"the meek shall inherit the earth" | sunday | december 3, 2006 | 11:01 am

APPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FRIEND RYAN! Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday from a lobster, happy birthday to you. I hope you have a great day!

"more wishes" | sunday | december 10, 2006 | 11:01 am

APPY BIRTHDAY TO JOHN AND DANA! I hope you both have a good day!

"end of the quarter" | monday | december 11, 2006 | 2:29 pm

LMOST DONE. The autumn quarter is over. Classes are finished. I have turned in all of my work. I went to campus today to collect my student's final portfolios, and all I have left to do is grade. That should go pretty quickly. I should be grading them right now, but I think I'm going to defer till tomorrow. I'm a little out of it. Tired. Lackluster. Maudlin. It's the end of term depression, the post-traumatic distress that settles in once the craziness, the schedules, the reading, the writing, the meetings, and the drama of the quarter subsides. What you're left with is a big gaping hole in your day, your mind, and your world. I really should take advantage of it. I only have two weeks or so before the next quarter starts. But, as with these things, I just want to be a slug. Lame, I know.

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"to my sister" | thursday | december 21, 2006 | 8:38 am

APPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SISTER ALENDA! It's a big one! I'm sorry I'm not there to help you celebrate it today. But my thoughts and best wishes are with you. I hope you have an awesome, awesome day! We'll celebrate when I see you for the holidays. Much love! Cheers!

"10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1" | sunday | december 21, 2006 | 7:00 pm

APPY NEW YEAR'S EVE! The past couple of weeks have been a pendulum ride, swinging from absolute boredom and slugness to whirlwind travel and socializing. I cannot believe that my "winter break" (such a misnomer) is over, and I head back to school, to the winter quarter starting on Wednesday, January 3. It feels like I just finished the last quarter. Classes done. Teaching done. Paper writing done. Grading done. I had a little over two weeks to finally do what I wanted to do, what I wanted to catch up on. But, alas, such are the best laid plans of mice and men (which in a curious discussion this past week is not from Steinbeck's novel but from a Robert Burns poem).

It's been a longstanding thing with me that the "western" new year is a time of melancholia, for introspection. I think about all the things that I've done this past year, all of the things I didn't do, that I missed out on, and all of the things I hoped to change or start or discover. Mix that in with the usual boo-hooing during the "holidays" and you've got the fixings for a major gloom spiral. But it's not too bad, really. Maybe I'm in denial, maybe I'm just getting wiser, or maybe the cynicism has curled around and started to eat its own tail. I do have a sense of loss, a sense of lack during this time of year mainly because I'm usually by myself, far away from family and friends, I'm starved for some genuine contact that doesn't come packaged in a seminar room, and I'm constantly being reminded that I'm still single, single, single all the way.

I did get to spend some time with my sister, though, over Christmas, now that she lives on this side of the world, too. Her boyfriend Brian's family moved from California to Olympia. So, Alenda and Brian drove up late last week to spend the holidays with Brian's immediate and extended family. On Christmas Eve, Alenda and Brian drove up to "kidnap" me from my holiday orphanage. I spend two days in Olympia in a big house full of people. The house was right on the Puget Sound. It was two days of eating, hanging out, chatting, napping, and more eating. I even got to sample quite a bit of Swedish food, much of it I no longer can remember their names. I'll have to do a little research. Then my sister came up to spend a couple of days in Seattle and to see my new place. It was a really nice, a little strange, but fun handful of days. It was sad to see my sister go, though. I miss living within commuting distance of one another.

I have a lot to catch up on. But I have to get ready for the night's festivities. Tonight is the New Year's Eve Bar & Party Crawl 2006! A handful of us that are in town are going to go out on Capitol Hill and just hit all the places free and open to the public. We had wanted to do something together but didn't want to pay the increasingly exhorbitant cover charges of all the "happening" spots. A number of the local bars, our usual hangouts, are cover-free, and we decided (or I should say I proposed) that we walk the streets to find whatever adventures await us this night. I hope it will be fun. People are gathering here for a few preparatory drinks. And then we're going to paint the town. I hope there will be fun and tall tales to tell tomorrow.

More soon, of course. Till then, happy new year!

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