Thessaly's Tooth

I had a passing thought about ghosts today, and a passing thought has more than enough importance to make it into this particular forum. I don’t believe in ghosts at all, even though I might have lived in a haunted house once. The most famous ghost story in Lincoln, Neb. is that of the C.C. White building ghost. The White building was formerly a building on the Nebraska Wesleyan University campus, which housed the music department. The most dramatic encounter with the ghost occurred in 1963 (according to Alan Boye, A Guide to the Ghosts of Lincoln), when a professor walked into one of the rooms to see a woman dressed in old-fashioned clothes reaching to put something in a cubbyhole in the wall. The professor thought she sensed the presence of a man sitting at a desk next to her, but when she looked there was no one there. She then looked out the window, and instead of seeing the rest of the campus buildings, she saw an empty, roadless expanse of prairie. Later, someone found some old sheet music in the cubbyhole, which no one remembered putting there.

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Nothing much to report here. I’ve been working on moving-in issues and wedding stuff. Today I’m trying to justify my existence by making a pretense of doing school work. I also have a cold. It’s looking kind of dreary outside which I’m kind of enjoying–we should get as many dreary days as possible in before we have to deal with a whole couple of seasons of sunshine, flowers, and happiness, that’s what I say.
Okay, back to the pretense.

Okay, so that’s not one of the better candidates for a new blog name. We moved me in amidst the ice storm last week, and now I’m working on getting settled. The cats seem to love all the new space. It’s extremely quiet in this apartment, and it gets dark at night and I can see stars in the sky. Guess I’ll just have to adjust.

My last few days in Hyde Park have been without any major “experiences,” which makes me a little nervous. Right now I’m doing some last-minute cleaning and awaiting the arrival of Andy and my future in-laws with the moving van.
I wonder if I should change my blog name now that I’m moving? A couple of years ago I was getting my hair cut and the stylist, who was herself not from around here, being originally from Ethiopia, advised me not to stay in Hyde Park/Chicago too long–lest I become “one of them” (I can’t remember if that’s the way she put it, but something like that). I think I know what she meant, and it’s entirely possible that it’s too late for me and in some sense, I will never really leave Hyde Park. Rather than worrying about that, however, right now I need to concentrate on trying to find the cats among the maze of boxes in my erstwhile apartment.

I don’t care much for packing. Most of my belongings are currently in boxes where I can’t get at them, but there still seem to be an endless number of doodads parked on windowsills and other random flat surfaces, which must still be packed. I’m looking forward to getting to the new place (tomorrow!), but right now my apartment is looking alien and unhomelike. Except for the cats, who seem to be getting a big kick out of the whole procedure.
My friend and fellow bride-to-be Jen gave me a book called Diary of a Mad Bride, which is hilarious. Fortunately I haven’t had nearly as many planning problems as the Mad Bride, but it’s still a very funny book.