Complicated

Gainesville

I'm about 6 hours in the minus column for sleep this week, and it's only Wednesday-- no Thursday telecommute to sleep later and grab a brief afternoon nap. Hope I can stay awake long enough to post this.

What a social-butterfly day for you, Mom. Isn't it too bad that these things seem to happen in clumps, instead of being spread out, where they could all be appreciated. Seems to be some deep law of the universe, as I see this pattern of bursts of energy followed by glides all the time.

Thanks for posting that letter from Sandy-- what pure gold! My favorite phrase was "...bananas brought in burning in brandy" Masterful alliteration, and a strange presage of FBR, which was, after all, the Flaming Banana Ranch. If only we'd known, it could have been the BBBB! :-) But I also loved that you could follow the lectures in French unless you stopped and thought about the amazing thing that you were doing -- another language! Sigh-- that happens to me only in dreams. Many dreams. Damn those dreams that never came true.

Forced myself, with the idea of a timer of not an actual one, to get back to working on sorting through my comics section ads scans and arranging them in a very rough ppt series. This organizing activity is what sparks my ideas about what I have to say about the stuff that fascinates me so-- it's me talking to myself on a very basic level. I'm very happy to be in touch with that level again.

We went out to to *lunch at Sonny's with Barbara (her choice), and she detailed her idea to have a small dinner party in honor of my retirement. She really WANTS to do this-- she has a certain routine that she knows well, and loves to have an excuse to do it. She has given me a month to think about it before deciding yes/no, and if yes then who. God help me, I'm actually thinking about it! And hating the decisions that I'd have to make because it seems I do have more than six friends who might qualify. But the calculus gets very complicated after the first four.

Somehow managed to put a nice meal on the table after getting home late, and taking a 7 minute nap. Chili Lime Pork Strips (all you need to know about that one, and quite good), spaghetti squash in the mike, and bag salad.

Late UPS delivery yielded Love & Rockets #12 and the first of the Philip Pullman Dark Materials critical works-- a slim volume designed for teachers and book clubs, ie, just the facts, ma'am. No index, but a nice bibliography. We'll see what the others are like.

Gotta crash. Tomorrow is the big bye-bye party for my boss. Swamp is the theme, and they called for stuffed swamp critters. Our non-bio family is represented by a racoon (*Zorro), two turtles, a frog, a flamingo and one other I can't remember now. I need to be there to watch out for them, if for no other reason, but of course, there are many other reasons. Boss was chair of the search committee that hired me back in 1983. I needed that job, at that point. And look at all the fun things that have happened since...

[*corrections made, 30 June 06]