WEDNESDAY. 10:13 PM. I really should write an update for the last week or so. I just don't feel like it. At all. Nope. Not at all.

SUNDAY. 8:58 AM. Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest. I mean even god took a break to flop on the couch, grab a cold one, and watch the start of football season. Unfortunately for me I have way too much to do. Sometimes my list of "to dos" sneaks up on me and tackles me. I'm knocked flat completely stunned.

The past week has been full. And I don't see relief anytime soon.

• Turkey vulture incident of last Thursday.

• I don't even remember last Friday. It probably was spent packing for the "ghetto-fabulous exodus."

• Saturday past was Grog and Tankard (2408 Wisconsin Ave. NW, no website). A friend of a friend's band was playing for the last time. I had never been to the Grog & Tankard though I knew it catered to the local music scene. I had a ton of packing left to do, but I decided that I needed a break. It was a fun night. The band was good (though I still don't really know the band's name. I think it was simply "Omar's Band." Omar was the friend of a friend, whom I sort of know tangentially). I drank entirely too much (it was difficult trying to explain a "Snakebite" to the bartender). I was feeling particularly extroverted that night. The bar was pretty chill even as late as 11 PM. So, when I saw a group of college-aged kids stagger by, I waved them in. Drunk straight, fratty boys are an interesting subculture. The doorguy even let them in sans cover all thanks to my invitation. One of the guys named Zack (tall, lean, cocky, and married with children it turns out) put his arms around me and hugged me from behind. The rest of the guys were pretty fun. One of them was particularly hot. It was a most entertaining night. There was pool. There was music. There were cute men. There were fun women. I had a good time. But I got home around three and had to get up to finish packing for my move.

• Sunday morning was a bit rough. But I got up around seven (four hours of sleep later). I needed to get some last minute packing done. People started showing up around nine. Meredith and Jesse were the first to arrive and started loading up their trucks. All in all, the move went pretty smoothly. Cate and Skinner, Scott, and later Shawn also helped. It took only about six hours (with a long lunch break) to get my life all transported.

• Sunday evening, we played Tellings at Cate and Skinner's house. Then I had to drive home after gaming except now home was in a completely different place. It was a weird, strange, discomforted. But being really tired from the weekend helped me crash and just sleep through my first night at the new house.

• Monday past I spent working on getting the house better set up. I put the drawer fronts and doors on the kitchen cabinets. I got my office set up. I started the unpacking process.

• Tuesday morning, there was more unpacking. I also waited for the cable guy. By lunchtime, I had internet access again. Tuesday afternoon, Alenda and Brian came over. We went up to Laurel to Best Buy to get wireless networking stuff. By nightfall, I had wireless internet access. Alenda, Brian, and I also went to a restaurant in Silver Spring called Samantha's (631 E. University Blvd., no website). It's Salvadoran/Mexican food. It was very good. It was a school-is-starting, end-of-vacation dinner. Tasty.

• Wednesday was my first day of classes. I got up, showered, got dressed, and put my school bag together. It was definitely a treat to drive a short seven minutes to school. I parked. I went to my office to check my mailbox. It was then that I realized I had left two stacks of my syllabus (which I had photocopied the week prior) at home on my desk. With only a half hour before my nine o'clock class, I decided to dash home. Seven minutes home. Grabbed the syllabuses. Seven minutes back to school. I had fifteen minutes to cross campus to my first class. First days are always fun for me. My students are all right (though it's too early to tell). Some of them were definitely surprised that I was their teacher (complete with freshly dyed blue spikey hair). I'm not used to teaching a Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule, though. A fifty-minute class is just not long enough for me. I felt like I was racing through everything. But my first day back to teaching went well. I am teaching three sections: one at 9 AM, one at 11 AM, and one at 1 PM.

• Wednesday afternoon I had my first class as a graduate student. In fact, my sister and I are taking the same class (actually, the same classes altogether). Wednesday afternoons are "ENGL708A: The Rhetoric of Science" seminar. It went pretty well. I really like the professor leading the class. It looks like an interesting class and a challenge. I am still not certain that I'm ready for this whole "student" and "scholar" gig again.

