tuesday, 30 march 2004

overheard: "secrets make us sick" -old wisdom from uncle neiner

is it just me, or did march go much faster than february? i wish the days would slow down, as i have a heck of a lot of work to do (and a heck of a lot of visitors) between now and 27 may. but oh well. yesterday may have been the most productive day of my life. learned a lot about local governmental structures in elizabethan london and found some pretty cool court records. nerd party. in other news: i had a weird dream last night (big surprise, there) with beckward in it (yay!), that involved some sort of basketball tip off competition that was happening in a swimming pool and that used tortilla chips instead of basketballs. don't ask me. i don't even like that sport. FOUR DAYS!!

monday, 29 march 2004

overheard: "i can't get the laugh up because you make me want to vomit on the floor" -some drunk woman having an argument outside ol' no. 92 last night

yesterday: a lot less grumpy, but no update. why? don't know. did a lot of work, though. and plan to do a lot more today. if i could take a shower, anyway. slept well last night. had a scary cowboy dream. i wasn't in it, though. what else? to stoopid tabs fouled us and won the 150th boat race. glad i didn't go. next year we'll win, i tell you. it's monday, which means i'm at the rad cam all day. my parents and bobsforth will be here saturday: YAAAAY!

saturday, 27 march 2004

overheard: "i don't want to fist him or anything" -overheard on london bridge

grumpy today. don't ask about it. asking will serve no purpose. mostly just grumpy. and rather than focus on the news of injustice from the home counties, i've decided to entitle today's update 'england: the country that works...sometimes.' remember thursday when my laundry facilities were discovered to have gone missing? well, i asked the porters just now when the new ones will be installed. at least a fortnight, they said. so i asked where the peck/blue boar laundry rooms are, so that i could use them instead. 'no,' she said, 'they're all in the same state.' did i miss an email about the laundry rooms not working for 3 wees of the vac? grr. and it's not like they had to rip the old machines out so soon. they did work. not well, but they worked. and why two weeks? are they reinventing the washing machine. ARGH!

friday, 26 march 2004

overheard: "i don't know if there will be enough room in overhead storage" -amanda

lots to write, but no time. suffice to say that it was great to speak to maria this morning. and i think condi rice/the bush administration is still jerking the american public around. won't testify under oath? wtf? then why bother showing up at all? and what's this talk about her leaving the white house? new york times, where'd that come from?

thursday, 25 march 2004

happy feast of the annunciation/lady day
overheard: "but you wrote 'you'...oh" -jack

i think it's the anniversary of grampa k-dot's death, as well, but i could be wrong. i'll ask the mama. got lots to do today. last time i'll see my supervisor until may. eep! googlebutric rides again: YAY! more on that later. also, richard clarke, his testimony: amazing. i'm hard pressed to think of an equally calm and eloquent member of the bush administration. he reminded me of good ol' wjc. and my RSS aggregator has just popped up a CNN story: rice forcefully rebuts Clarke testimony. great. she released an email. memo to ms rice: if you're not willing to rebut him under oath over on the hill, quit bothering me with your spin. ok. shower. food. bod. meeting. oh, and why is it that when i finally get around to doing laundry one morning, i find the laundry room completely empty? who stole the washers and driers? a new christ church mystery!

wednesday, 24 march 2004

overheard: "it's like having stonehenge in your back yard" -some guy

shannon gets like eight million points for the only person to respond to my questions yesterday. she confirmed her liking of the word succulent. big surprise, there. and gave me further evidence of my (relative) failings on the GNUT front. i had the weirdest set of dreams last night. my parents totally remodeled the hosue. it looked good. my cousin austine was going to cambridge, which had been moved to british columbia. it was pretty coool looking. and i had to buy a nalgene for some random japanese woman before glacial melting caused a river surge to drown a guy floating in said river. in other news, the new york times is all over the house. if anyone has a hard copy of that article, let me know. i'd love to see it. in other news, why are some people so unhelpful? and why did i only leave my room stairway twice yesterday? well, the directory is done. that's a good thing. and today i'm all over the bod.

tuesday, 23 march 2004

overheard: "we catholics are good in bed" -miguel

i have neither profound political comments nor anything really interesting to tell you about yesterday. but i do pose you a question. it is often said that 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.' suppose, for a moment, that the bird-in-hand is a sickly robin while the birds in the bush are succulent boneless, skinless chickens. which do you go for? send your answers here.

monday, 22 march 2004

overheard: "i think i'm a pretty good catch" -jack

a number of points today: greyfriars: great church. kinda a long walk. and what was with the spastic weather yesterday? the three-and-a-half hour nap was a lovely addition to my afternoon yesterday. and i finished transcribing the st katherine's constables accounts. which is nice. now i can, um, what is it i do next? i've noticed that in the absence of a hall-imposed fooding schedule, i don't food myself enough. i miss mac house. oh. and how weird is it that jack was conceived on the very day that i was born? yeah, pretty weird.

