Thessaly's Tooth

I’ve returned from what will probably be my last multi-day visit with Andy for a while, which is kind of depressing. Classes start tomorrow, and Chicago is lapsing into its damp, grubby, winter mode, when the sky, buildings, and streets take on a uniform steel gray shade and Christmas decorations either disappear or take on a dismal neglected look. However, I like my atmospheres bleak, and I’m still feeling pretty upbeat. After all, this is the year I’m going to get married, leave Chicago, and move to fabulous western Michigan, which gives me a lot of reasons to stay positive.
Andy and I watched Donnie Darko this weekend, and it was very good. Andy and I discussed it for quite a while but didn’t come up with a totally coherent theory, but I’m leaning toward thinking that the movie wasn’t supposed to make total sense. There are a lot of elements of different things going on, but the movie as a whole is supposed to represent the “whole gamut of human emotions,” so that while nothing is totally clear-cut or reasonable, it is still possible for Donnie to be able to make a decision about what to do at the end, and somehow it’s the right decision. But, I’ll have to do some more reading about it, and probably find out I’m totally wrong.
The title refers to my new Gilmore Girls soundtrack, which I’m listening to now. It has a lot of different music that I don’t know anything about on it, but it’s very enjoyable.

Happy New Year! It’s been a good year around here so far. I’ve been assembling my thoughts on the New Year and the somber responsibilites of reappraising my life, but haven’t yet converted them into blog entry form. I am enjoying my last few days of freedom before classes start again, however. I hope to see Andy this weekend, and spend no time at all thinking about the ancient Near East. This is my last quarter of classes, and after that I start studying for comprehensive exams. It’s disturbing that I’m actually looking forward to that.
I’m trying out my new breadmaker tonight. It smells good. I live above a Subway restaurant, and when their bread machines kick in it causes my floor to vibrate. I hardly ever notice it any more, just like I rarely notice this hissing and clanking of the radiators, the car alarms and sirens from outside, the 5:00 a.m. garbage trucks in the alley outside my window, the sounds of the construction going on 10 feet away from my window (7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.)…okay, I do notice and I’m just complaining. I think I made a resolution not half an hour ago to stop complaining so much. Ah, well…anyway, the bread smells good.

Only a couple more precious days of vacation before I must face up to Chicago and reality. I’m trying to get some non-school related books finished before I go back. I’m nearing the end of The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant–I bogged down after dragging through Schopenhauer last September–a combination of his depressing worldview and the beginning of classes made me stop. I’m now in Nietzsche, which is also rather depressing but much more outlandish, which makes for a more entertaining read. Oddly enough, a few months ago I was searching for some good marriage-related quotes to use in the wedding, and the best ones I could find come from him. Weird. I finished up the Higgins Clarks’ He Sees You When You’re Sleeping. The title sounds much more sinister than the actual story, but maybe I was just reading too much into it. I have a another philosophy one and another mystery after this, but doubt I’ll get them all done before classes start. During classes I usually only read children’s books (I mean books intended for children, I don’t actually steal children’s books), since I don’t feel like reading anything too challenging in addition to the school stuff. My favorite children’s series is the Trixie Belden books, which tend to be unfairly overshadowed by Nancy Drew.
We had a good Christmas. Church was on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas Day we opened gifts, ate a lot, and lounged around. Yesterday we toured the new community blood bank facility, which my mother’s cousin directs, and I donated blood for the first time in a while. Today we met my grandmother and uncle for lunch and I got to show off the engagement photos again. Heh, heh.
This entry’s title is for the benefit of my friend Jen, who is getting married four weeks after us, in case she is watching. Jen, I forgot to tell you about how Bridezilla suddenly showed up when I was in the paper shop the other day. That’ll be a fun story for another time.

It’s been a busy few days, between Christmas errands and wedding stuff. I left nearly all of my Christmas shopping until the last minute. My mother caught me while I was shopping for her, but that way she could try on the shirt I was getting for her and confirm that she liked it, so it worked out well. I had my first dress fitting yesterday, which was quite fun. We bought the dress last September, after about two days of shopping. I thought I’d spend a lot more time on it and make sure I had exactly the perfect one, but it only takes a couple of hours before every puffy white dress starts looking like every other puffy white dress.
We went to my cousins’ house for dinner last night. One cousin is going to play the harp at the wedding, and the other is going to be a greeter. Today I went out with Mom to do more registry stuff at Target–that was a lot of fun too. Tonight is church, and tomorrow, of course, is Christmas. A very merry Christmas to all, and a happy, prosperous, and peaceful new year!

I picked up the engagement photos yesterday, and they turned out great. We look really good, I must say–Dawn and Staci did a great job. I had a good visit with Dawn too. She and her husband have a beautiful house, and a number of pets with really great names. Pet naming is a tricky business, there’s a sort of peer pressure to come up with really creative and erudite names, but you can’t go too far with it. For example, Hawthorne is a cool cat name, while Wittgenstein might be a little pompous. But then again, it might not, it all depends on the pet owner. Each individual owner must have the self-knowledge to understand how esoteric a pet name he or she can pull off, and learn to accept their limitations. Of course the pet’s personality has to be taken into consideration too, and no matter how literary you want to seem to your friends, if your cat is a Misty you shouldn’t try to force her to be a Mehitabel.
One of the best cat names I have known is “Thurber”. Thurber was the employee of the month for many years at a used bookstore here in town, and he recently died at a ripe old cat age. He was a great bookstore cat–always monopolizing the best chairs, peering down at you from odd vantage points, and graciously allowing himself to be petted while rarely actually seeking out pets. He will be much missed.

and my paper is one of the above. But, it’s finished and turned in, though I stayed up all night to finish it. Now I’m visiting home with my lovely and talented Mom and Dad. I have an exciting week planned. Tomorrow I’m going to see how the engagement photos, taken by my charming and effervescent matron of honor and her partner in photography. Monday I have a dress fitting. I haven’t seen my dress since September and have kind of forgotten what it looked like so it will be nice to visit it.

Well, I haven’t finished my paper yet. I need to finish it by tomorrow a.m. if I want to turn it in before the new year…and avoid having to work on it at home, when I should be frivoling around with all the other inmates…er, I mean grad students. It’s 8:30 p.m., I have about 12 hours. Think I can do it?
I’ve been playing a lot of SimCity this week. That’s right, instead of my paper. I’ve turned it off now though, so it’s back to the Anatolian Neolithic I go.

One of the purposes of this blog is to keep interested individuals updated on wedding plans. So far, there is not much news to report, but check out our wedding website at www.theknot.com if you like-search for us on the main page. It is password protected, so let me know if you’d like the password.

Woo-hoo, my own blog! The test posts seemed to work, so let the rants begin…
It is Christmas time, and the U of C is officially on holiday. I am spending this week working and trying to finish up a paper from last quarter. I’ve gotten into the bad habit of taking incompletes, thinking I’ll have all kinds of time to finish stuff up later, which of course never happens. This time though, the problem is that the articles I have to read for the paper are in a language I don’t know (German), which is slowing me down considerably. “Nun denn,” as they say “im Deutschland.”
There is a lovely December thunderstorm going on outside. I love midwestern weather, you just never know what’s going to happen next.