So so la so do ti*

Today a few of the 2nd years came by the ARC while I was working and brought me a piece of the birthday cake they'd picked up for Claudio and me. It was really quite nice, and fits well with the theme of this birthday, which has involved the greatest number of people I've known for a short amount of time (essentially just a year) wishing me a happy birthday. It's good to feel like part of a community, even though I'll be abandoning them all in December (and although we're not exactly all out partying tonight... I told them that Bryant was coming out Sunday night and that we'd celebrate then...).

So this ARC job, which kept me inside for seven hours on what may well have been one of the last sunny, warmish days of the year, in a windowless cinderblock room (though it did subject me, handily, to the birthday greetings of numerous passers by), pays minimum wage. However, I found out today that I will be getting a raise, up to--are you ready?--SIX! FIFTY!

That's $6.50, lest there be any confusion at all, per hour. I haven't made that since some time in the early 90s--even when I was doing janitorial work a few years ago. It's almost enough to make you want to go back to school... or something.

*With a knowing nod to boy-Lorin

Every bee that ever was...

Apparently while I was helping Bec fight off bees at the picnic Saturday, the mosquitoes were eating my legs--seven bites on my left and two on my right. The itching is making me crazy (and a little swollen). Ohio mosquitoes are evil.

This morning I woke up at 7:30, turned off the alarm that hadn't yet gone off, and turned on the radio before crawling back into bed.

In theory, waking up with NPR means a gentle arrival to consciousness as well as an informative start to the day. In reality, it means bizarre dreams and a distinctly surreal and vaguely menacing quality to any news story I do catch.

This morning, the news was already surreal and menacing--New Orleans preparing for the big one as Katrina roared closer. In my dream, I was there. So, as it turns out, was the president, walking apparently alone down the same steep road as me. I slipped and slid a little down the hill, trying to maintain my distance lest the undoubtedly hidden Secret Service should come and arrest me, but they never showed. So I said, "Oh, hi," to Dubya as I slid by, and he said, "How ya doin'" as I continued on my way.

Later I was walking to my hotel room and the green water was splashing up against my shoes.

Rockin' Thai Salad

I took Kick-Ass Potato Salad to Rebecca's the last time she had a party at her house, and it now appears that I cannot bring a dish without it having a suitable, preferably flattering, title. I arrived with a bowl full of spicy noodles; I left with the scanty leftovers of a much enjoyed Rockin' Thai Salad.

Here you can see Allie, on the left, digging in, while Carolyn (the new first year grad), Rebecca, and Lynn (a many-year grad, who last year taught the Lourdes class I'm teaching this semester) look on. Carolyn's husband Tom is in the background.

I really did take some great shots, but unfortun- ately Mr. CardCam doesn't seem to have recorded them all. Here is the only other shot I got of the gathering, Andrew's adorable soon-to-be-three-year-old, Leanne. It's Andrew's knee in the right corner... and I think those are Rebecca's legs.

After the sun went down, Rebecca started a bonfire fueled by old exams she'd cleaned out of her files, and I roasted two marshmallows. At about 10, Lynn, Carolyn, Tom and I cleared out, leaving Ruthy, Rebecca, and Allie to presumably burn through the rest of the papers and the wine on the table.

THIS is what I had waiting for me at home. Yesterday it was on my right kitchen window, driving me crazy with its chirping; today it seems to have traversed the space behind my cupboards to drive me crazy from even closer to my computer. Lacking both Ellen's landlady's desire to exterminate and Ellen's own critter catching skills, I may just have to outlast the thing.

Walking on sunshine

Allie: "This is not a thesis."
Rebecca: "You keep leaning toward dissertation length!"
Andrew: "You might be done by December!"

So I officially chose a primary thesis reader today, and I'm so thrilled. Andrew is one of the most genuinely kind, encouraging, and intelligent people I have ever met. Today when I was feeling him out on whether he'd be able to take me on as an advisee, he was incredibly enthusiastic about it.

"You're a great grad student--you're one of the best grad students we've ever had!" he said. I was so stunned, and relieved, and humbled, and affirmed, that I actually almost cried, right there in his office. Thankfully I was able to pull it back together--hopefully before he noticed anything.

How close I actually come to being done in December will also depend, in part, on a meeting the art history faculty will be having tomorrow, in which they will discuss, among other things, thesis length. I'm not holding my breath for being done in December--but knowing Andrew believes I can do the thesis, and do it well, at any point in the near future, kept me floating through the afternoon.

You got it, you got it...

