Category: Navel-Gazing

Dreaming of Me.

Ok, in the past four days, I’ve had dreams involving dozens of old friends, four exes, both my old high schools, three former offices, a very long crew practice, the house I grew up in, and my middle school city rec soccer team. Either my brain is running one of its semi-annual Scandisks, or it’s trying to tell me something. Perhaps it’s a back-to-school kinda thing. Strange.

In a Work Hole.

Hey y’all. Updates have been intermittent this past week due to my catching up with all the work I was supposed to be doing while I was in Hawaii, meaning very long days fashioning history powerpoint slides for a textbook company. Now that that task’s finished, I need to get back to my primary research work, reading through and organizing the papers of Henry Luce and his contemporaries for a professor. At any rate, it’s going to be busy around here right up until the start of term, so I apologize if the updates get more sparse than usual. In happier news, regarding the burning of my feet (mentioned here last week), today was the first day since said burning that it didn’t hurt to put on my shoes…although Berkeley stepping on said shoe immediately thereafter was not a happy experience.

Sinister Intentions.

Doh…looks like I missed International Left-Hander’s Day…spent the day typing with both hands. Should’ve at least played basketball or (lefty-strung) guitar or something. Ah, well…maybe next year. As a kid, I was a much more militant lefty, but you gotta put up with so much more back then…the kindergarten scissors don’t cut, the Crayola markers smear, yadda yadda yadda. I even had a subscription to Lefthanders Magazine for about a year there around sixth grade. It was bound the wrong way (highly confusing overkill), offered such scintillating articles as “Bruce Willis…left-hander of the year!”, and basically never ventured very far afield from this pic. (Both links via Scratching Post.)

Hello again.

I’m back from a week-long sojourn on the lovely garden isle of Kauai. (I would’ve mentioned the trip here, but some members of my family didn’t know I was coming, so I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.) Much snorkeling, hiking, and other outdoorsy fun was had, and I now feel quite recharged for the semester to come. Alas, I managed to hideously (sun)burn my feet on a Catamaran cruise we took. (Think hot dogs in the microwave too long…swollen, bubbling…well, you get the idea.) Fortunately, I have so much research work to do this week that I can spend much of it propped up at the PC. At any rate, forgive me if I blog a few things today that may seem stale…I have quite a bit of catching up to do.

Swans and Toddlers.

Gillian gets a very positive review in the NYT for her performance as Odette/Odile (the lead) in Swan Lake over the weekend. No mention is made of the ridiculously bratty kid who was screaming through most of Act II, nor of the overly reactive shushs and gasps of utter disbelief made by most of the ballet cognoscenti at the child’s behavior. Gill and her partner (Jose Carreno) were real troopers through it, though, and it definitely got the crowd even more behind them for the rest of the show.

Atomic Archives.

Over the weekend, I fixed some problems with both the MT archives and the Atomz search box. Both are working now, in case you were looking for something recently and couldn’t find it.

The Rocket’s Red Glare.

Happy Independence Day to all the fellow Americans out there, by the way (even those oppressed in DC…thanks, Genehack.) After spending yesterday in nearby New Haven catching up and playing music with some old friends, my 4th plans probably aren’t going to extend very far beyond Internet Scrabble and a late-night poker game. At any rate, be safe out there, kids.