Today has not been so productive. It's 1:50 PM EST, I'm unshowered and groggy, and my house is a mess. The shower thing will be easy to remedy; the house thing, less so. The bad news is, I stayed out later last night than I have all year (& consequently slept until 10:15 ), but the good news is that I've already packed three boxes of kitchen stuff today! And I cleaned up all the bacon pans left over from last night's [early this morning's] boozy bacon extravaganza. The extravaganza was not my idea - I was a mere spectator - but it was greasily hilarious! Eric and Darren cooked and ate a pound of bacon, then commenced a series of arm wrestling competitions! HA!

The cleanup was not hilarious, but I survived.

Finally it is sinking in that I'm leaving Western Mass, and I am going to miss a lot of people and places. People, you know who you are, and you best come visit me in Wisconsin. I will bake you pies and take you out for boots of beer. Among the places I'll miss most are the bike path (Norwottuck Rail Trail), the Smith Gardens, Forbes Library (where I spent many an hour editing the old thesis), and the Hangar, which serves the best boneless wings in the country. I'm not joking about that: I do not joke about chicken wings.

We celebrated The Return of Jesus with lots of movies.

And, this diet Pepsi tastes really syrupy. Is this only because I rarely drink soda?

Saw "Adventureland" on Friday, which I enjoyed and which was not what I expected. (The unmet expectations owe to my total unfamiliarity with the movie prior to viewing it.) Overall, I dug this movie: it made me nostalgic for amusement parks (which were a verboten aspect of my childhood), summer, semi-illicit drinking, and so forth. I was psyched that "Satellite of Love" was on the soundtrack: this was my song obsession the summer before I started grad school! And the casting was really good. I did feel James was unconvincingly immature for his age - that is, he was going to grad school and he'd never had a job, ever? AND he was still a virgin? Come on, people! These quandaries seem more appropriate to a college sophomore, methinks...but, plausibility issues aside, pretty solid.

Easter, we watched "Rachel Getting Married" and "How To Lose Friends and Alienate People," both Blockbuster impulse rents. Well, I'd wanted to see "Rachel" for a while. DRAMA! Family politics! What could have been more appropriate for a family holiday? The latter was amusing-ish, though I found myself getting reallytruly annoyed @ Sidney Young. Really? I thought. This guy would have gotten his ass kicked, like, 75 times by now. Also, he would have been fired after the "disappearance" of Sophie's dog. But whatevs. Whatevs. This is a movie.

Eric got me a giant chocolate rabbit called "The Professor." It stands about 1 foot tall, and is bespectacled. I have not yet broken into it, because I'm not sure how to approach the initial breaking.
I am going to make a collage using images from "The Professor's" box, because the box incorporates awesome 70s graphics of woodland creatures.

My thesis defense is Friday, and I am starting to get freaked out in my brain. As in, what if my committee decides to surprise me - SURPRISE! - by not passing me, or something? Not that I think I will not pass, but, you know: nervousness.

E. and I are still trying to decide on an apartment. This is OK, because the application his parents sent us hasn't arrived yet. It looks like I'll be staying in the Valley at least through the end of July, which fact saddens me. I know, based on some of my former posts, that it seems like I abhor this place, but I don't really - not reallytruly, anyway. I'm just excited about my up&coming place of residence, and I want to be there now! I want to get on with my life! Plans! Newness! There's still a chance that we'll move to Madison before August - i.e., in the case that one of us gets a superawesome job that requires us to move before then - but in all likelihood, August it shall be.
I will try not to be impatient. I will instead use my time productively, applying for jobs and looking for fun IKEA furniture and reading things I've always wanted to read (because I won't be in school anymore, yo! And I will have time for fun reading) and cycling. Yes. This is the direction my actions will take.

Yes, I am reminiscing about my childhood mall.