Not quite a peace-ful o-a-sis, but close. Fred's hanging out the back there, but he's just avoiding dings, not double- parking out of necessity. I don't believe I've ever seen everyone parked so nicely.

In other good news, I'm eating again. I'm pretty sure I hadn't gone two full days without food in my entire life, as skipping even one or two meals generally spells disaster for me. Thanks to advances in technology, however--like Powerade--I didn't even suffer all that much. Not that I'm planning on trying it again anytime soon. (I can't get used to this lifestyle...)

Pop goes the world

Nek is probably my favorite Italian popstar of all time (not withstanding the fact that I've actually spoken with Cesare Cremonini on the phone).

It had been a while since I'd surfed over to his website (after all, it's not every day you're trying to complete a syllabus and schedule for a class you've never taught before). But when I got there, I discovered not only a new music video, but a video detailing its creation.

And--are you ready?--I think this video was shot in large part right by where my parents live! They could have run into him at the local Mexican place instead of a mere Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart. And wouldn't even have noticed.

"Crazy, I'm thinking, just knowing that the world is round..."

Last night as I was driving home from Toledo, I suddenly noticed that the moon was on the other side of the car than it had been. I felt like a kid again, watching the moon jump from side to side as I rode in the backseat.

I don't think one even has to have started driving for this illusion to fade--one just has to have been born with some sense of direction. I'm fairly competent in many areas of my life, but that's not one of them.

Bryant once told me he pretty much always knows which way is north; he's always kind of thinking about it. I wondered what I was always thinking about... and realized it was color. He would have looked at the moon and known we were traveling south; I was thinking about how it was yellow and glowing in a rosy slate sky.

I was returning from a shindig to kick off the year and welcome the incoming grads, held at the house of the Director of the School of Art. Her background is in architecture, and she had designed and built a modernist house up against a deciduous wood, which could be enjoyed either from the back balcony or, thanks to a two-story wall of windows facing it, inside the house. (The window walls were perfectly soundproof, so you could be on the balcony and see people talking loudly inside, but not hear a thing.)

Her kitchen was a horseshoe-shaped island in the middle of the room off the balcony, with a wrap-around deck perfect for a buffet. It was really an ideal house for this sort of gathering (the best-attended I've been to; there were probably around 50 of us there) but several people remarked to me that they wondered what it would be like actually living there.

If I'm one day the director of an art school, perhaps I'll just have to find out.

If I were as tedious as a king...

Five things were stressing me out:

1. Thesis
2. Comps
3. Lourdes class
4. Italian exam
5. Tuition waiver

But as of today, it looks like I'll have another semester to finish my thesis, three more weeks to study for comps, and maybe even the tuition waiver before I'm dropped from my classes for not paying my bursar bill! I'm also feeling optimistic about the Lourdes class and my Italian exam.

Might it be because my mom sent me a balloon bouquet today, just to cheer me up? It certainly might. Thanks, Mom!

The boys next door

Tonight was hot and I needed to get out of my apartment. As I came down the stairs, I heard what sounded like a hopping party just outside my door. When I stepped outside, I discovered it was just my three new neighbor boys, parked in plastic chairs on our communal porch, cans in hand and laughing as the stereo inside thumped away.

I must have had my bitch-face on, because the first thing they said was, "Are we being too loud down here?" Then they introduced themselves, shaking hands from their chairs: Caleb, Nick, and Josh (who I met yesterday). I said it wasn't bad--that the bass wasn't thumping as much as it had been. "Oh, yeah, we just turned that way down!" Nick said.

"I'm a grad student," I explained, "so I'm really nerdy."

They assured me that it was fine and that I should come down if they were ever too loud.

They're rather young boys, and I'm sure they'll be too loud. But I think they're friendly and have good hearts. Now, if we can all just fit into the parking lot...

I am not the doctor...

...But I will be the teacher, soon.

Today I met Erin, the very friendly and charming chair of the art department at Lourdes, and got a tour of campus, loads of books and paperwork, and a better idea of this course I'm to teach. I'm still a little overwhelmed, but very excited.

I'm less thrilled about this:
These are my new neighbors, apparently. I pulled a little Bond action with the CardCam and shot this moving-in reconnaissance documentation while standing on my tub.

In case you can't tell from the photo, they are boys. Rather young. And they like to play music with the bass turned up. I met one of them tonight--Josh--and he says he's a senior and the other two (at least there aren't four) are juniors.

Hopefully they won't have the occasional stink attacks, like the last neighbors.

