Passports

So my passport will expire in January. According to travel regulations, this means that I cannot travel anywhere between now and then without a new passport. So really, a passport is valid for 4 1/2 years, not five. At any rate, this wasn't so much of a problem - the Canadian High Embassy here in the UK has a decent turn-around time; I've got all the forms and such...and then... the Guarantor problem hit me full on.

I have met wonderful people in Leeds - none of them, it transpires, are qualified to back up my claim that I am who I am. I'm down to spending £70 at the notary public's office or asking my dentist (who may try to charge me more...). Using the notary public would make that section of the form worth more than the entire passport. The cheek!

The sun has finally returned to this island - It's glorious outside. We helped a friend move house on Saturday and far from the rain we were dreading, it was actually hot and sunny. I drove for the first time in England as well! Only about 1/2 mile from the rental place to our friend's block of flats. It was exciting. And scary. And not necessarily something I'll try again in a hurry. I hadn't anticipated the difference of sitting on the other side of the vehicle in terms of having to negotiate the size and dimensions. It's one thing to work the stick with my left hand, to remember to look over my left shoulder to check behind - these things came pretty naturally. But having to remember that the bulk of the van was to my left...that was interesting. Luckily, another friend found the van much less intimidating than she imagined and so took over the driving responsibilities with native grace.

And as the sun is out - I'm off to the garden.

Filler

It's been a good while since I posted anything. I think spending all day in the library squeezing out writing puts a damper on doing more writing on my blog. Too much typing. And nothing very exciting has happened lately that I feel must be communicated.

Just writing writing and more writing - read, revise, read, revise... But it's coming together (I hope). I have a meeting with my supervisor on Monday - almost my last before handing in.

Other things that I have been up to:

- running up hills (much more difficult than running along the canal)
- contemplating working for a living
- contemplating how much council tax will take out of my paycheque come January
- trying to work out how to renew my passport and my visa in time for October
- hoping that the rain will ease off before everything in my garden rots on the vine
- reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I realised (again) this morning how little I am aware of the world outside my library office. It's kind of ridiculous. I know I can read newspapers online but I miss the morning clutter of the breakfast table with tea, food, and newspapers.

It's very nearly August.

personal best

There are few better ways to start the day than breaking a personal record. Particularly if said day is looking rather dull in all other ways.

Yesterday it rained again from sun-up to sun-down - it would have been a most depressing day but for a trip to The Deep in Hull. We did mean to actually go into Hull as well - but it's rather depressing in the best of weather. Except for the whaling museum in the city centre (next time) which is pretty cool as they have whale skeletons and things like that. I can see why shrinks have fish tanks in their offices - it's very relaxing. But for the over-sugared, just-started-school-holidays, children, it would be very easy to sit by the tank and fall asleep.

***
Have just come home from a friend's house absolutely stuffed full of pizza and wine... The sun even came out for our gathering - so we immediately ran outside to take full advantage of the last precious hours of sunlight. Then we watched Doctor Who. Mmm...pizza. Nasser actually made pizza dough so's I could impress all my friends. What a guy.

Laila is having a mild freak-out session on the sofa. It's nice to be home.

Chapter 4

Have finally - and just at the end of the day - figured out a new way into my fourth chapter. As it is the chapter I submitted for my upgrade - all those years ago - it's absolutely crap as it stands. I didn't realise this until the last time I read it all the way through, or, yesterday. Wow it's some of the worst writing I've ever produced and I say that as an English student of some 10 years experience in writing crappy, last-minute essays. Thankfully, I still have time to make it better.

I'm grateful now that I finally read - and understood some of - Jacques Derrida. Something I never thought I'd say after spending a miserable half-term back in the fourth year of my undergrad degree trying, unsuccessfully, to get him through my head. I'd always say - and still will - that my weakness is critical theory. My strength is close reading; I can go on for pages with a close reading. Tying it firmly to theory...not so skilled. Unlike Nas, who has mad theory skillz.

The weather on our morning run was almost uncomfortably muggy. Even the usual denizens of the canal seemed rather out of sorts. We startled the heron (as usual) who flew sluggishly and peevishly to the opposite bank; the moorhens ran with less energy - everything seemed a bit dragged down - it felt like an oil painting that the artist, dissatisfied, had distractedly wiped with a cloth. I have got to work on my metaphors - I know this. Enjoy the rough rendering for now.

