.