• Wednesday night I had a bit of a mini-meltdown. I got home from a long day of teaching and class-going. I was tired. The weather had been warm, very very humid, and the townhouse offered little relief from mugginess. I took one look at all the boxes, the piles of crap, and the unfinished rooms and bathrooms and just broke down. I didn't feel comfortable in the house. I didn't feel like I belonged. I didn't feel like I had made the right choice. I felt overwhelmed. I felt isolated. I felt tired and abandoned. I really think the pressure of work, school, renovation, and life became a noose around my neck. Add on the distress over things like roaches and a less than "ideal" neighborhood just sent me over the edge. I wanted out. I felt trapped. I felt depressed whenever I was home. I felt unhappy. I wanted to be anywhere else. It was a shitty night and I really didn't want to hear "it'll get better" any more.

• Thursday I waited most of the day for the phone guy. The morning didn't start so well. I broke my near $500 Takumi designer-frame glasses that I bought in San Francisco. To date, they were my favorite pair of glasses. I was cleaning them and they snapped right at the bridge. The plastic broke clean through. Totally depressing. I've had them for three years or so, but it's still sad to lose them. Luckily, I have a spare pair -- black, rectangular frames, which make my emo transformation one step closer to completion. Horror aside, I decided that I would unpack. I would try to fashion myself a space as best as I could with what I had. I got the rest of my office out of boxes. I unpacked a lot of the books in the living room. I unpacked my clothes. I put up curtains. The house is slowly coming together. I'm doing the best that I can. The house is changing the best that it can.

• Friday was the second day of teaching. My students are settling into their new routines. Most of them are enthusiastic. I really love teaching. It makes me happy. I also always forget how exhausting teaching is. Three classes just wipes me out, but it's a good kind of tired. I know I've been doing something worthwhile.

• Friday night, Cate, Skinner, and I went to dinner at Franklin's in Hyattsville. Then we went to check out the new coffee house in College Park called College Perk. I had noticed it a couple of months back. It's totally new and totally welcome. College Park has not had a decent coffee house since the days of Planet X. College Perk (yes, it's a little too Friends) is a renovated victorian at the intersection of Route 1 and University Boulevard. It was very cool, very new, very colorful with lots of chairs and big couches. It definitely had a "co-op" feel to it like it was a shared space, a shared enterprise, and an open space. The neat thing is that there are rooms upstairs that are open for rent. The great thing is that the coffee house is open twenty-four hours on the weekend. I am going to have to frequent College Perk. (I even signed up to volunteer.) After coffee, we went to Bethesda to see American Spendor, a pseudo-docu-biography of Harvey Pekar. It was brilliantly acted. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I knew more about Pekar and the whole underground comic scene. But the film has its moments and the "characters" are quirky, a little depressing, a little unsettling, and provoking. (Oh, I also got to see Mars finally. Not through a telescope or anything. Just in the sky. Twinkling. A little yellowish, not red. But it was cool.)

• Yesterday, Saturday, I got up and worked on the house a little more. Then I went over to Alenda's apartment to do laundry (since my laundry facilities in the basement are a) a washer and dryer from the 70s, b) gross and disgusting, c) non-working). We did a quick Target run and had McDonald's for lunch. While I did laundry, I graded my students' first response papers: autobiographies.

• Saturday night, I drove down into the city (learning a completely new way to get into DC, getting lost in the process, but then finding my way) to go to my friend Casper's house in Adams Morgan. He and his housemates were having a "keg party." How could I refuse? Plus, I hadn't seen Casper in months; he had just gotten back from a trek through Europe. It was good to go into the city. It was good to go to a party, which was pretty chill. I didn't know anybody but Casper (though I did run into a former student of Dr. Olmert, my friend and mentor, who remembered me). It was good to hang out and talk to Casper. I met a whole mess of crazy people (or maybe drunk people would be more accurate). I had fun, but I didn't stay long. I left a little before midnight. I was beat down tired.