News unfit for print

In the news today - Bored Teenagers. Shockingly, someone has figured out that teenagers are bored. Yup. Apparently, the BBC has uncovered a critical mass of bored teenagers. This is new - this is newsworthy. Teenagers are bored; they can't think of anything to do. What do they want to do? In a streetside interview with a representative: 'I dunno'. Whose responsibility is it, according to the BBC, to provide something constantly exciting for these poor souls? Yes - the government's. We must launch a government initiative into solving the boredom of teenagers. Because teenage ennui leads to ... you guessed it: crime.

Yesterday, of course, 'crime' was caused by something entirely different - wait - say it with me - 'the breakdown of the family'. A conservative think-tank has pitched the idea of 'marriage tax breaks' as part of a huge 200+ idea package. Married couples would receive about £20 per week - provided that one of them gave up employment to stay home with the kids (who then, would not grow up to be criminals). BTW, that means that childcare - including education, feeding, 'parenting' - is worth £20/week. That amount would not pay for childminding services for half a day. AND considering the fact that women's wages still lag behind men's, which employed parent will be the one to give up their salary? What brings this on, you say? Political-moral panic over rising divorce rates - broken homes - single-parent families - bored children. Where is it going? Crime.

I will become incoherent and raving if I think on this too long - marriage does not a family make. Marriage does not ensure that children are healthy, well-educated, raised with confidence in themselves and their place in the world. Marriage is a half-hour exchange of words - a legal fiction of 'binding contract'. It is nothing - it is less than nothing. It means nothing outside of two people, the decisions they make to share their lives with each other, and the people whom they choose to include in their lives. Not getting married - like not having children - is not an avoidance of responsibility: it is a choice every bit as valid and rational.

Here's the thing - marriage is not a political issue. The government has no place in the bedrooms of the nation. Teenage boredom is not a political issue either.

So according to the BBC, we've got a nation of people who can't think of anything to do and can't stick with something when they've got it. And this, - not the failing health care system, not the state of schools, education, or unemployment, not the environment, not the war that we are losing, not racism, homophobia, sexism and every other prejudice that lives and breathes on our streets - THIS is worth time and consideration.

Meringues

I have spent the last week, on and off, trying to make meringues (as I mentioned, rather self-righteously, in a previous post). I went through half a dozen egg whites and most of my precious caster sugar in my attempts. For something 'dead easy', I made a mess of it twice. See I've got this nostalgia for meringues - when I was little, Nonna used to make these gorgeous meringue-and-chocolate cookies at Christmas. They were the culinary highlight (for me) in a sumptuous Christmas dinner. I remember the Christmas after she died they weren't there on the table and I missed them and I missed her.

Now I can make them myself - the trick is beating the egg whites and sugar far longer than I thought necessary.

I remember one summer when my friend was away, with her family, on a summer holiday. I'd gone up to their house to check on their cat, Gables, the mail, the house in general - as you do. I'd biked up the hill and it was a hot day - I was planning on biking back home straight away. But when I got there, Nonna was there, staying at their place while they were gone. I don't know how old I was - young, young enough to feel that I was doing something very responsible and grown up in checking on their house. Nonna had been a fixture of my life but I don't think we had ever talked, like two people, rather than grandmother and small child. She invited me in, had made lemonade or iced-tea, and we sat outside and talked. And she told me about moving to Canada, and her husband, and my friend's mum growing up; about music and food; and I talked about school and my bike, soccer, and my friend (her granddaughter). The sun was hot but we sat out on the stone patio under the shade from a big ol' maple tree that held up our treehouse. It's strange that I don't remember more, I suppose - just flashes that sometimes I think might be from a dream. But it's one of my favourite memories.

Time check

Something cataclysmic clearly happened at the library one day between 7.10 and 7.15 - all the clocks have stopped. Luckily my basement office has a window and I can chart the shadows on the wall opposite (when it is sunny). It's also possible I have been watching too many re-runs of The X-Files. Last night's episode found our hero doggedly trying to defend his theory of time travel in a suspicious murder case involving cyrogenics and spontaneous human combustion. A heady mix I'd say.