On a happier note, I made a delicious smoothie:


Naturally, it was a bit of a disaster. Who knew you were supposed to peel bananas before freezing them?

The good, the bad, and the ugly

The bad: Tuesday when I rode to the library, I saw THIS. Where there was once an old, decrepit but charming house across from the library, there were now bulldozers ripping out trees and moving earth.

The entire neighborhood seemed dazed--this fellow biker, like me, just stopped and stared, and cars crawled by. There had been no sign that anything was up.

The ugly: This devastation is the fault of my beloved library. Bill the English Professor and I were talking about the ugly eye-sore yesterday, at which point the site had been completely stripped and leveled (the Blade article has a picture). He had heard that someone was putting up apartments. Somehow a library parking lot seems even worse.

Ah, but life goes on, and here's the good:

1. Wednesday morning I headed Chicago- ward to join Paul and Teri for the Willow Creek Leadership Summit, at their generous invitation. My friend Dusty rode with me to Toledo and then drove my car back while I took a Greyhound to downtown Chicago. The Summit, hosted in Willow Creek's massive new sanctuary (referred to in this recent NPR piece), consisted of two and a half packed days of presentations, interviews, and worship with some impressively high-powered and refreshingly real people, including Rick Warren (of record-breaking "40 Days of Purpose" fame), Southwest Airlines president Colleen Barrett, the hilarious Dr. Jack Groppel, and Dr. Henry Cloud. I'll admit to being skeptical about how spiritual such a slick mega- church could be, but I was deeply struck by the authenticity and humbleness of Willow senior pastor Bill Hybels in particular, and was blessed by the Summit experience.

2. When the Summit ended Saturday afternoon, Paul and Ter drove me back to BG, where they got to stay with me in my little apartment and get the tour of the town before they had to head back Sunday for Ter to catch her flight out of Chicago. Here is the beautiful Italian-themed quilt Ter made for my birthday.

3. I think I have a job for next semester! Rebecca called me last night to say that Lourdes College had contacted her, desperately trying to find an instructor for their online Art of the Western World course, which starts in a week. Rebecca told me she wanted to give them my name, and this morning the chair of the department called to offer me the position! I have to turn in a resume, college transcripts, and three letters of recommendation, which the chair says are a formality since Rebecca "strongly recommended" me. I just hope they don't mind that I haven't technically taken the class I'll be teaching, have never taught a college class, and am slightly terrified. Well, they're desperate.

Fancy pants

Yes, those are dry-clean only pants. Yes, I washed them in my bathtub, and yes, they are drying on my porch.

The black pair is a wool blend, and the gray is a shiny stretchy cotton blend, and I thought they turned out considerably better than the last times I had them professionally cleaned. Since I'm both cheap and picky, I think this definitely the way to go.

When I was in Italy, I washed all of my clothes by hand for six months. From socks to jeans, they would be sudsed and rinsed in the sink and then air dried, often on the roof of the 600-year-old dorm. Then I'd generally have to iron everything to soften them up again.

My motivation for this fell under the "cheap" rather than the "picky" category. I had no measurable source of income, and lacked sufficient clothing to use the school's free laundry service, with its two-week turnover time, for more than sheets and towels.

These days, I can generally find quarters for the laundromat washers and dryers, and I rarely iron anything. But if comes down to paying $5+ per item for dry "cleaning"... it's handwashing all the way.

ALSO, I cancelled my landline phone. Those of you who had that number, you know who you are--please just use my cell now.

Peter Jennings

Since I was three, Peter Jennings has been my favorite news anchor.

Some of my first, vague, memories are of not being able to sleep and being allowed into the living room for World News Tonight. My parents remember me saying his name: "Pee-toh Jen-inz."

He was one of the first public figures of whom I was aware as a child. The other evening TV I remember is music videos--strange, colorful, baffling and improbable jumbles. They were fun, but couldn't compare to the consistent, comforting, avuncular Peter Jennings.

I don't remember Carter at all or Reagan before I was probably seven. But Peter Jennings, I do.

These days I don't own a TV, and haven't watched with any regularity in about 10 years. And it's probably not television itself that has changed as much as me personally, but reading about Peter Jennings reminded me of a time when you believed the news from your TV because it was delivered by a reliable, trustworthy source--who, in addition to seeming genuinely sincere, also happened to have really good hair.

Even into my teens and later, when I would see Peter Jennings on TV, it would reawaken some of those childhood memories and give me a warm feeling.

Thinking of him now does, too.

Peter Jennings, 1938-2005

Party like it's 1999...