Today, Sunday, I need to work on the house a bit more. We are gaming over here for the first time today. I need to make sure there's space for the gaming table. I also want to make sure that the house isn't too gross or chaotic for people. I am still battling roaches. Hopefully, I'll get some professional help in this coming week. I still have plumbing issues, but the plumber hasn't been returning my calls. One thing that is cooperating is the weather; it's San Francisco weather. Autumn is coming. The last couple of days have been mild, not humid, and the nights have been chilly. I love it. Now I just need the rest of my life to cooperate.

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FRIDAY. 5:51 PM. What's for dinner? (It's certainly not beef.) Actually, I'm having tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. A classic. Mmm, mmm good. Though I'm not having Campbell's. My refridgerator has been bare since I moved into the townhouse. I just haven't had the time nor the gumption to go to the grocery story. I guess when I run out of canned food I'll just have to go.

It's been nearly two weeks since I've updated my website. (Bad, blogger, bad.) But September started with a flurry of activity that hasn't really had a chance to calm down. I'm still holding on for dear life as I'm dragged around my life by the leash.

But I will attempt to subdue the craziness with a nice bulleted list:

• Second and third week of school were all right. All of the students I started the semester with are still around. I don't ever seem to be able to scare any of them to drop my class. I'm just teasing. I am glad they want to stay and like me and don't mind the fact that I am going to work them to the bone. Their first paper is due this coming Monday. I'm sure I'll be getting some interesting e-mails over the weekend. Their first video day is also on Monday. I'm going to ruin television for them; it's going to be fun.

• My own classes are going well so far. I've managed to keep up with all of my reading. I must be trying or something. During my first go as a graduate student, I never seemed to finish my readings. Somehow, I'm wading through essays by Galileo and Hobbes and Bacon and chapters on sociofunctional and comparativist myth studies with determination and tenacity. Hopefully, the trend will continue. Though I fear once the bulk of my grading starts, I'm going to be struggling to get through hundreds of pages of grad school reading and stacks of poorly composed papers.

• The townhouse has reached a suitable equilibrium. I am nearly unpacked save for a few boxes here and there that simply look better stacked in a corner than exploded all over the floor. My plumbing problems are still pending; the problem in the first place is that the plumber has been unreachable for over a week. I finally got a hold of him this week and we're supposed to discuss what needs doing this weekend. Next, I haven't gotten around to calling the exterminator; I think mainly because my cucarachas have been mysteriously out-of-sight. And since I don't see them, I don't think about them. But I really need to get that done, too. I don't have the time to properly work on the house. I am going to have to find a way to schedule in a day a week or something to get projects done. I have a new problem now -- squirrelzilla or some other form of rodentia or marsupia scratching, scritching, scuttling around in my attic. I usually hear it moving around, gnawing, and bumping or jumping in the mornings. You would think the big-assed attic fan would scare it off. I've called the plumber/handy-guy and it's also on this weekend's slate.

• My computer has been a headache. Ever since I installed my wireless network, my desktop computer has been freezing, limping, and otherwise misbehaving. After hours of wrangling, I finally decided to upgrade the OS from Windows 98 to Windows 2000. The upgrade and reinstallation of everything from the ground up seems to have worked (for now). As much as I would love to buy a new computer (my sister just got a new system and I have new computer envy), I just can't afford it. So I am going to have to make do with what I have at the moment. Hopefully, my computer will hold together for a while longer.

• My good friend Jeff, the actor extraordinaire, was in town for a week last week. He had just come off the National Tour of the Lion King and is headed back to New York to star as Zazu in the show on Broadway. It was really good to see him. He even got a chance to come down on a Sunday to join the Tellings game. He also came down one afternoon to head over to the University of Maryland to see the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, which had been built after he graduated from UMD. We ran into one of Jeff's old professors, who was kind enough to show us around the entire building. It was a great, behind-the-scenes tour. It was a good visit. Though, I know that Jeff's family is riding out a tough time right now -- his father is ill and his grandmother is doing poorly. I wish him and his family strength, luck, and consolation.

