The folks came up, which was wonderful, because it broke the terrible pain that it is to birth a paper -- and this one, by all accounts, seems to have been quite the abortion. At any rate, we (my folks and I, not me and the paper) went out to Pea Ridge, a park I'd never even been to, so as to get a little sun. Boy, did I get it -- I think this is probably the first sunburn of the year. Oooh yeah.

Afterwards, we went over and saw The Pianist, a powerful film that defies any mention of me telling it to you. All I can say is that you should see it.

But yeah, so, I have a draught of this fucking S Petro paper, and man, it's an ugly mother. I'm going to have to spend some serious revision time on it -- but not tomorrow. Tomorrow, I figure out what I need to have done that I would have done last week if I hadn't been working on this paper.

Welche Farbe hat der Mind?

His ego nec metas rerum nec tempora pono;
imperium sine fine dedi.

Ave Buse! Nos qui fracturi rota sint te salutes.

In short, in honour of the war, I have *stopped* reading Dante's Paradiso, and have instead added the Koran to my nightly Sacred Works readings (Tanekh and Christian scripture, and, if I could find it, a decent Nag Hammadi), and have taken to reading the Æneid, in English, as well. Cultural understanding and empire-making. Makes you just want to be Celtae in the hills, no?

Erica came up. She's doing well, for Erica. I gave her my folks' email and phone, and told her that my mother was concerned about her and would love to hear from her. She made the house smell like grass (for pain) and cigarets, and with the outside smells, and coffee, and the normal house smell, it felt like The House in Damascus, and I got very serene. She was a breath of fresh air, really -- if she hadn't come up, I'd be a different person.

Life feels good.

Well, That Silent Planet is done, and I've taken to reading a little Old Testament, a little New, and some Dante; I'd really like to get through all three of those things, but that might take a while. I've been taking Nyquill in the evenings, too, and that gives me about fifteen to twenty minutes to read before I pass out.

Nights have been warm, and days too, in spite of the rain. I hope *knock oak* that Spring's really here. Certainly my sinuses are sure of it: with the conifers being horny, my nose is being overly phlegmatic, and life's becoming a bitch. However, I seem to be getting over it, and that's a plus.

Spring break is up: I'm not going anywhere for it, though. Erica might come up here, and the folks too, but in between, there's a lot of reading and writing to do. I did get paid -- and if the folks come up and are amenable to it, I'll have lots of books to sell, and more money from SR and the Tax folks. Money provided me the ability to eat pretty well while that's going down. CL even took me shopping, so I have alcohol as well. Anything to get all this work done, I tell you what.

I got copies of God's Phallus and The History of Sexuality; the latter is for the Sexton paper, and the former may come in handy... someday. That's the big thing this week, actually: I have to have it to a presentable point (1/3 of it done, with five images to be shown and a host of other requirements) by the 27th.

I didn't even talk to fucking Coon this week; she was being a bit of a pill, and since I had to wait twenty minutes with no meeting, only to discover later that she'd been in a meeting and we'd missed each other in the hall, which caused her chastise my "patience", well, I let her have it, and haven't heard from her since. We'll see if she even wants to talk to me Mittwoch after next. Still, though -- I'd actually DONE work for her this week, and to have to wait -- not even being told that she *had* a meeting -- and then get a sarcastic remark like that... well, if she didn't deserve it, I'd like to see proof.

On another note entirely, I really, really wish I had a significant other, or a least a glimmer of hope for one. Not that it's vital to my life, but dammit, human beings need something to love, and I don't even have a cat.

Bah! Enough whining. L'chaim, or at least to work. Wish me luck; I'll write to you soon.Wish me luck; I'll write to you soon.

God in heaven.

This was a rough week. Dave lectured on Lacanian psychoanalysis, which is a whole mess of fun and caused me to briefly give up my desire for the One. That was recovered the following Thursday in NeoPlatonism, though, so that's all right. Of course, Wednesday morning, I awoke to discover that my sinuses had been drinking without me, and have yet even now as this is being written to sobre up. I've tried a lot, from mulled wine to ginger tea to herbs, and now I'm going balls-out Roman and drinking a tea made by boiling halved Red Wine with Honey, Rose Hips, Willow Bark, Mint, Yarrow, and Sage, all of which are designed to over-sanguinate my system and thereby crush whatever's giving my sinuses hell. The worst part is the drainage, though -- it's giving me a helluva cough.

My plate is equally full this weekend. I've got to complete a paper, read an article and answer questions, and prepare a lot of Latin for Dave; write an argumentative paper for Spellman, and read *some* gender stuff a/o archetecture for Sexton/Coon, so they'll get off my case about being lazy. Coon was especially selfish this week, and Sexton wants half a paper in two weeks. Thank God there's spring break there soon, and I've got some money coming, or I'd be just starving and going mad slowly.

Slowly? Perhaps not. Nevertheless, I've got a killer sinus problem, and there's no telling just exactly how much hell I've got to go through before it's all over. Christ, I don't need this right now.

Still got That Silent Planet to read, and a lot of other books once the ol' Tax Refund returns.

Jambalaya, Crawfish Pie, File Gumbo...

Well, it's march now, and the weather's perking up. I've got a lot on my plate this weekend, like papers for Dave and Sexton and Spellman (due later on, yeah, but that's no excuse to not start early), and of course getting those tapes for SR burned onto CD's -- no easy task: the tapes are 90 minutes, and the CD's only hold 80, which is a shame. I've also got this Narrative history to read, which is a good little dry background to what I'm writing about.

Have finished Peralandra and now started That Hideous Strength. Something about the end of Peralandra brought back memories of youth, of Summers spent at Camp Mitchell before I turned calleous, of the kinds of fiction I should have been writing, and most importantly, of The One. I'm really just ascending into Neoplatonisim, and I don't care, because it's nice to have SOME philosophy, some moral ground by which I can move.

Well, there's still Latin and a lot of reading to do, and Aul Drew mumbled something about doing something this weekend, so there you are.