Tonight I went to a party I wasn't really feeling up to attending, but it worked out okay.

Nate convinced me to play washers, which is apparently the Ohio equivalent of Daniel's ubiquitous bean bags (which are also popular in these parts). For those of you not familiar, instead of bean bags, you throw--yes--washers, into a square wooden box with a tall cylinder in the middle.

We played until it was ridiculously dark, and Nate and I dominated right up until Paul and Amanda kicked our butts.

Then there were some sparklers.

"Get on your bikes and ride!"

I estimate I must have ridden my bike between my apartment and the art building around 700 times in the 50 weeks I've lived here. But today, for the first time, someone asked me for directions to a campus location.

This is completely unremarkable, except that today, also for the first time on that trip, I was wearing a skirt.

Riding in a skirt is a recent discovery for me, and except for slight awkwardness getting on and off, it's pretty close to riding in anything else--unless you have to stop.

I slowed down as much as I could for the three lost boys, shouted in response to their query , "Olscamp's the one with the silver statue in front, that way!" as I pointed and teetered, and then picked up speed again before I had to lose all illusion of gracefulness and tip over.

If you can't be cute...

My back has begun to peel--but only in patches. It itches in the part of my back that I, as you may have guessed, cannot easily reach.

This picture reminds me (a sure sign of too much art history) of the Libyan sibyl. If I did less of the studying, and more of the working out, perhaps the resemblance would be stronger.

Today I finished "Cry, the Beloved Country."

I also finished the Wednesday NYT crossword, but not perfectly. Two squares, both t's, were incorrect. I did wonder about "tilv at" for the clue "struggle with"... some Scandinavian slang, perhaps?

And finally, I have a dinner party to attend tomorrow night. Invitations by e-mail, fondue theme, beginning at 8, possibility of a band to follow downtown. Outfit suggestions? (The towel, though it does show my fascinatingly particolored back, is definitely out.)

Respectabiggle/Responsibiggle

I have shopped for and purchased car insurance for years, but somehow had never done so for my health insurance. The latter is a requirement for grad students here, and last year I just went with the university plan--handily, they deducted the amount directly from my paycheck every month.

Not-so-handily, it cost me around $800 for the year, which I'm told is a good deal, but basically amounted to $100 a month for an office visit or two, a brace for my ankle, and my annual exam. Apparently what it's actually good for is if you are dying--assuming you can schedule that between 8 and 5 on a weekday.

So since this coverage is expiring in a week, and since rates have gone up to $1350/year, I decided to shop around. If I'm going to have essentially useless insurance, I may as well pay less for it.

And I found it! I am now the proud owner of the "Saver 80" plan by United Health Care's Golden Rule. It costs me $36.32 a month. I think it's about the human equivalent of what I have on my car: liability. In any case, it should satisfy the university, and protect me in case of anything too bad.

And the nice man who sold it to me, Jerry, told me I was the happiest person he'd ever talked to.

Bowling Green: The Tour

Ellen got the whirlwind tour since she was only in B.G. for a combined total of about 30 hours (at least eight of those, asleep). Saturday we hit most of my favorites (and some news ones), commencing and concluding with my place, and including, in the order visited:

1. Brittney's apartment, to pick up a bike
2. City Park
3. Various historic districts
4. My favorite house in BG, the old brick one with the deck on top of the garage and the big trees
5. The Slippery Elm bike trail (to Rudolph)
6. The Quarry swimming area -->
7. Downtown B.G. (Diversity Boutique, Finder's, even the Beartooth posers, who are generally surly but seem to have made an exception)
8. The Wood County Public Library
9. Squeaker's
<-- (I had the tofu wrap and Ellen had the vegan meatball sub) 10. Myles' Dairy Queen (which didn't make Ellen throw up!)


11. Campus and the art building
12. My apartment
13. Cucina di Betta
14. Video Spectrum
15. Byron's apartment (next door to mine, but less cool (though equipped with a VCR))

We didn't go into Grounds for Thought (despite its high rank on my favorite places list) until Sunday morning, when we got coffee for the road back to Dayton, concluding the whirlwind tour. I'd say it was a decent time, and we didn't even hit Toledo, the (s)mall, or any backyard barbecues (slow week for those, I guess).

So keep that in mind next time you're on the road between... say... Chicago and New York City. Or... Cincinnati and Detroit. Bowling Green, Ohio: not to be missed.

And speaking of missed... here is what happens when you (a) wash your hands after applying sunscreen and (b) attempt to apply it to your own back: