It certainly sounds like a squirrel is stuck in my wall. Or ceiling. That, or the masons refacing my building are dragging a delicate pick across the bricks. Actually, no: I am decided that it is a squirrel.

Montreal was excellent! I'd forgotten what it's like to be in a city (a real city), and I did all those things that are impossibilities in rural suburbia: rode the Metro, had leisurely meals in sidewalk cafes, perused the erotic cinemas, and so on. Yes, erotic cinemas and peep shows are everywhere in Montreal, as is coleslaw. Go figure. I ate more coleslaw this weekend than I have during the past two summers, or three.

Returning to Massachusetts, we stopped for lunch in Burlington at a place called Henry's Diner. This was a late lunch - 3:30 or so - and the place was packed with students in sweatpants, hoodies, and flip flops. They ordered breakfast foods with great enthusiasm, and I thought, "Weird! It's like, mid-afternoon." Then it hit me: Sunday mid-afternoons = hangover time! I could not quite believe that I'd forgotten those college Sundays when I stayed in bed until 1:00, and then got up only to purchase a Dasani, a diet ginger ale, and a Powerade from the machines in the basement, but I remembered fast. And chuckled.

Sadly and predictably, I returned to a pile of work. It's the last week of the semester and I'm working both jobs (old and new), scrapping to finish my screenplay and my independent study. It was raining this morning, but the cloudcover just broke. Lilacs are in bloom; I wish I could wrap myself in a comforter and read Richard Hugo.

Go Places.

It has been a tortuously busy week, one during which I've had scads of appointments/meetings/obligations/usw., but during which I have gotten little actual work done. Tonight, I had a three hour meeting with the English Conference Committee. I'm not complaining about the three hours - we needed all of the time to rearrange panels, assign moderators, and such - but am lamenting my posture in that restaurant booth: I think I undid all of today's chiropractic therapy. I've hardly worked on my thesis at all (though I met with my adviser on Wednesday: does that count?), and now, instead of doing real work, I'm researching destinations for an upcoming trip Eric and I are planning. We're arranging a weekend getaway for my birthday/his birthday/our 2-year anniversary, which three dates fall within one week of each other. The potential destinations are:

1) Nantucket
2) Bar Harbor
3) Niagara Falls
4) Montreal

My personal favorite is Montreal(!) I mean, come on: Montreal. Right? He's pulling for Nantucket. In the interest of fairness, we've each chosen two destinations (he the former, I the latter) and are going to prepare presentations (handouts & all) on our locales of choice. !. If I knew how to use PowerPoint - or cared to learn - I would totally make a PowerPoint. In fact, I just might. After all, this thesis is practically editing itself.

News flash, y'all: this birthday is the big 2-5.

News flash 2: If I could make an unsolicited recommendation to any and all readers: Pilates will change your life. But who am I to talk? I've been to the gym once this week...

How else do I spend my time when there's real work to be done?

Not really feelin' the semester: not just yet. Perhaps this owes to the non-transition from winter break to now; the shatty weather; the cold of death which is slowly but steadily taking over my respiratory system, keeping me awake nights with its phlegm-producing capabilities (gross, I know: I am sorry); or the fact that Januaries are always the least fun month of the year, in my experience [my experience beginning Junior year of high school, that is, prior to which January was just another month - a cold month, it is true, but a month just the same]. Before I get too whiny - which I feel I have been lately, and for which I apologize - I should mention some random, awesome, and awesomely random things about myself, my environs, and etc.:

1) About 100 pages into This is Not It and it's sort of hit-or-miss, but in the best sense. The sense that some passages/narratives are a little "meh," but others just floor me. Like this one, for instance:

"It is the night of the world. Life is dark and hidden from me. The animals cannot sleep. The mountains are complacent and stalwart. The caves are shy, without light. The plains don't want to be flat. The desert is listless, waiting. I have been sitting here a very long time listening to the wind as it races past. It is howling and wailing, it is crying. It pules. It shakes the glass in the windowpanes. I stare out into the dark night. I am completely alone, my hand caresses my neck. The beauty of the world stretches away from me" (57).

How could a person not be moved by this? I wondered as I sat in the grad lounge this afternoon, listening to the water tick in the radiator, eating a soggying sandwich. These gorgeous, declarative sentences.

2. Today, the career counselor advised I buy a suit for interview purposes. (This means I need to be interviewed, right? Heh.) I was excited by this suggestion: how many times have I fondly looked through the "suiting" section of J.Crew, only to flip to something more relevant to my lifestyle, like flip flops? Well, friends, now that I have the permission of someone trained to advise such things, I will no longer feel ashamed when lingering over those previously-forbidden pages. (Aside: for the record, I'm not going to buy a J.Crew suit: not that any of you thought I would. I don't have that kind of $$$! I'm looking for a real job! But, I will consider Banana.)

