The Indie Superhighway

Preface: everyone listen to Elbow's The Seldom Seen Kid if you have not already.

Anyhow...just the other day I was listening to Grounds for Divorce and thinking it was only a matter of time before it showed up in a trailer. And voila! The Coen brothers snap it up. I'm glad it made it into a good film...it's too awesome a song not to.

Also, this movie looks awesome.

Allo Meteo!

It's official...my brother arrives on Tuesday. Words can't describe how excited I am. Plus my new job seems really great. Plus I hear the Lost finale is killer. Plus today was way better than yesterday.

But...mostly my brother. Summer hijinx, here I come.

För I mina ögon är hon alltid en bott

God I miss Jamie and Tom.

D-d-d-danger! Look Behind You!

Well, I'm back in Madison.

Both my trips were great. Chicago was really fun, a great change from Madison and a reminder that yes, there are still real cities out there. I ate HUGE amounts of food, I chatted with Maeve, we shopped, we went to possibly the swankest bar/lounge I've ever been in, we walked, we ate ice cream, we slept in. It was great. I'm looking forward to going back again at some point this summer - maybe with Ben in tow...?

Home was wonderful. I got there without incident (flying out of Madison is so nice), and Ben picked me up. It's always so nice to be in my family's house and with them, even if NC isn't exactly home. In some ways it's better, perhaps...I spend all my time with my family now when I visit Cary, instead of being distracted by the millions of other things I'd be distracted by if they still lived in NH. I'd probably visit more though, so maybe it would even out. At any rate, it was a really nice week. My mother's birthday made for some nice festivities, and I did a bunch of much-needed shopping with everyone. I also saw Iron Man and Indiana Jones, both of which I really enjoyed. IM was overall the better film, but I thought IJ was really fun - not as good as Raiders or Crusade, but definitely worthwhile. I love that they brought back Marion and not some unrealistically gorgeous new love interest. It made it that much sweeter, and helped it feel connected to the originals. Ben and I went at midnight, which was great.

Kitten and I didn't get as much face time as I'd have liked while I was home, but it's tough since she's still in school. I got to see a little more of her boyfriend, who seems pretty cool, and we did have a few good talks. She's so cool. Ben and I didn't get as much time as I'd have wanted either, but I'm less concerned about that because...he's moving up here! It's not quite a sure thing yet, but it's pretty sure. I'm *so* excited. Ben's pretty much the best, and having him here will make a huge difference in my summer. We've always wanted to live together, and it's just going to be so fun. So while it was still really hard to leave Cary and I really really didn't want to come back, it was made much easier by the knowledge that he'll probably be here in less than a week. And then the good times will roll. Or something.

I managed to make it to my first day of job training today despite some flight snags caused by serious thunderstorms in Nashville. It wasn't anything intense today, but it went well and I think I'll like working there. The kitchen is tiny for such a big place, which seems like it must get tricky, but people seem nice and fairly friendly. I wish I was starting a bit sooner, but I'm sure I'll need the time to get used to everything. I'm pretty excited about it, actually. Sadly they don't seem to be hiring anyone else...if Ben moved here and worked at the same place as me, that would really be ridiculous.

So today was busy. Training, picking up the car (under 250! yay!), groceries, gym, cleaning...now I'm relaxing a bit and waiting for the phone to ring. I started rereading Until I Find You yesterday while flying and am enjoying it again...it's not Irving's best, but it's still entertaining. 

So...yeah. Home was nice, wish I'd stayed longer, wish I'd taken the trip I'd originally been supposed to, wish it was warmer here, etc, but so far, so good.

Les Mugets

Walking home from campus today, I passes a row of lily of the valley in bloom. They've been my favorite flower (along with lilacs) since I was very little, and I hadn't seen any growing like that in years. It made me smile; they smell so beautiful and are so delicate. I remember when I was in Paris, how all of a sudden in May people everywhere in the streets were selling bunches of them, and all the corners smelled amazing. They're a little thing, but they make me happy.

Suite Francaise

Note to self - if you're feeling depressed and lonely, reading a book about the horrors of Occupation set in the French countryside is probably not the best choice. No matter how great a book it may be.

But the book is great, and I am loved despite defections, and my papers advance well, and Maeve and her metropolis beckon, and the Cote du Rhone makes wine that reminds me of nights in Haute-Vienne, and these are all good things. Maybe time will mend all ills, maybe Beauty will come around, maybe Tom and Jamie will make it here this summer, maybe fuel charges will drop, maybe I'll understand Deleuze. 

And I'm going home in exactly a week. Possibilities are endless.