• Last weekend was chock full. Friday night, I ran and played Call of Cthulhu. Saturday day was Archaea. Saturday night was an impromptu gathering at my friend Meredith's house. Sunday was Tellings.

• I have fully embraced College Perk, the (relatively new) coffeehouse five minutes down the road from me. I have been there at least a half-dozen times in the last couple of weeks. I am getting to know the people who work behind the counter. Hat tips to Brewer and Chris, who own the wonderful place. I am now a regular occupier of the big orange couch, which faces the coffee bar and is in sight of both entrances. I love going and hanging out. The atmosphere is relaxed, friendly, and familial. There's a coffeehouse cat named Pookie, who is black-and-white, very curious (as any cat should be), and tailless (born that way). I was just last Wednesday night with Cate, who hangs out at the coffeehouse while Skinner is in class. In the blink of an eye, I had spent four hours sitting, talking, reading, sipping tea, and people-watching. It is a much needed and becoming much beloved oasis.

• Life has been really busy. I am at school on Mondays from 8 AM till 9 PM. I am at school on Wednesdays from 8 AM till 6 PM. Fridays are a lighter day running only from 8 AM till 2 PM. Tuesdays and Thursdays are usually spent working on grading, teaching, or reading. My weekends are booked up with more school stuff or whatever social stuff I can manage. I haven't really had much time to think about "things." My mind is neatly distracted by the piles on my desk, the bulging books in my satchel, and the scribbles on my calendar. I have been feeling all right, though. Well. Good. Generally fine. The stress of working on the house and moving to a completely new place has passed. I can't say that I'm perfectly content or perfectly happy. But I have adjusted and adapted. I know I have to find some time to just leave the clock behind and to reflect on what's been going on around me, inside me. Soon, soon, I hope.

• The excitement of this week was of course Hurricane Isabel that swept up out of the Atlantic and rolled across much of the Eastern Seaboard. There was a lot of wind and rain but all in all "Izzy" wasn't as bad as she could have been. I know there are a lot of people without electricty in the Washington, DC metro area. Somehow, my community was spared. Things were dicey enough yesterday to cancel classes at Maryland. And I guess things were messy enough today to cancel classes again. We were lucky. Izzy was kind. And it's fascinating to see people panic like it's the first time a hurricane has ever come along. I actually went out last night to Cate and Skinner's house to play Cthulhu with my Friday night gaming group; the hurricane was just the right backdrop for a horror role-playing game.

• I spent most of today just trying to get through paperwork-type-stuff for school, for class, for my games. I probably should've taken advantage of the free day to work on house stuff, but I just didn't feel like painting the upstairs bathroom or pulling up tile in the downstairs half bath. But, hey, at least I got my website updated...

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MONDAY. 10:49 PM. Another leviathan of a day done. Monday's are just killers. I am up at 7 AM, get to school by 8 AM, and my first class is at 9 AM. Today, my classes turned in their first formal papers, and we had our first video day. I showed them an episode of American High, which I've mentioned before in my online journal. As per usual, most of my kids were a little brain dead (from recovering from Isabel last week, from having far too much fun over their long weekend, or from having too little sleep because they wrote their papers at the last minute). But they watched, they had a few things to say, and I sent them on their way. My sister also had a video day (an pedagogical model she borrowed from me), and I even got to sit in on one of her classes. I finished teaching at 2 PM, had office hours from 2 PM to 4 PM, and then went to the coffee house with my sister for a little rejuvenation before class at 6:30 PM. I got out of my Myth: Theme and Theory class (where we talked about Freud, Jung, and psychoanalytic myth theory) a little after 9 PM. I hurried myself home in the pouring rain.