Time travel has to be one of the most difficult/cop-out writing techniques EVER. Terminator might be one example in which it actually works - though if I think too hard about that film (and yes, ocassionally I do) it falls apart. My favourite theory regarding it is one suggested by Darryl Jones: John Connor (who we don't actually meet until T2) is his own father - that would make Kyle Reese actually John Connor from the future. 'JC' - see - 'JC' - another example of someone who is, for different reasons, his own father... Yeah...well, something has to distract me from the 18th century and I find sci-fi a nice antidote.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (No.3) has one of the sloppiest examples of time-travel-writing I've seen - if, as we are supposed to believe, time travel is possible, shouldn't someone have gone back and stopped Voldemort in the first place? I mean, if it's plausible that wanting to take too many classes is a good enough reason to use a time travel device, surely 'saving the world' would rate some consideration? Or, peradventure, to save poor Cedric Diggory at the end of number 4?

Motivation to start yet another chapter of revisions is obviously faltering...

aye, mother earth

July 1 was international action for climate change 'day' - I say 'day' with inflections since, of course, the action taken should extend for far longer than one day. I should, here, direct you here - as it's provided us with some good tips. And here, one of the sites set up by a friend, who has a kind of ambition and uncompromising dedication that are unbelievably inspiring.

Is this the part where I make my excuses? Yes and no. We try our damn'dest to be green - maybe it's easier when the high street's siren call doesn't set the non-existent money jingling in our purses (did that make sense?). Of course, 'green' is the new black - but we've got to be a bit more grassroots on student budgets. We can't afford a lot of officially 'green' products though we've decided to switch to Ecover cleaning products and have stopped using washing detergent in the machine. Alas, our ancient clothes dryer doesn't have a temperature control - everything gets the 90-degree blast - and our damp problem means air drying inside either makes everything slick or makes the clothing stink. We don't have a car; we can't afford vacations; we can afford, within our little budget, to make informed decisions.

What I really wanted to say was that our fridge is full of food we made ourselves. The twice-monthly farmer's market in the city is fantastic inspiration. On Sunday we had locally-sourced, organic beef - the best I've ever had. Our allotment has given us potatoes and salad today. Nasser made a whole jar of homemade mayonnaise - and I actually used up the leftover egg whites, to make meringues (and yes, with fair-trade sugar).

I'm not sure why I started this post with international climate change. I suppose what I'm more interested in is consumer power. So we've decided to see how long we can survive without buying clothing new. The charity shops here are really amazing - that plus wardrobe-swaps should have us kitted out for a while.

Now I'm a bit lost. I suppose that is what blogging is for though. Rambling. Self-congratulatory prose. Announcing the changes in days that would otherwise pass unnoticed.

Time time time (see what's become of me)

How did it get to be July so suddenly? And Tuesday? And after 6pm?

Countdown to submission of The Thesis is on - I've just handed two chapters over for yet another read by my amazing supervisor. Writing is going exceptionally well - I finally feel like I understand my project a little bit. Which is exciting. Staying in the library is considerably easier with the weather like this as well. The flooding has receded - but the rain keeps coming. Good for the garden!

It's been an exciting week in England - what with a new government, terror alerts at 'critical' (I don't know what this means, really), Wimbledon being rained out every half hour... Less prescient to the global community, but more important to me, are such events as finishing aforementioned two chapters, while keeping up the running and not losing my mind.

Doctor Who is, alas, finished for the season. I'm joining in the general grumbling that, while Kylie might be making a guest appearance, Martha (the Dr's latest companion) won't be back next season. Which doesn't start until Christmas... Alas. Back to re-runs of Scrubs and The X-Files (mysteriously on every night on Living) to take my mind off of the 18th century.

Wet blankets

It is, once again, tipping it down outside. This is getting a bit much - even for the north of England. I'm hoping this isn't a new trend: June as a 'rainy season'. I've been trying to wait out the heaviest rain to walk up to campus, but it doesn't seem to be working. I think even our house-cats are feeling the weather as they are more sluggish than usual.

Those of you who follow British politics will know that Gordon Brown gets the keys to no. 10 this week. I'm not sure what difference it will make - or how long Brown will last as PM. This article from MacLean's magazine, however, is not right - or rather it is too far right. Yes, the stats are correct I'm sure - but it amounts to a tacit support of David Cameron's Conservatives. It's a bit uncanny how much this feels like the situation Canada was in when Martin's Liberals were booted out - the scandal, the country described as going to the dogs in the popular press, the suddden about-face in politics and BANG we've got stephen-bloody-harper. I fear the same thing will happen here.

The one problem we don't have in this house is leaks - a fact I'm very glad of in this weather...