Some late-week randomness by way of updates. First, I was sorely disappointed by Mallrats, for which I had (perhaps unreasonably?) high expectations. The dialogue was terrible and wooden! The acting was just terrible! The songs didn't seem to correspond to the scenes during which they were played! I liked the premise, though. Additionally, watching the movie made me overwhelmingly nostalgic for my childhood mall: Northtown Mall. Ah, yes: Northtown, whose logo was (is?) a Viking ship, whose lack of stable anchor stores has not diminished my appreciation! When I was in elementary and middle school, I was obsessed with this mall store called 20/20 sound - a music shop that specialized in "alternative" albums/apparel. There, I almost bought "Under the Table and Dreaming" (still have never owned any DMB: and I never will), and it was there my dad got me a Soundgarden tee the Christmas of sixth grade. Ah, 20/20 Sound. It strikes me now as a bit incongruous that they were selling DMB, but whatevs.
What else about Northtown? In late high school/when I'd come back on breaks from college, Ali and I would go to the Gap approximately once every three days. The reasoning behind this was unclear, though I think this is what happened: Ali always had an item (a lace-edged cami, a pair of chinos) that she wanted, but she was really indecisive about buying said item. So she'd put the item in question on hold, go back the next day to look at item, decide she didn't want it, and return the item to the shelf. But a few days later, she'd rethink her previous decision and trek back to the Gap. What a cycle!

In other news, I am still stoked about the upcoming move to Wisconsin! I've gotten into the mindset that my life will be way more exciting and jawesome with this pending shift in geography - though I know I'll still have irksome schtuff to deal with once I'm there. Certainly, I am excited to be moving to a place where I actually want to live (as opposed to having to live in a certain, not-as-awesome place for purposes of grad school); and I have been doing research re: all the things I want to do upon arrival at the WI border. (I almost wrote, "the shores of Wisconsin," because I am a pioneer like that.) Maybe my excitement boils down to the thrill of change, but it's more than that. I miss the open spaces of the Midwest, driving through farmland at spring dusk. Yeah, there are farms here, but even these seem tiny and cramped. Everything here seems tiny and cramped and only 2 hours away (or 3, but who's counting?), and also the Iowa-80 Rest Stop is awesome. The end!

Let's just say I'm less than thrilled that the holiday weekend is over & that it's back to the regular routine. That's the thing about holiday weekends: afterwards, the transition back to one's regular schedule is un-fun and grouchy.

Some good things:

1) I realized today (while re-doing the Key Office's whiteboard calendar) that there are only two weeks of classes left (three of the semester). Hot damn! Salvation will be here before I know it.

2) Saturday, my mom, sis & I spent the day in Shelburne Falls, quite possibly the cutest place in MA. It reminded me a lot of Osceola, WI: both towns are on the scenic riverfront, both are rife with mom & pop cafes/gift shops/trees, both are nice weekend diversions. I hadn't thought about Osceola in who knows how long; when I was in high school/college, I used to drive there from CR to get my hair cut. (A good family friend has her own salon there.) Getting a haircut was a daylong event: the drive to Osceola took an hour; the cut itself, an hour. Afterward, I'd get lunch at Dagwood's, a place on Main St. specializing in subs and tacos. Then, I'd spend an hour or so browsing the antique store, looking for Lucite earrings and chunky plastic bracelets. Ah, Osceola. Dagwood's is closed, I'm fairly certain. In fact, it may have closed while I was still in college, the market for tacos and cold cuts not being as strong as it once was. Hopefully, I'll get the chance to venture (mid)westward before the winter's up.

Happy post-Thanksgiving! And pre-winter! Let's all not be too long faced at work and school today. The end.

The windiest month.

I'm, uh, back from Madison, though if I'd stayed, would anyone have found it surprising? Wisconsin remains as awesome as in my memory: rolling green and wide, faintly cow-smelling, the September sky muted. Sunday, Eric and I bummed for a few hours in Madison, getting lunch at State Street Brats (cheese curds!), browsing the bookstore, just walking. Janesville, too made me homesick: for apple picking, Sunday dinners, backyards.

Nostalgiafest 2008, it's true. This week, I even browsed Madison real estate...

In other news, Darren and Sara are coming over for dinner tonight, and here's what's on the menu:

Roast pork loin (with carrots and onions)
Mashed sweet potatoes
Salad with apple-walnut dressing
Bread (to be purchased from the Hungry Ghost)
Sweet potato pie (not homemade, admittedly...)

A little sweet potato heavy, I admit, but I'd already planned to make the mashed 'taters when I saw the pie and I thought, "What the hell! I love sweet potatoes!" And therefore, so must everyone else. I may have misplaced the recipe for the dressing, but I should be able to find it before dinnertime. Fingers crossed.
But, I'm pretty excited to cook this roast: roasts are the perfect indicator of fall and all the excellent cold-weather cooking to come.