The animus of my house seems to be waking up again. I get home to find a couple of cockroaches scurrying to find safety after being caught out in the open. They did not last long in the fray, I'm afraid. I did some dishes leftover from the night before's gaming session. Afterward, I pulled a couple of orange-cream popsicles from the freezer (as a reward for a long day well spent) only to discover water pooling under neath my refridgerator. The water was leaking out of the bottom half. Water is condensing somewhere, dripping along the back of the fridge, and pooling in the bottom underneath the veggie drawers. There was enough water (a sizable puddle) that it began running out out of the fridge itself and on to the floor (of course causing the brand new peel-n-stick to buckle). I adjusted the internal temperature hoping it will alleviate some of the problem. But the fridge might need tinkering by a professional or eventual replacement. I think the fact that the floor tile is getting fucked up irritates me and upsets me more than the fridge dripping water. Tomorrow, I am going to tackle the long list of "house" stuff that I've been too busy, too tired, too much in self-denial about to do these past few weeks.

I had a very busy weekend. It was a good weekend.

Friday night, I went out with a bunch of people to see the new flick Underworld. The move was all right. Visually intriguing though a little rough (in an unfinished, sloppy way) and at times monotonous. Characters were single-dimensioned and emotionally monotonous -- there's a lot of angsty, brooding anger. It definitely falls into the Matrix family of "gun-fu" films, but falls a short, I think. It also tries to be a supernatural thriller (unsuccessful), a different take on the vampire/werewolf corpus, love story (what Hollywood movie doesn't try this schtick?), and sociopolitical commentary about race and class -- for the most part, it's successful in that it's pat and that's about it. But I was entertained. I didn't expect much. Of course, there's Kate Beckinsale in tight, leather pants. That's good, but no shirtless Scott Speedman tied to a table; he was surprisingly hot and very different than his usual Felicity-branded image.

The only downside to Friday night was fighting the immensely swollen crowd at the mall. Everyone and their teenage daughter was out shopping and watching movies; I guess there's not much you can do if you're power is out and the weather is crappy.

Saturday, I head over to the university in the morning. First thing, I discovered most of the parking lots were closed in preparation for the football game that night. I take umbrage at the fact that the lots, which are designated for students, teachers, and staff are converted to pay lots and cannot be used by actual students, teachers, and staff during game days even though we all pay an exorbitant amount of money to get a permit. Permit = permission, no? Permit = promise, no? I had wanted to park close to where I was going but just parked my car in my usual place, which was still open to me (only because it was on the opposite side of campus from the stadium).

I went to school to go to the open auditions for Erasable, Inc., the campus's improv troupe. There had been flyers up all over campus about the tryouts. I decided that I had been talking about doing something like improv for long enough. It was time to put action to words. It was a test of my extroversion full on. For years I had been wanting to do something in performance. I am an admitted closet performer, and it was time to come out of the closet (of a different kind).

I stopped at Dunkin Donuts and picked up a box of Munchkins. I showed up a little early just as their flyer suggested. The tryouts were held in the Art/Sociology building. The lobby was dark when I walked in though people were hanging out and a table was set-up. People smiled at me and finally someone asked if I was there for the auditions. I said yes and presented them with the doughnut holes. They were duly impressed (though I got the obligatory "I love suck-ups" comment). The lobby was dark it seemed due to Isabel's wrath, though the rest of the building was lit. I filled out a short registration form and then waited, chatted, and most importantly watched.

I am not sure how to describe a group like improv comedy actors or a theatre cast or an a capella group. They are a breed apart from everyday folk. There is something uniquely cool yet totally geeky, energetic yet on the brink of foolhardy and annoying, and generally "odd" or "off-center" or "bent" (including the queer connotations) about them. I never was one of the "in" kids in high school or college when I hung out with the performing arts crowd. But I recognized a certain quality, a certain demeanor, a certain arrogance perhaps that most performers have. You can sense it, feel it, almost taste and smell it when you walk into the Performing Arts building on campus. It was the same energy that the "inkies" had.

Of course most of them were young. Very young. And when the subject of my age came up, as it invariably did, everyone was genuinely surprised. (I think my graduate student status and the fact that I'm nearly twice most of the troupe's age will be a deciding factor in how my audition is received, processed, and ultimately judged.) Most of the auditioners, about sixteen mostly women, were freshmen. I was auditioning alongside people who could be my students.