Those days...

Set the wrong alarm and missed my morning run - I feel especially stupid about that as it was a route that I suggested. And I have this nagging fear that the Fleet will simply think I've dogged out. THEN as I was leaping out of bed to get to my mobile, I stepped on my glasses, which Laila had knocked, with my bedtime-novel, to the floor. Luckily they are titanium - a matter of little force applied and they are mostly back in shape. I really should get new glasses. Will have to fill out new low-income application to NHS - will get to that today...

It's Open Day at the school today so the campus is absolutely rammed full of pre-university aged people (the worst kind - even below university students); my sacred library space trespassed continuously with boorish, messy, unfeeling candidates and their parents. Yes, I am being unfair. The campus has been so lovely this summer: quiet, peaceful, serene, -- academic. Suddenly, I'm reminded that I have to share it for 9 months of the year...!

London was fabulous - we managed to see 'most everything we wanted and much besides. And we saw this production of Othello at the Globe Theatre, met up with an old friend, and generally amused ourselves being tourists. Now it is really the grind - nearly July and only three months until I hand in The Thesis. Have switched external readers as the professor my supervisor initially picked wasn't available - but have found someone at last willing to read my little dissertation. I'm deliberately not thinking much past 30 September...

AND good news to make up for dreadful morning: it's a birthday-BBQ tonight! I'm hoping that the weather will hold up. It has been raining off and on for a week here in Yorkshire. There is some watery sunlight now - I'm willing it strength to see through the next bank of clouds. Our garden is blossoming like Eden, though I think I've learned something: fruit/veg plus loads and loads of rain makes for big swollen fruit/veg - but it's not sweet. The raspberries on our plot are gigantic this year, but when I picked a bowlful for pudding tonight, they were watery and sour. I've checked my books and apparently sunlight changes the starches to sugars... Simple chemistry I suppose - if they had explained chemistry with food in high-school, I'd have done much better I think. But see the bounty of our garden!

two of every animal

it's been raining for about three days in West Yorkshire. there's nothing so depressing as slipping on a pair of jeans that are still a bit damp from walking home the day before.

the news is telling me that some unfortunate souls in the next town over have seen their cars float out of their driveways. i'm thinking about building a raft, but the closest thing i have to lumber are all these bloody books i need to read...not that i wouldn't be secretly pleased to see it all at the bottom of a lake (which might actually be where it belongs).

that said, there's no better place to be on a rainy day than the library. so off i go. to the library. like, now.

grrargh.

...and it's October again...possibly even November. The temperature outside has taken a nosedive since the weekend - I'm going into the city to work today wearing a sweater, jeans, my boots and likely a jacket. Shocking behaviour for June, methinks.

Yes I am going into work. Because I thought it would be a good idea. No, I don't think it's a good idea anymore. Yes, I have to. No I don't plan on doing it anymore until my thesis is done. I'm nearly finished my marking for the year which is good - I have the weekend off work to spend, well, working on my revised chapter for my supervisor. The library is lovely and empty these days. I love it in the summer - especially cause its climate-controlled... unlike my other office, my house, work... Of course, climate control is bad - all that energy...

Anyway, here is a picture of Nas and me, taken in classic kaleyandnas style, on my 30th birthday...

Bored colour meme

I am so very bored at the library today...and I've already done some surfing on the MLA and found a bunch of new articles for The Thesis. So I feel that I have done some productive work - I also 'shelved' for an hour...

So I went to ForestPirate's site and found some cool memes that I remembered reading there in times past. Here is one on colour and colour associations:

~~~~~~~~~~~~RED~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Closest red thing to you?
Fire extinguisher on the wall in front of the customer services desk where I'm sitting

2. Have you ever cheated in a relationship?
No.

3. Last thing to make you angry?
Hmm...likely the news. Actually I'm sure it was the news - BBC24. I'm trying to remember exactly what it was though...oh, perhaps the new exhibit at the White Cube Gallery in London of a diamond-encrusted, platinum cast human skull - with original teeth... Oh wait, it was the archbishop in Scotland and his speech about abortion. Wow - I've obviously repressed that one as it angered me so much.

4. Are you a fan of romance?
In my life: yes; in movies: only if it is done suberbly well - and I mean better than Amelie or A Very Long Engagement (known in our household as 'A Very Long Movie'); in novels: yes, they are a big part of The Thesis.

5. Have you ever been in love?
Yup

~~~~~~~~~~~~GREEN~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Closest green thing to you?
Computer mouse-pad.

