Boots of Springing and Balling

When adfamiliares gets back from work today, we're going to zip down to Swarthmore for the Spring Ball. I'm hoping to soak up social contact like a lungfish in the rainy season, so I hope I'll get to see some of you. (I will apparently be taking tickets for the brunch dance on Sunday, so if you're on campus and haven't seen me yet you can stop by TIC between 12:30 and 2:00. I will be trapped behind a desk, so even if you pelt me with toast and Jujubees my retaliation will be limited to frightening grins and aggrieved noises.) I suppose I should sum up the last week before we leave, hmm?

• Last Friday, we were happy to welcome ajacs and tirerim to Saratoga Springs. They made the proper exclamations over our apartment and our cat's ladder-climbing abilities, and enjoyed the fine southern cuisine of Hattie's. It was very good to see them; I haven't laughed that much in quite a while.


• Sunday, of course, we watched the Oscars, but this year I didn't feel any emotional connection to any of the nominees, so it was a forgettable experience. I was surprised that Episode III wasn't even nominated for F/X (there were only three nominees as it was), and as bemused as Jon Stewart by the bewildering array of montages (a tribute to the biopic? really?), but mostly I was just staring at the gowns and making lists of short films and documentaries I want to see.


• We suddenly have downstairs neighbors, after a winter with empty space below us. It's comforting, a bit, though they arrive too late for us to mooch their rising heat. (I made our final fire of the season on Wednesday, and used it to make rather too many s'mores.) I'm not sure if we should introduce ourselves or wait to bump into them at the mailbox.


• Apart from that, I have been wallowing in computer-enabled hedonism: finishing all three major quests in Avernum, reading the entire run of Order of the Stick, arguing about airplanes on treadmills with the good people on the Straight Dope message boards, and digitizing Dr. Demento shows. It's been a remarkably satisfying way to spend a couple of weeks of joblessness, but I'm about ready to venture out into the world again, or perhaps even do something purposeful with my forced sabbatical. Good timing, with both the Spring Ball and actual Spring on my doorstep...

Append rimshot

It didn't occur to me, when Bush was claiming to be a "uniter, not a divider" in the 2000 elections, that he was planning to unite the parties against himself.