I buttle.

There is nothing quite like having an eight year-old look you in the eye and say "You can clear my plate now."

keeping on.

in case any of you are worried, we're safe from the fires. we also bought a vaccuum cleaner. i'm starting to head into Major Reading mode, the kind of school time where i spend most of the day on my bed with my nose in a scholarly book. it's not fun, exactly, although it's not not fun, either. classes are going well, although it's clear that we're about to leave the calm place as the storm of the end of the quarter warms up. everything ends and is due the week before christmas, so november is the warm-up and december is the thunder.

i did get to go see some SITI company war-of-the-worlds goodness last night. a small group from school went, and as sometimes happens, i could judge my simpatico quotient with any given individual by his or her response to the show. i was absolutely mesmerized. and sad i'd left new york without taking classes with SITI. you do what you can, and their classes are always in the middle of the day and expensive, but. sigh. wow.

almost there.

we're getting on towards having a los angeles home. just yesterday my husband roasted a chicken and i made chocolate chip cookies. if that doesn't a home make, i don't know what does.

in other news, i'm sure you've heard malibu is burning. we are, of course, completely fine. disturbing, however, is the warning that went out from UCL@ this week to limit our exposure to the air. apparently all sorts of things are burning, and the air is not so good. while this obviously makes sense, it's a hard thing to wrap one's mind around. be careful of the air?

it's funny; i forget we live in a giant city sometimes. it's pleasant to know that we live somewhere where i can see any movie i want, or find any kind of consumable, but i don't walk through it on a regular basis and so the actual phenomenological experience of this place as "city" is largely missing. i kind of feel like i'm in a suburb with lots of sushi and a big honking R1 university.

where we're going to see ian mckellen tomorrow night!

The USB Cable of My Discontent

When I first moved to New York I needed a USB cable for my new printer. I was going to be reading stage directions at an Off-Broadway company the next day and needed to print resumés. There was a blizzard bearing down on the city, so the only thing I could think of was to go to one of the dozen or so electronic shops in Times Square. The cable set me back almost $50. As I got to know the city better, such things didn't happen anymore. Or at least less frequently. For one thing, I learned there was a Radi0 Sha¢k two blocks from my subway stop, if only I had turned right instead of left when looking for an open shop.

Yesterday I took my first bike ride through the streets of Los Angeles. There is no better way to get to know your city than to bike through it. And contrary to what one might imagine considering Californians, um, unique approach to driving, riding on some of Los Angeles' busier thoroughfares doesn't engender a feeling of impending death.

What's the connection? Ah. while on this ride (which started at UCLA, went to the catering service for my paycheck, tot he bank, and then home - about 14 miles) I dropped my keys. Not once, but twice. The first time was not a big deal. While unlocking Casper from a rack on campus, I apparently let the keys fall to the ground and didn't notice as I rode off for coffee. Fortunately I wasn't very far away when I realized what I'd done. Unfortunately I noticed because I went to unlock my baby and didn't have the key. A short walk reunited my keys to my pocket, with a stern admonition not to do that again.

An hour later I'm unlocking Casper from a pole outside a paint store (getting swatches for the great apartment painting project). Except I'm not, because I again can not find the keys. I left them on the sidewalk outside the bank five miles away. I had to take a cab back to the bank for the keys, and back to the paint store, give the cabbie $17 including tip, and then ride like hell on wheels to get to the apartment in time to go to work.

I do know the city a bit better now. I also know that my brain is a little less sharp than it used to be. At least back in NYC I was able to take the USB cable and tie it into a noose - a little art project to remind me to be careful. Maybe I should tie my keys to the cable and carry that around.

he is new baptized!

if i have ever seen a better looking baby, may i never eat chocolate mousse again.






in case you haven't heard, i accidentally extinguished the light of christ during the baptism. i lit it back up real quick, though.

special extra fun: see if you can tell which photos happened before all that original sin was wiped away!

where we are this weekend:

here, here, and here:



superfantastic.

california lazymouth.

i'd forgotten about it. lack of articulation is practically its own dialect here. someone came up to me on campus this week and asked if i would sign something to support

bruhk bomb-uh.

my guess was "bronx bomber," but the winner, of course, is:

barack obama.

every vowel is a schwa, and lord help the one that gets caught between two blendable consonants. the undergraduates here all sound like they're on a reality television show.

chimps, i tell you.

it's the second week of the quarter and my fees aren't paid. my account shows that i owe the university almost three thousand dollars. this is not true--the department very generously offered me a package that includes full support, which will show up eventually . . . i guess. in the meantime, i have to say, the university isn't really doing a bang up job of getting it together. i get that there's a lot of us and that i'm not more important than the other (apparently, truckloads of other) grad students waiting for their packages to come through, but as chris pointed out as i vented today, how does the beginning of an academic term sneak up on you this bad when it's what you do? i don't like administrative details, either, but i'm not an administrator. i am someone who moved across country on a handshake and the promise of funding. how are their hordes of us whose money is stuck in beaurocratic goulash after the start of classes? why have i made nine phone calls about this--plus countless emails and two campus visits? why did it make me cry on the bus the other day?

i have movers to pay. books to buy. a conference to attend. i had to get a car. i have prescriptions that need refilling and a husband who needs dependent insurance, and neither of us is covered until my freaking fees are paid. what i've been hearing for a month now is that the money is in some kind of mythical pipeline. i'm about ready for them to tell me it's been so delayed because elves got into the system.

those of you who have routinely dealt with big public research universities, i salute you. it's enough to make me want to punch someone in the groin.