Most of the day was spent learning warm-up and focus exercises. Theatre games are very fun, often silly, and moreover a little embarrassing. To stand up in front of a group of people and make strange noises and push your body into strange poses is a little disconcerting to anyone accustomed to keeping to the prim and proper. I have never really been completely comfortable in my own skin. A lot of my overall insecurities are tied to my body image and the fact that I lack confidence in my body, my agility, my kinesthetic sense. But I perservered. I played along. I jumped in with both feet.

(One day I might catalogue what we did. It would take far too long right now. But, you can go here to get an idea of what kinds of games we played.)

After the warm-ups, we were broken up into small groups. The day became a kind of improv training seminar. Half the time was spent with two of the veteran "inkers" learning a handful of games. The other half was spent with two other veteran performers learning another handful of games. We would practice basic improv techniques, working with others, scene building, working in an environment, and most importantly turning off the internal censor and editor that tries to make everything intelligible, sensible, plottable, and funny. It's about a kind of controlled freefall. I learned a lot about letting go and overcoming my own insecurities.

Once we learned a repertoire of games, we had to pick two to perform for the current troupe. That would be our "formal" audition, though the folks leading the exercises had been taking notes on us all day. I think our group did quite well. I think I did very well for someone who's never really done this sort of thing. I managed to get quite a number of laughs and a couple of positive comments. I will find out this week whether I make it to callbacks.

Four hours of improv games is exhausting. It's a total workout. I burned so much energy in those four hours than I probably did the rest of the weekend. I had an amazing time. There were some very talented people. And I learned that I can do it, I can don the mantle of performer, and I enjoy it a lot. It's not that different than teaching (standing up in front of a group of people and trying to keep their attentions, keep them entertained, and transmitting ideas, information, emotions) or game mastering a role-playing game. I really surprised myself on Saturday. And I'm very happy and glad and proud of myself for doing it. Even if I don't make callbacks, I can add the whole experience to my life's resume.

Saturday night, I joined a group of friends and headed down to Leesburg, Virginia to walk through the Temple Hall Farm Maize Maze, a maze cut into a ten-acre corn field (and cut with a rather intricate design: this year celebrates 100 years of flight). I got to hang out with some folks I hadn't seen in a long while. I had never done a corn maze before. (Saturday was a whole day of firsts.) The corn maze was all right, a little creepy, a little muddy, and very mosquito-y (from all the recent rain). But we were armed with flashlights and went running around a big scary cornfield. Through out the maze, there are signposts with a sheet of various questions. Answering the questions correctly tells you the right path to take. Answer the questions incorrectly lands you at a deadend or looped back to an earlier section of the maze. Of course, we ran around screaming, shouting, singing, and quoting horror movies. We nearly frightened Cate into catatonia by chasing her as zombies (she has an intense irrational fear of mindless undead). Our large group split up early on in the maze. The handful of people I was with somehow skipped a whole section of the maze and finished early taking only about forty-five minutes to find the exit. It was fun. I don't think it's something I'd do on my own volition, but I'm glad I went.

Sunday day was spent working on school work. Sunday afternoon and evening was Tellings.

And that brings us up-to-date. Like I said, it was a good, full weekend.

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MONDAY. 11:08 PM. Time for my Monday night update. Another week has passed. It seems the only time I get to write for my website is after my longest day. But I guess if I have the energy and the notion, I should just go with the flow.

The past week has been relatively uneventful. The weekdays were pretty much school, work, home, sleep, clean, and errands. I got my student's first stack of papers last Monday but have yet to sit down and grade any of them. (Though I intend to do a class's worth tomorrow.) My students are starting to feel the approach of the midterm; their energy is lagging. It could also be that we've past the vernal equinox and the days are getting shorter. And we're about to go off Daylight Savings Time. Maybe it's all of the above.

