wednesday, 31 december 2003

overheard: "i LOVE the bible!" -chris (guy on my pub trivia team at the blue spark last night)

congrats to david on his wedding this evening. and gongrats to beginers luck, winners of the blue spark's tuesday trivia grand prize. first thing i've ever won in my life. apologies to everyone i alienated yesterday through having a mini-crisis. i stand by that crisis, though, as reasonable. i hate new year's. have i mentioned this? i really do hate it. too much pressure. my scarf is coming along nicely, if slowly. and i'm still a slacker. happy new year.

monday, 29 december 2003

overheard: "OH NO! pashmina on the floor!" -random woman at the blue spark

i took a hangover exemption from updating yesterday. and pretty much from doing everything else. which was pleasant, aside from the hangover. we had neener over for dinner and to watch the zags game, and i went to auntie's and got 4 books that i'm looking forward to reading. saturday, i went to see love actually with y2. it was very good. made me miss england. i think i head back two weeks from today. don't really know. but it's coming up, and i still haven't done jack-sh*t. may the lord have mercy on my soul.

saturday, 27 december 2003

overheard: "that blows my mind...triple pun" -brando

two words: benign neglect. oh, and it's the 23rd anniversary of my baptism. brandon leaves spokie today, which is sad. and allison is headed up to schweitzer, where bekah already finds herself. others, too. making the 'kane a rather lonely place 'twixt now and new years. which i hate. but maybe i'll get some proper work done. my paleography isn't going poorly. and i'm .66% done with my dissertation. WHOO! got hip shoes, hip jacket, and hip trousers yesterday. jbm:imy.

friday, 26 december 2003

happy st stephen's day
overheard: "it doesn't latch?" -my mom, referring to the door to one of the downstairs bathrooms (which hasn't latched properly since we moved in 15 years ago)

la la la. i love christmas. but now becky has left. sad day. she likes basketball more than she likes us. i went and visited allison last night. always nice to see her on christmas day. and brandon and his family stopped by, which was fun. dinner was great. i think i'm getting fat. and sleepy. and i'm down with it. oh. natale actually came to family christmas. HA. pun. ok. time to get fed and get downtown. good king wenceslas looked out...

thursday, 25 december 2003

merry christmas!
overheard: "maybe if we had all been blown we'd all look so good" -judy, my dad's receptionist

best christmas ever. the standing after communion thing's gotta stop, though. just absurd. went out for coffee with mike yesterday. and to see his family. very nice. and then an awkward kitchen conversation. mike will vouch for me. boy did i have to use the restroom. weird. i got everything i wanted for christmas, and i can't wait to watch DVDs at school. hurrah. chch cufflinks. hot.

wednesday, 24 december 2003

overheard: "yeah, i'm surprised it took her that long" -amanda

as always, the 23rd was a fantastic day. i had something very profound to comment on. perhaps the fact that i spend a damn lot of money at the blue spark last night. but perhaps not. patrick and i had a long conversation about the joys and challenges of JVC and agreed to visit this years spokane JVs. everyone in the world was at the bar. i got to see a g prep/g town friend called melissa was there. she's doing peace corps in mozambique these days. and little mikey k was there, as well. a bit drunky drunk. the lamberts' party was great. it went really fast. and grandpa's mass was wonderful, too. all in all, it confirmed my general theory that the 23rd of december is the most important day of the year. and now it's christmas eve. let's see...is everything wrapped? not at all. oh well.

tuesday, 23 december 2003

overheard: "black is beautiful" -marie

it's the big day. family brunch. family mass. family dinner. allison's party. hurrah. i love the 23rd, even though it's CRAZY busy. but that's fine. i need to get my dad a christmas present today. and wrap all the other ones. so that will be fun, if i can find the time. and after what happened last 23-dec, i don't think i'll be going out boozin after the party. but maybe i can be convinced.

monday, 22 december 2003

overheard: "apparently, better-educated people are more likely to engage in analingus" -katie

wow. it's only once everyone's home that i realize how much i've missed them. last night at allison's house was violently fun. katie, brandon, john, james, allison, and myself. and a bunch of callie rose's friends. oh, to be a new college student home for the first time again. we weren't like that, were we? apparently allison is derelict. what else happened yesterday? ho ho ho ×2. family mass in pine fresh. yummy brownies with mint.

sunday, 21 december 2003

winter solstice
overheard: "she'd already had a baby, but she was still hot" -brandon, recalling one of our HS classmates' stripping career, which started as soon as she was 18.

