I know that there's nothing more boring and insipid than talking (especially complaining) about the weather. That said, when I walked to class this morning, it was minus-9. That's just not cool. You know what I mean.

I did make it to the gym the last two days, which made me realize that if I can make it in sub-zero weather, then excuse that I ever come up with in L.A. will have the slightest bit of credibility. At all.

Occasionally I listen to old Loveline episodes at the gym. I was listening to an episode from 2003 today, and some caller used the word "hella" completely unironically. This got me to thinking: why do some slang words catch on for a time then fade away, while others become a permanent part of the vernacular? Of those that fade, some of them truly die out while others stick around but only as signifiers of a bygone time. For instance, "groovy" can't really be used ironically, but always carries some suggestion of cheesy '70s-ness; "awesome" on the other hand has a little bit of that for the '80s, but I think by now it can be used in its own right unironically.

So whither hella? My hunch is that it's fallen off, but then again I've only spent 3 of the last 30 months in California and only 3 days of that in Northern California, which I think is the epicenter of hella. If I had to guess, hella will always be associated with about 1999 and/or being slightly stoned. I have mixed feelings about this. I feel that hella filled a bizarre void or lacuna in the language--a simple, one-word slang term for "very"--that no other word adequately fills. But then it's just such a stupid-sounding word out of anyone over the age of 15 and/or not carrying a surfboard at all, that I would much prefer that some other term step in to fill that void.

But just for old times sake: it's hella fuckin' freezing out there.