3. I am obsessed with "Crocodile Rock."

4. Not normally the type to daydream about vacations, I keep punishing myself by conjuring images of Tahiti/Cancun/Pensacola/California/THE EQUATOR/anywhere else that doesn't have snow. I'm baffled by this fantasizing; after all, I grew up in MN, which is a lot colder than where I am now. And my apartment is adequately warm, and I just bought onehellofa coat. What gives?

5. E. and I went to brunch this past weekend for the first time in a long time, and it was the nicest. I wore a zip hoodie and had three cups of coffee.

6. The trotting animal can restore red hearts to red.

7. I don't know about you, but I'm getting excited for the Superbowl, if only for the culinary opportunities it affords.

Indeed, it is that point in the semester where it's all I can do to prevent myself from constantly obsessing about the impending winter recess. The days are getting shorter, the air is ass-cold, the workload gets heavier by the hour. Yeah. I'm staying in Western MA for winter break, and I'm not predicting that this stretch of time will be, in and of itself, awesome. What will be awesome is the cessation of most formal duties. Amen! Already, I'm planning little projects for myself: some knitting, some crafting of Xmas tree ornaments (from felt). Some other stuff? I recently found a recipe for phyllo dough Apple turnovers that I'd really like to try, and come to think of it, I'll probably do that this weekend, not this December.

This upcoming recess is my potentially last winter break ever. I say potentially because, from time to time, I toy with the idea of applying to various other advanced degree programs, once I get the heck out of here. In the event that I enroll in another program, the cycle of academic holidays will reinstate itself. But for now, work in the real world looms on the horizon: a real world without winter break.

Right now I'm reading Oliver Sacks' "An Anthropologist on Mars." I'm a big fan of Sacks not only because of my fondness for "pop" psychology (& related areas), but because of his approach to writing about neurological disorders: rather than focusing on the negative aspects of the disorders he studies - which would be easy to do, given the symptoms of some of them - he writes about what new abilities (creative, perceptual) these neurological changes engender in his patients. Of course, Sacks doesn't deny the real pain these diseases cause his patients, and fairly portrays the hardships his patients must endure en route to recovery; but that he can find positives at all in brain trauma is admirable.

Beyond tonight, weekend plans are nebulous. I'm stuck on this turnover idea, though: so maybe the pastries will materialize.

Another week, another dollar, or something like that. I've been meaning to update since last weekend, but...it was just another of those crazy weeks. I'm surprised I had time for acupuncture.

Last weekend, Eric and I went to Concord. We only spent a day there (I being eternally tethered to Noho by thesis duties & therefore unable to spend more than 24 hours away from my computer: dramz), but managed to see most of the things we wanted: The Old Manse, the Old North Bridge, Author's Ridge (in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery), The Orchard House (L.M Alcott's adult home), Walden Pond, and The Wayside (where L.M. Alcott lived as a child). Of these, my favorite was the Wayside, where the Hawthornes and the Lothrops also lived at various points in history. I guess Nat Hawthorne was "obsessed" (tour guide's words) with Gothic architecture, so he added a three-story Gothic-style tower in the middle of the house. A son of one of the home's subsequent owners then painted a mural on the ceiling of this tower: pastoral scenes dedicated to Hawthorne. Another high point was visiting Walden Pond at dusk: the air held a nice chill, the water lost its reflection, the pines were dark. We got some great pictures - which, of course, I haven't yet gotten around to posting. Sigh.

The only downside of the trip (besides not being able to stay longer) was lunch. E. and I went to the Walden Grille, which we'd read about online & which looked like a decent place. WRONG! This was the worst food I've had in a restaurant in maybe three years. E. ordered his burger medium and got a hockey puck; I ordered a chicken wrap, and both the wrap and the chicken had the consistency of leather. (Well, I guess the wrap's consistency was more like parchment, but anyway...) Our fries had clearly been "re-fried" - having worked as a short order cook in college, I know these things. And on top of this all, our waitress was rude!
Just a warning: if you find yourself in Concord at lunchtime, avoid this place at all costs.

This weekend doesn't promise to be as exciting, though I guess I shouldn't nay-say before it happens. Last night, Lisha hosted a knitting/YouTube viewing session, which was excellent and relaxing. I couldn't believe how long it had been since I'd knit, but I got back into the swing of it [fairly] easily and made some progress on a scarf that I started back in '05. Heh.Who knows? This might be the year that I actually finish a scarf...