and can we talk for a moment about the article in yesterdays international herald-tribune entitled, 'european leaders attempt to separate iraq, terror issues'? i wish someone would explain to me why the two were ever bedfellows. aside from the bush administration's insistence. but when has the bush white house ever been a coherent guide to reality? i mean, look at every single economic forecast those guys have produced. but back to the article. good for europe. i mean, i wish americans would separate the two. it's probably unpatriotic, though. and there are only two things worse in america than being unpatriotic: not being a christian (and in the theocratic states of america, being catholic don't count) or being a homo (also the theocracy issue). i keep drifting away from the ridiculous part of the article:

'But even as Europeans moved in closer step to confront the terror threat, they faced criticism in Washington that they were excluding Americans from their deliberations. "Europeans have to be willing to ask us to come to some of the meetings, too," Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said on the CBS News program "Face the Nation." "We should have been together talking about how all of us deal with the Al Qaeda."'

do you think we invite EU representatives to senate intelligence committee meetings? you know, to get the input of other members of the "free world" on how we should structure our intelligence system in this country? we don't? that must be because our intelligence program is already so unsassailably accurate that we're ready to export our model to other places. ok. enough sarcasm, my frontal lobe hurts. oh, but read this, too.

ok. i really thought that would be it for today, but i just read condi rice's über-defensive response to the clarke stuff in the washington post. i love seeing the bush administration constantly scrambling to make itself look other than entirely irresponsible and bull-headed. but from everything i've read, it seems like it's all about bush. remember four years ago when we all said things like, 'he's dumb, but he surrounds himself with brilliant people'? it seems that, while that may be true, he's also a stubborn, and doesn't listen to said brilliant people. well, maybe to cheney but that guy is brilliant and has no soul.

sunday, 21 march 2004

vernal equinox. yay!
overheard: "that's some kinda stereotypical sh*t" -chris

so do you think there's something about the first week of vac that makes me lazy in hitherto unknown levels? i mean, i can't drag my sorry butt to the gym. i can't update every day. i can't seem to get any reasonable amount of work done. and yeah. no more hall meals. so maybe someday i'll get fed. sadness. yesterday was blustery. and full. but i seem to have fallen asleep too early for my own good.

friday, 19 march 2004

the 24th anniversary of my conception
happy st joseph's day
overheard: "if you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect" -benjamin franklin

so i was thinking about sharks the other day, and then i came across an article on CNN about a tennessee county's attempt to ban homosexuals and to be able to charge them with crimes against nature. so imagine my glee when i saw they had reversed their position. ps. it's not 1952 anymore. news spreads like wildfire and the gays are punchy. and you're all a bunch of hicks. i loved the county attorney's statement: 'i've never seen nothing like this.' goodness gracious, st ignatius. and the 12 year old girl: so sad. note to parents: quit brainwashing your children into christofascists.

in much nicer news, bill is going away. and i got to sit next to jon's girlfriend at dinner last night, who is a JV in richmond, virginia this year. i'd forgotten how refreshing JVs are. note to self: take beer to the spokane JVs over the summer, befriend them, and mooch off their positive energy. can do. oh, and how jealous am i of rachael's living arrangement next year? i'll be living by the train station. she'll be living on the beach. can we swap?

thursday, 18 march 2004

overheard: "it feels good in my pants" -jack

not many people can get dumped twice over the course of an afternoon and still have a boyfriend to show for it at the end of the day. i'll be in trouble for writing that. yesterday was another sunny spring day. i wore green. well, really, only georgetown grads seemed to be wearing green. i get to cross balliol off my list. that's exciting. i took JP to cafe zouk for his birthday. jack took me to lunch at edamame. all in all, a good day, i would say. balliol bar was too smoky for its own good.

i assure you i have no intention of morphing this into one of those political blogs, but i have to note a few things. first, i'm afraid that the kerry endorsement from the new spanish PM will be counterproductive, given his characterisation as a crackpot by the US media (i especially love how he's not the new spanish prime minister. he's the new socialist spanish prime minister). jeremy: get on this! manage! manage! secondly, the percolating controversy over the medicare prescription bill continues to remind me that not only is the bush white house crooked, lying and manipulative toward the american public, but it treats congress with the same aloof contempt. not cool. finally, um, i think i had something to say about gordon brown's budget. but i can't remember. at least the euro referrendum is held off until after the next gen.elec. or maybe i wanted to comment on constitutional reform, hereditary peers, mail voting, and plans for a supreme court under the thumb of whitehall. perhaps not. i can hardly keep track any more.

