When Catherine went out to get the paper this morning, she found my birthday presents on the front porch. In my birthday card, my mom tucked this photo of me. Tell me we're not white trash! Not only is the the scene just classic poor white folk, but the photo itself is all mangled like someone stuck it in their pocket and forgot about it for a couple weeks.


6:36 PM


Whew. I haven't stopped moving in two days. Not even sure I held completely still while I was sleeping.

Went by my old office Friday afternoon to turn in my door key. It seems they have missed me in the past few weeks. I was a bit pleased to note that Carolyn looked distinctly disappointed that she had to run to a meeting just as I showed up. That's the problem with that place, too many damn meetings.

An e-mail from Diane yesterday afternoon:

OK so could Fran love you any more than she does? She hollered out when you came in today and she was just telling Monique that you came in and saying how great it was to see you and how great you looked - blah blah. It is really sweet.

Probably it's just that all the computers have been breaking and they have no one to fix them.

Spent the afternoon doing homework, then took Catherine out to dinner. After that, we went to the first sporting event of the new year, a men's soccer game. Next weekend there's volleyball. We could have gone to a football game yesterday, but I'm currently really angry with the athletics department, so they can't have my $26 for a ticket.

Well, we have a better sporting even to attend yesterday, anyway. We both spent the morning in front of the computer (damn that philosophy class, anyway), then drove up to Indy to go to the World Basketball Championships. For the same price we'd pay to see our pathetic football team play William and Mary, we got to see New Zealand v. Argentina and USA v. China.

I hate the way American men play basketball. Any man who thinks it acceptable to do a tomahawk dunk in the final minute of the game when his team is winning by twenty points will never be allowed to play on my team. I'm not against using a dunk to make a point every once in awhile, I understand the psychology. But there is a point where it becomes absolutely shameful, and actually, the USA team reached that point during warm-ups. Players who dunk when a lay-up would be safer are out for the glory, not the game. So, here I am, cheering for human-rights-abusing, environment-destroying, dissident-persecuting China instead of my own country, because I hate to be associated with poor sportsmanship.

Got home after midnight, then dragged ourselves out of bed this morning to run errands. Got a pair of jeans, hopefully they'll fit me for awhile--now I have two pair of long pants! Spent a long time at Lowe's checking out cabinets, solid surfacing, self-venting microwaves, etc. Got some ideas about what we want, but I'm not totally sold on solid surfacing or tile. Then the bulk of the afternoon was spent touring open houses to look at kitchens. There was one with an unfinished basements I'm going to encourage my students to go look at. It had a great example of light wood framed walls, and also synthetic beams.

Right now I'm working on a new design for my main webpage, almost got it, I think. I'm so sick of orange, I never even update it because I can't stand to look at it. I need to digest my tacos before I go running. The evening is reserved for prepping my AutoCAD classes, if I can pull myself away from working on my web page.

Ah....I love long weekends.
6:24 PM


C: You're really brave, honey.

S: Not, not brave, just impulsive.

C: But impulsive in a good way. Most people when they're impulsive get pregnant or go to jail. You get a degree and a job.