2. Do you care about the environment?
Yes.

3. Are you jealous of anyone right now?

Nope. I'm absurdly satisfied and content. Of course, it is Saturday - my job allows me time to do things like this, the sun is shining, and our friend is making us dinner tonight.

4. Do you like being outdoors?
I LOVE being outdoors: garden, jogging, camping, picnic and frisbee-ing, kubb-ing, hammock-ing...

5. Are you Irish?
Is this question for statistical purposes? And, BTW, the national colour of Ireland is blue.

~~~~~~~~~~~~PURPLE~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Last purple thing you saw?
Graduate joining form for the library.

2. Like being treated to expensive things?
Hmm...not really. Is time 'expensive'? I like being treated to an afternoon off - but that should ideally involve napping on the couch, going to the garden - maybe just maybe having a coffee and cake outing.

3. Favorite type of chocolate?
Green & Black's; Montezuma's chocolate-with-espresso. Type of chocolate? 70% dark?

4. Ever met anyone in royalty?
No. Outmoded and embarassing structure perpetuating oppressive traditions and social structures. They shouldn't let me near them.

5. Are you lonely?
Right now? No. Ever? Yes; but sometimes I like it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~YELLOW~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Closest yellow thing to you?
Reserve notices for the library.

2. Favorite holiday?
Christmas. I know - pretty standard.

3. Are you a coward?
I'm getting the feeling that these questions are deliberately too open to consider carefully. Generally, yes: I hate pain, losing, and not knowing. Specifically, no: I am married, I have moved halfway around the world to persue my interests. In many instances, yes: I cannot watch images of cruelty anymore, I will not let my cats wander for fear that someone will hurt them, I sometimes think obsessively about future pain.

4. Do you want children?
Um...I'm just going to leave this one alone.

5. What makes you feel warm and safe?
Many things: my bed, my house, my cats, Nasser, tea and biscuits, York, the library...

~~~~~~~~~~~~BLUE~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Closest blue thing to you?
'Loan request' forms.

2. Are you good at calming people down?
I have no idea. Sometimes I suppose. I'm better at letting people calm themselves down.

3. Do you like the sea?
I like the idea of the sea. I've not spent much time around the real thing. Though I would like to. One of my favourite tragic characters, King Haggard in Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn, says of the sea that it is the only thing at which he can look at for long because it is never the same.

4. What was the last thing to make you cry?
The Thesis.

5. Can you sleep easily?
Yes. Because of crazy work/research schedules, home and sleep have become almost entirely synonymous.

~~~~~~~~~~~~PINK~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Closest pink thing to you?
Highlighter. How boring. Across the room there is a lovely vase full of beautiful flowers.

2. Do you like sweet things?
Yes. But I like rich food better than sweet and plain better than fancy.

3. Do you like punk music?
Another thinker...I like the idea of punk. I like the freshness and paradoxes of original punk, especially in the UK.

4. What is your favorite flower?
Right now - anything that comes up in our garden: sweet williams, poppies, anenomies, sweet peas...I like courgette flowers (pretty and edible!).

5. Does someone have a crush on you?
Don't know & don't really care.

~~~~~~~~~~~~ORANGE~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Closest orange thing to you?
The cover of a book called American Empire.

2. Do you like to burn things?
In a campfire or fireplace - yes.

3. Dress up for Halloween?
Yup.

4. Do you prefer the single life or the security of a relationship?
Crazily happily married

5. What would your superpower be?
That is a great question. Flight? Anti-ignorance brain waves? Superpowers require superpeople and I fear I am not so just or so strong as to not use them to project my own desires on the world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~WHITE~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Closest white thing to you?
Paper.

2. How do you imagine your wedding?
I don't. I remember my wedding - and it was gorgeous.

3. Do you like to play in the snow?
Yes. But I haven't played in the snow for ages...we don't really get much snow here.

4. Are you afraid of going to the doctor or dentist?
Generally, yes. My blood pressure goes up as soon as I walk into an examination room. The dentist elicits the same response but that is pavlovian as every time I've gone, I've had to get a root canal or some such nonsense.