wednesday, 17 march 2004

happy st irelandish day
overheard: "i think i voted for buchanan, but i'm not sure" -brandon

yesterday was officially the first day that felt like spring. and it was also officially the 4th day in a row that i did no blessed work. showing thomas's friend around was better than anticipated. i had forgotten how much i learn by being present to people in recovery. inspirational. that said, the custodians can be snippy. and dinner last night wasn't so great. and i didn't make it to the gym. but that's life, i suppose.

tuesday, 16 march 2004

overheard: "you've gotta look after your arse" -matt

what a great couple of days i've had. lots of napping. lots of tea parties. lots of hanging out with matt and dave and pete. hurrah for chch. test run for my family's visit today. gonna make the rounds of oxford. it will be lovely. and hopefully transcriptionalising at least 10 pages. but we'll see. i feel like i'm on holiday. oh. and congrats to dr archer, whose term as proctor ends today. very cool. there are loads of other things to talk about, but i can't remember any of them right now. so that's that.

sunday, 14 march 2004

overheard: "i don't get what's wrong with women" -brian

sorry about the lack of update yesterday. a year ago i was in san diego. danielle: it's been too long since last we met. i had an MRI yesterday. first proof ever that i really do have a brain somewhere in my skull. i'll post a picture when they email it to me. in other news, it's less than three weeks until my parents come to visit me. hurrah. and bob and manda. so much to do before then. let's go transcribe. but first, the gym.

yesterday, i was at a tea party with a bunch of germans. who knew? in any case, one of them was talking about the oxford/cambridge varsity fisting match he'd been to. apparently he meant boxing. whatever. it was still funny. i missed chris's party last night. and saskia's. but i slept very well. and i have the strong badia national anthem stuck in my head.

friday, 12 march 2004

overheard: "i think i'll play with it" -jack

inprimis. a belated happy birthday to mike. item. i may or may not have offended dr david loades yesterday when i cited him in my seminar presentation. and i think my brain died as soon as i started talking, because there were lots of things i should have said in response to a question from martin that my brain just couldn't string together at the time. i spoke to my parents for about an hour in the morning, which was wonderful, as always. i can't wait for their visit. i wish i could remember the wonkette quote about the georgetown neighborhood program about teaching the cats to eat the homeless, but i can't. and it's a shame that the sloganator came off the bushie site. no gym for me today. i'm typing this from the guildhall library. fun in a can.

the debts i accumulated yesterday:
i owe jack one meal at edamame. no. wait. i prepaid.
i owe the university of oxford faculty of modern history one dinner at pizza express. they can fight over who gets that.
i owe brian one beer. i can handle that one.
i owe abby enough really good cake with even better frosting to make her sick to her stomach.
i owe mike 24 birthday spankings, but i think i'll get a proxy to take care of that for me.

thursday, 11 march 2004

overheard: "see? poop brought us together" -sean

i kid you not that i read a story online today about a woman in memphis who bludgeoned her boyfriend to death with an iPod. as if that's not sad and freakish enough, in the related news links, was "get great deals on the new Apple iPod mini. Starting under $250." tell me that's not last days worthy. i dare you.

today is the day of reckoning. but at least i get free edameame lunch before i put my head on the chopping block. dinner last night was ridiculous. i still don't like salmon, but they gave me so much dessert. i tell you. finally people are beginning to appreciate how hungry i am all the time.

wednesday, 10 march 2004

overheard: "we may never speak to each other again, but we'll have suntans" -abby

as i was falling asleep last night, someone in a nearby room was playing the guitar and singing. and i was reminded of JVC orientation in august of 2002, when we all slept out under the stars and charlie played his guitar for us. it's tough to belief that was 19 months ago! wow. before i knew all my mac house comrades. what a strange thought. i do miss them.

on a scale of one to ten, my stressometer is at about six right now. in any case, by tomorrow evening, it should be back down to reasonable levels. and then free pizza.

tuesday, 9 march 2004

overheard: "i like the idea of children" -brian

all this paleography is making my spelling go to crap. i slept really well last night. i had a dream that my parents had bought a few of the rooms at the davenport. and there was some sort of party/reception that seemed to be in a combination of the country club, chch, the davenport, and a manhattan penthouse. the view was pretty, in any case. and the door was really old. fascinating. gonna do some work today. possibly a little stressed about thursday.

monday, 8 march 2004

overheard: i got nothin today. jeremey said something funny, but i forgot

well, it's now 8th week of hilary term. where is my time at oxford going? the easter holiday will be nice. visits. work. sleep. lots of transcription. i'm getting antsy about my presentation thursday. at least the edamame is still good. mmm. 3 more meals. huzzah.