well well well. that was difficult night out last night. but at least i got to durnk dial england. whoops. speaking of whoops, i got puked on by a drag queen last night. not bad. just a little but i think she was quite embarrassed. it's foggy. brandon and i went to the PTI last night (many thanks to morris house julie marie for that gem) and then to gabby's. and then i took him out to the valley. yeah. i was in the valley. OH MY GOD. new york times article today: 49% of americans believe that homosexual realations between adults shouldn't be legal. WTF?! damn moral fascists. i'm moving to england. in better bad news, please keep my friend gretchen in your prayers. she had a little stroke while climbing a mountain in chile. but she's getting much better.

friday, 19 december 2003

overheard: "bobbo told me he had on all his underwear. how cute" -beckers

so it's friday now. which means weekend will come and relieve the stress of my week. or something. i'm almost done with all my christmas shopping. i'm hungry. brandon comes home tonight, but now katie has left town. perhaps i'll finally get my first chapter ready to write. as you may be able to tell, life is pretty uneventful here in the 509. but that's alright. OH. i got to talk to jack for a long time yesterday on the phone. very nice. and i went to lunch at the cannon street grill with gramma. all good.

thursday, 18 december 2003

overheard: "that's why i don't like group sex" -james

becky comes home today!! so excited. i'm going to try to do some work, as well. argh. tortured graduate student. not really. distracted is more like it. saw allison d at goose park last night. it was, as always, a joy. there's an infuriating letter in the spokesman-review today. gonna go write a response.

wedneday, 17 december 2003

overheard: "i'm just not a walmart person." -gramma k.

home makes me a bad updater. not because i'm super busy. yesterday i got my teeth cleaned. and then spent most of the day at the lamberts' with katie. that was great. marie took us out for thai lunch. mmmm. other exciting moments. at father lamanna's final (at which i knew over half the congregation and was related to a good portion, as well) the cutest baby sat in front of me. its father was holding it. at one point, the baby turned to its mother, smiled a huge smile, and spat up all over dad. adorable. also...no one has ever told me that they'd cite me in a paper, but yesterday it happened not once but twice. weird, eh? and for different things. the first was for elizabethan poor law something something. the second was about the talk i gave to the aaup in march on the gays and the catholics. in any case, i was pretty excited. ok. gotta get dressed.

monday, 15 december 2003

overheard: "it's a good thing i'm wearing panties." -mandahouse

well, i'm out of my funk. "i didn't know you were in one," you say? sorry. should have mentioned it. today is the 202nd anniversary of the bill of rights. i wish there were a parade. not in george w bush's america. just a 2nd amendment parade. today: seeing katie!! taking gramma k-dot to the optometrist. hmmm. what else? gym. gotta hit up the gym. maybe some work on my dissertation. oh yeah.

sunday, 14 december 2003

overheard: "don't be intimidated by all the fancy cheeses." i won't.

happy breakthrough day. katie comes home today. and what a lovely day it is. a bit hungry, though. and feeling a bit guilty about the whole not having done enough academic work since my return. but i'm workin on it. just gots to sort my earthly possessions. how great was yesterday's get fuzzy? that's what i'm saying.

saturday, 13 december 2003

happy birthday, aunt mary beth
overheard: "more virgins than i've ever seen in a single room" -jeff

apparently, according to my uncle steve, 60 is the new 30. bobsforth is at search right now. hurrah. surprise surprise. and manda gets home tonight. so that's mighty exciting. it's nice to finally be home for reals. today i resolve to do nothing, sin no more, and avoid whatever leads me to sin. or something.

wednesday, 10 december 2003

international human rights day
overheard: "nobody loves you when you're twenty-three" -blink182

it may or may not be my birthday. uncle mike and jeff are taking me out to breakfast at arnie's (hurrah), and hopefully the mama will be taking me to lunch at hill's. mmmmm. fresh off the presses: key aspects of the campaign finance reform act have been upheld by the supreme court. again, hurrah. hmmm. what else? i'm still waking up at absurd hours. and i'm reading the fifth harry potter again. i'm hungry. that's it.

tuesday, 9 december 2003

overheard: "sisters are for spooning" -becky

home home home. well. close. my godparents' house. it didn't feel like 12 hours on a plane yesterday. thankfully. i slept through most of the 8 hour flight. which was a good thing. oh. in the interest of helping further google bombs along here's a link to a miserable failure. and another that is loosely related to a certain senator rick santorum. yeah yeah. just doing my part. today: laundry, lunch, and visiting the grandmaternal unit. hurrah.

monday, 8 december 2003

the immaculate conception
overheard: "i don't have a weasel and i definitely lick crack" -jack

with that, i leave you all to a week sans updates. i'm going home secretly for a bit to surprise the little one. by which i of course mean the big one that is bobsforth. today is the 23rd anniversary of john lennon's death. and wednesday that of my birth. so let's all lift a pint of bitter and celebrate the end of a term at oxford, looking forward to 8 more. time sure does fly when you're an old fart. cheers.