You've Got Your Twenty-Sided Die - and You Like to Throw Them Down

Listening to Jamie's radio show pleases me greatly. She played Lil' Pocket Knife for me this week, which made it even better. I get a dose of uber-indie music, I get to laugh, I get to watch Jamie and her guest DJ dance via a webcam that refreshes every 15 seconds...it's good times.

There's a reason I wasn't a Drama major

And so it continues.

Today wasn't too bad. I slept later than I have in I don't know how long, and I probably would have slept even longer still except Marshelle called and asked to use my internet. So I dragged myself up and out to the gym, then over to Barriques where I worked on Caroline's paper for awhile. The paper is going alright, I guess...I keep forgetting about bits and pieces of my topic and then loudly touting them as I remember to make up for it. Not ideal. 

I was in a weird mood all day, kind of anxious and agitated and upset, but it helped to work with Marshelle and Kristiane there. I got a reasonable amount done, and I think I'm on track to finish as I'd planned. 

In the evening, I headed out to an audition for an a cappella group. I had seen the ad and thought vaguely about trying out, but then I went to Kevin's quartet performance and it really made me think about how nice it would be to have something musical in my life again. So I went, and I think it went pretty well. They have a lot of people auditioning so who knows, but I'm happy with how well I managed to sing and learn a part since I haven't done anything remotely organized in that line for two years.

Damn. College is receding behind me at an alarming rate.

Now, time for cookies and Lost with Andy. Last night when I came home from Maduros I had an overwhelming urge to make (and eat, admittedly) cookie dough, so I did, and also was sober enough to roll it all into cookies and freeze them, so now I have 24 frozen balls of dough ready to be made into cookies. Well 16...I made us 8 for tonight. :-)

Oh summer. Please arrive.

Sometimes I think of leaving, it's something I'll never do

Today, I began writing my last paper. I'm reaching that point where "pride in my work" becomes a quaint, old-fashioned idea and I just want to be *done*. But since this paper is for Caroline, I hope it turns out at least reasonably well. She seemed okay with my topic, so hopefully it'll be alright.

Yesterday I felt partially transported back to Limoges, or at least my mode of life there. After my job interview waaaaay down Monroe street, I decided not to wait 30 minutes for a bus and instead just walk. I passed Trader Joe's on the way and stopped in to buy a bottle of wine and some bread, then kept walking for much much further than I usually do here. (I gave up and caught a bus at Johnson because I was wearing really impractical shoes and couldn't go any further.) It reminded me of last year, when buses were infrequent and not free, and when instead we would walk miles and miles every day. From the Residence down rue Meissonier, then right onto Mauvendiere, down past Place Winston and Malin Plaisir, then through Place d'Aine and past the SNCF office, past Les Halles, down rue Turgot past all the stores to Jean Jaures and Monoprix. We'd buy some vegetables, a few apples, a cut or two of meat for a few days of dinner, cereal, cheese, bread, maybe some soda if we were feeling flush, and of course some wine. Con and I would decide what we'd be eating alone and what together, and split things accordingly. We'd promise not to buy so much wine and do it anyhow, justifying it by saying we'd earned it for putting up with our spartan poverty-stricken existence of walking everywhere. Then back home, maybe via Francois Chenieux this time, past the Grand Ecran and Cafe Bombay. The whole trip was over 3 miles, with groceries on the way back, but it felt like nothing, we did it so often...sometimes three times a day. Con walked over ten miles a day the days he went to La Souterraine for school, and I spent most of my lunch hours wandering around Feytiat's bizarre French version of suburbia. I miss that, like I miss most things about last year, and I'm looking forward to walking more this summer. 

Maybe I'll do another assistantship while I'm dissertating. That would be really nice.

Also, the Limoges gym? So crazy. Although Sebastian, the incredibly fit and attractive co-owner, made for more reliable eye candy than you get at the UW gym.

In other news, this paper's going to be really long. Boooo.

I chose the right Area

I just spent over an hour reading critical articles on Dickens that aren't really relevant to my paper. But turns out, I like reading Victorian criticism that's textually-based. Like, a lot. Interesting.

I still hate theory though.

Marginalia Joys

So I'm reading this mostly boring book about feminist readings of the bildungsroman (and I have to admit, I kind of hate feminist criticism), but it's just been made 100 times better by the marginalia of whoever had it before me. Next to a discussion of how women, since they're already 'castrated,' stay passive and infantile, is written "Fuck you, Freud," underlined twice.

Ha.

I want this to be over.

Sunday

I did almost nothing productive this week. Let's hope the next 10 days are a bit better a performance. 

Neruda Always Knows

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.