sunday, 7 march 2004

happy 19th birthday, beckers!!
overheard: "he has the funniest pubic hair i've ever seen" -no one

rss is wearing me out. but like an oversexed lover, i return to it, hoping for just one more time around. last night reminded me of shannon's lenten observations last year. which went from "no sweets" to "no donuts" (which she suddenly found herself wanting to eat) to "no donut-shaped donuts". memories. that's pretty much how i would like to think of my yesterevening, when i had some wine with mike and jeremy and proceeded to climb two walls, then onto a roof and through a window to get around waiting in the queue for the bop at balliol. sadly, i didn't have my wits about me to have a drink there, so balliol still cannot be marked off the list.

it's rufus's nineteenth birthday today. very exciting. and the last day of her spring break. i hope she won her basketball game yesterday. in other SUPER exciting news, julie marie, aka the woman who invented me, got into the PhD program in social policy at brandeis university. which is one of the best things EVER, if you ask me. one more thing...great editorial on gay marriage in today's new york times.

saturday, 6 march 2004

overheard: "do you have a twenty p. piece?" -just a story

so, really, there are only three things worth mentioning about yesterday. in the first case is my discovery of rss, which promises to make me even more of a news junkie than i have previously been...and could possibly make me a blog junkie if i find some good blogs with an rss feed. speaking of which, i'm working at getting an rss feed for my daily updates. i know you're thrilled. the second thing i did yesterday was to watch the chch m2 boat in torpids. (un?)fortunately, they bumped so early that they weren't racing by the time they made it up near the boathouse. house. the house. too much. i kept thinking people were yelling at me. the third important thing about yesterday is my head injury. nothing too serious, though it does still hurt quite a bit. jack sorta accidentally helped me hit my head on this scary shelf corner that i've been afraid of since i moved into my room. so, concussed and bleeding, i broke lent and at chicken passanda and listened to car talk. yeah. apparently the romish church is anti-lenten car talk. who knew? in any case, the gash on my head is only a centimeter long, and i only bled a little on my pillowcases last night while i was sleeping. oh, the adventures of my life.

friday, 5 march 2004

overheard: "maybe i'll get drunk and break up with you tonight" -jack

yeah. someday i'll do work. i hope. life is oh so difficult, you know. congrats to rufus on making the dean's list. i hope she won her game the other night. all my days blend into one another. but i do believe that it's a friday in lent. i love the stranger. and i have a crush on that guy who writes for them...eli sanders. don't tell him. ok. i really have to get transcribing early modern documents. of face certain doom. joe, talk to me about madrid.

thursday, 4 march 2004

overheard: "i'm getting hammered by the dean" -chris

so the house's 3rd boat didn't get to finish their first round torpids thing yesterday. some sort of crash. saw brian in cat on a hot tin roof at wadham last night. no. not bottom. wadham. it was too bad big mama kept cutting him off. and i'm pretty sure the most of those weren't southern accents. but i enjoyed the experience thoroughly. tennessee williams writes a good hom play. or hom undercurrents, anyhow. what else? a week until my seminar paper. eep. oh. need to write to sue about dinner next thursday. good remembering.

wednesday, 3 march 2004

overheard: "i should have guessed it would not work when he showed up with a thumb ring" -joe

it's the first day of torpids. is it free to mail things to the queen here? that's really all i've got today. um. i had a dream about the protocol of naming people in the front cover of atlantic monthly. i'll blame lauren for that.

tuesday, 2 march 2004

overheard: "I am campaigning for gay rights and world domination (I mean peace)" -charlie

so you know those days that go GREAT? i mean great great great. and you get to talk to your mom and your dad on the phone. and you write a thousand words. and your lunch isn't super gross. and the gym goes well. and the meeting with your supervisor goes really well. and then you remember greek tragedy and you suddenly get really scared that hubris might make you gouge your eyes out or something? that's pretty much how my day went yesterday. which is to say lovely. and the hom party was great. and i didn't gouge my eyes out. in dreamland: a metro ride in dc with two cataldo moms, one of whom had a cupboard full of looseleaf tea in the subway car. a walk by a creek with lizzie. a cool water filter in amanda's dorm room, and a lot of burritos along a boardwalk. don't ask. i didn't do drugs before i went to sleep.

monday, 1 march 2004

overheard: "they were my man nipples" -goodness knows

i had a series of weird dreams last night. one, i remember, involved a monster tree bent on eating people, but i stayed safe in a nearby house with a woman with a long flowing skirt not unlike the type my housemate michelle used to wear. in another dream, i was running bloomsday with allison...a funny thought, to say the least. what else? i wrote a thousand words yesterday. i hope to do the same today. i got up early and went to the gym today. i did some wash yesterday. my parents are apparently getting rid of the faithful old nissan. why is beyond me. perhaps it was having troubles in its old age that i hadn't heard about. in any case, i'm sad to see it go. and i feel like the m&d wouldn't have boethered to tell me. but bobsforth spilled the beans. hurrah. i continue to scrutinize the american press daily for news on the gay marriage front. i must admit i'm very excited. one last thing: click here to see a picture of me surprising mandahouse for her birthday.