sunday, 7 december 2003

overheard: "i eat fish a lot. that's my problem." -jasmine, my hostess for a lovely dinner yesterevening.

so dinner was great. so was chris's party. i had a beer, officer. just one. i swear. and really good strawberry juice. who knew? heidi winds ten points for encouraging me to eat double meals. calories are important. speaking of which, jonah made an AMAZING butternut squash and goat cheese thing last night. three words: to die for. if i ever open up a restaurant called "fat amanda's", i'll definitely invite him to be chef. he'll say no, though. i'd bet one it. it's cold here. very cold. but now i have a scarf. so life is good. i wrote a limerick the other night. it's dirty, though. or i'd tell you all about it. OH. last night i had a dream about walking through hyde park, only they'd enclosed the walkways, so it was more like walking through a really depressing hallway with awful lighting. ok. off to first brunch.

saturday, 6 december 2003

happy st nick's day
overheard: "there's a difference between wanting to hug someone and using them as an opportunity for yourself to become a hugger" -mandahouse

so i thought i'd have something brilliant to say about my lil trip to london yesterday. nope. and just be warned: it's the year of uninspired christmas gifts. ok. you're warned. leaving for a little trip to the continent on monday, so there won't be updates for about a week. sorry about that. i'll try to keep track of my oh-so-exciting life for you whilst i'm away. today: finishing typing in the quotes for chapter one. some dinner party in scotland or thereabouts. and maybe a beer? we'll see. oh. and one more thing. i left my shoes out on my hearth last night, and guess what was in them this morning: nothing. nothing at all.

friday, 5 december 2003

overheard: "happy birthday. i got you herpes" -beckers

so i know i said no update today. i lied. yesterday: disappointing bod run. got a couple more christmas presents for folks. took a walk in the university parks. had an awful dinner. drank 3 beers. did some academical ranting into my real journal (as if the rest of my life weren't borking enough). oh. yeah. went to my last seminar of term. that was fun. today: london. but first...here is a link to the first of 9 new pictures from the past several days. you may notice the nifty navigations on top of the new photos. they're to keep you sane, so you don't have to keep clicking back to the thumbnail page over and over again. but don't hold your breath for them to show up on top of all the photos. my life's not that boring. yet.

thursday, 4 december 2003

happy birthday, lauren!
overheard: "i thought i read a bible verse that said..." -lizzy

i can state with 97 percent certainty that i'm in a weird mood today. don't ask me why. odd dreams. but also just feeling the effect of doing nearly no work for 2 days. tomorrow i'm going to london, so there prolly won't be an update. today i have my seminar. but i also have other crap to do. JP came to dinner at chch last night, and then we went to a debate on the resurrection at oriel with jack and lizzy. now, i don't mean to be critical, and maybe it's assumed that everyone who shows up for such a debate believes the bible to be at least somewhat trustworthy, but it seems question-begging to me. i mean, yes, a lovely faith text, but it seems presumptive to use it as a document with historical integrity. hm. did someone mention breakfast?

wednesday, 3 december 2003

overheard: nothing today, kids

christmas dinner last night was good times. i ought to do some work, but i have other things that i'd rather do, and so...yeah. but, um, i took pretty pictures of the house in the morning fog today, and i have pictures of last night's black tie dinner. so maybe i'll get those up on here by tomorrow. maybe not. christmas christmas christmas. that's how my work is going right now. ok. gonna do...something.

tuesday, 2 december 2003

happy 23rd birthday, maria!!
overheard: "if i didn't need to pee i'd be naked right now" -jack

met with archer yesterday. probably won't meet again for six weeks or so. wow. long time. jack took me out for my birthday last night. huge amounts of thai food at chiang mai. than the lamb and flag for a pint. that was nice. i'm not doing work today. in honor of my cousin maria, i'm relaxing. and thinking about how much i look forward to studying paleography. no really. i'm quite excited. hurrah. ok. of to the gym with this lazy grad student.

monday, 1 december 2003

world aids day
feast day of st edmund campion
overheard: "i'm drunk all the time. i think it's good for me" -pete

so yeah. i didn't sleep so well last night. i think it was the change of months. shifting time. went to mass at the catholic chaplaincy yesterday. it was, perhaps, the least spiritually compelling experience of my life. but the advent carol service at the cathedral was pretty darn nice, if i do say so myself. dinner: so so. the beer i had at the king's arms later: much better. and what's the deal with no one in this country having change for a £10 note, eh? just keep swimming...