On Thursday of last week, the Orkin man came to inspect my house and apply the first extermination treatment. The exterminator will come again next month (he'll be back) and then return every other month for the next year. So far, I haven't seen any live roaches. I've found a couple of dead ones in the kitchen just inside the threshhold as if they wanted to expire in full view to let me know they were dying in protest of me making their home uninhabitable to them.

Friday, I got up in the morning and worked on clearing my desk a little. Then my friend Shawn came over in the afternoon to re-dye his hair. I helped him bleach and color his hair blue. He helped me cut my hair. I am now sporting a narrow mohawk; I still need to grow in the the back, but everyone has commented that it looks good. I like it though I'm still surprised at myself every time I see my reflection. I'll grow into the new look eventually. My students have voiced their approval as well. Actually, before I got a chance to cut my hair, one of my kids came in on Friday morning sporting a mohawk -- it looked good -- and I jokingly said to him that it's going to look like I am a total copycat.

Friday night, my usual Friday gaming group convened sans two players. But we played Call of Cthulhu anyway. It was fun.

Saturday, I would've gone to Archaea. But I was "tribally" pressured by a lot of my friends to go to a wedding they were attending. I had originally RSVPed that I was not going to attend. But since everyone else was going and because the bride and groom expressed some disappointment at my "no" reply, I decided to give into the party mind. The day was sunny and warm. The wedding was held outdoors at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, MD. It was a pleasant ceremony. (Though the woman presiding reminded us of Zelda Rubenstein of Polstergeist fame.) After the wedding, we all trundled over to Martin's Crosswinds, a meeting/banquet/convention center in Greenbelt, MD, for the reception. There was a lot of drink and a lot of food. There was even a curious "floorshow" where the serving staff paraded through the room while the theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey ("Also Sprach Zarathustra") played in the background culminating in a dramatic presentation of the food, which was reminiscent of Iron Chef. It was all very funny. The reception was pretty low key. People ate. People drank. People danced to the musically challenged DJ. Overall, it was a good day for a wedding. Congratulations to Ben and Stacy Walz!

Saturday night, a bunch of folks headed over to my friend Meredith's house for a post-wedding gathering. We sat around and talked. We played a little Scene It?, a DVD/board game. Actually, we just played the DVD and answered the questions as a group dispensing with the board game altogether. Then we watched Fallen.

Sunday, I got up early and cleaned out the basement. I cleared out some random pieces of furniture, a handful of cracked barbell weights, an engine transmission, and random detritus left by previous tenants. I also swept and cleaned up a bit. The basement isn't pretty, but it definitely looks a lot better now. Then I got myself out of the dust and dank and ran a few errands -- post office, drugstore, bank, and I even stopped at the coffee house for a decaf latte to go; the coffee house was very quiet (which might be a great time to study or grade papers). I got to meet another barista named Nicole, who was very cool, very friendly. Sunday afternoon, I worked on stuff for Tellings. Then, the washer and dryer I had bought earlier in the week from Sears were delivered. I am now laundry enabled, which is a very good thing. Eventually, I'll get the basement really cleaned up, painted, and refinished. For now, there's a corner where I can do my wash. The rest of Sunday was spent gaming.

Today was a pretty good day. Teaching went well. As I said earlier, my students are feeling and looking a little weary. But they're still trying. On a related note, I found out last week that I have been nominated for Maryland's Parents Associations Outstanding Faculty Award. I get to go to a brunch this coming Saturday during Parents Weekend to see if I won -- doubtful -- but it's a great honor. I can put it on my CV.

I ran into a former student named Eric today in the Student Union. He took my class last fall. He's a good kid. We bonded a little while he was in my class. It was good to see him, talk to him, and catch up with him. He said that I looked good and looked like I had lost some weight -- a nice thing to hear. He looked good, too. If he were only a bit older and gay... seems I'm saying that quite a bit these days.

I had my myth theory class tonight. It went all right. Now I have a ton of reading to do for my Wednesday night class. Plus, I have to grade papers and take care of random loose ends I didn't do last week. The weather's getting chilly. The evening is getting late. I probably should just crawl into bed and go to sleep. Yep, yep. I will do just that.

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