5. Do you have Attention Deficit Disorder?
um...no.
~~~~~~~~~~~~BLACK~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Closest black thing to you?
The PC in front of me.

2. Ever enjoy hurting people?
No. Though I do like slap-stick comedy for the tragi-comic value of it.

3. Are you sophisticated or silly?
Both but generally I get the situation wrong.

4. Would you like to go to space?
Yes - definitely - but it's kind of like my wanting to live at the bottom of the ocean: I don't want to do it in a giant ship strapped into all kinds of machines and protective armour. Every environment that is not our own must be entered as though we were back in the womb - the image that makes 2001: A Space Oddessey such a brilliant film. I want to inhabit space - be in space the way I am here on earth.

5. Do you have a lot of secrets?
If I did, I've forgotten them.

June june june!

And it really is, as the song says, 'busting out all over' - and quite suddenly too. Two days ago I thought about turning the heat on (I went and got a jumper instead); today I'm sweltering in a skirt and t-shirt. Of course, all those days when I went into the city on purpose to buy sandals and didn't cause the weather was so awful...now I'm still wearing my black boots. A wee bit hot for the toesies.

But the library is finally quiet. Exams have passed; students have left only scrap paper, litter, and a lingering almost subliminal scent of anxiety - of course, that could be coming from the PhD studies in the basement (including mine!).

Librarians take note: behind me, my co-workers tonight are discussing graphic novels and fantasy...

100

I've been at the library 9 out of the last 10 days either working or researching. And I'm actually not sick of it. It's just starting to feel like home - I should bring a toothbrush.

So I've been 30 for a whole weekend now and still don't feel any different.

This morning was one of those mornings - the kind where I think, we should have stayed in bed, but that would have made it worse. Our trusty alarm clock (Wilko's special four years ago) has finally given up the ghost. Of course, today was one of very few days where we actually needed to be up - 6am for poor Nas - to get to work. I woke up at 7.54; Nas was out of the house by 8... Then, just to crank up my adrenaline as well, his manager called me at my library to say that Nas hadn't turned up to work an hour later. After fifteen minutes in which I convinced myself that he had disappeared somewhere on the 10 minute walk between our house and campus, she rang back to say he was, in fact, at work - they just hadn't checked round. Now adrenaline gone, I'm a bit tired.

Thank goodness for the end of long weekends.

This post has been brought to you by the number 100.

sure, it's raining

But i am writing this in Britain.

as it is the weekend, and i am trapped behind a desk (working) in a university library - a library with no students (a situation which is either ideal [for the librarian] or depressing [because no one is using all this lovely, perfectly good Knowledge]), and it is raining outside, and i am bored to the core of my being...i offer you all this:

paper planes

(i'm kind of stuck constructing the Gomez. i think my favorite is the Silke.)

c'mon, who doesn't like paper planes? or blanket forts? or anything that requires the obsession and borderline mania that only a child trying to balance a playing card on its edge can muster?

Top tip: breathe deep and fold crisply.

30

The OED word-of-the-day today is 'mysterious'.

The weather today is beautiful.

Today is also the birthday of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Today is a glorious day to be born. I've always liked my birthday - I like the symmetry of 25/5/77 - I like the spring/summer-ness of it. But I also like the fact that it feels like any other day.

29

This is the last day of my 20s. I don't mind turning 30 - but I don't like, as my friend put it, the public pressure on 30. People keep offering to 'cheer me up' and 'keep me company' on my birthday, rather than celebrate it! I like turning 30; I especially like the fact that 30 will mark the end of my formal education. I will be a 'Dr' at 30. 'Professor' by 40? Maybe.

It's a fun mental game to think about 30 years ago today. I wasn't here. Or I was here? But not here? This would have been the last day of my parents' lives as two. I'm sure people prepare for these things but I'm also pretty certain that the actual screaming, pooping, realness of a baby is different from whatever was imagined. And that was me.

And why, exactly, does 30 loom so large in the cultural imaginary?

At any rate, I am going to enjoy this last day of 29 by sitting in my office reading articles and writing my thesis. Tomorrow...!

Me V Logan

Logan is so attached to our desk chair that he will, if necessary, sit on whatever is occupying the chair while he 'needs' it. This includes books, cushions, coats, random objects and people - me in particular. While there are few things more comforting in my life than my cats purring on my lap, Logan is huge and heavy and simply not responsive to arguments about me needing to finish my thesis in order to get a job in order to keep him in the lifestyle to which he has become accustomed, which I am currently trying to do.