ms. cellophane

I ran into dr. write at the farmer's market on saturday. She says it's like I've been invisible all summer. Well. I guess I'd better post, so I can at least have some online visibility. (don't worry, though, we're having a party next week--email details forthcoming).

Friday, we went to the the Lucinda Wiliams concert--what I like to call the Kelly Joe Phelps concert. Our primary motivation for buying tickets was Kelly Joe. We both love him and are ambivalent about Lucinda Williams. We even left the show early because apparently we are not so ambivalent about her after all. Her songs were all a little too droning, a little too nicely rhymed. And the sound was screwed up, so everything sounded a bit too harsh and rattling. Kelly Joe Phelps, though, was amazing--as always.

We spent most of the week down in the hot, hot hinterlands of UT/AZ cruising through Bucksking Gulch and Paria River. I could tell you about the stunning walls of the narrows and the cooling meander of the river, but I'll just keep that all to myself and show you a few pictures.

why do I miss all the good stuff?

I attended three graduations at Knox College (two while I was employed there and one on a return visit to see former students graduate). Who spoke at those graduations? I have absolutely no idea.


Who has spoken at the two most recent Knox College graduations?

Last year--Stephen Colbert
This year--Bill Clinton


I felt a little guilty about not going to graduation this year, but if it had been Bill Clinton speaking instead of the Under-secretary of Labor I would have gone.

I'm so freaking unlucky. This missing the good commencement speakers is like my inability to win anything, ever.

Damn.

summer update

At the beginning of summer, I planned to post a declaration of my summer intentions (as seemed to be the trend) but really I didn't want to have any accountability. That's what summer is about, right?

But here's a quick update of what I have been doing:

Reading. I went on a bit of a reading binge just after the semester ended, reading about six books in a week, but that has slowed down and now I'm at about one a week (sometimes not even quite that). It's been quite a pleasure reading this much. I've been buying a lot of books too, which is not a very good thing for my budget. Among the recent reads:

*Larry's Party, Carol Shields
*The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan
*The Perfect Scoop, David Lebovitz (it's a cookbook, but it's about ice cream, so it deserves a careful read)
*The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick (a kid's book, but highly recommended--a sort of graphic novel that draws a lot of inspiration from film)
*Flight, Sherman Alexie
*Cowboys are My Weakness, Pam Houston


Moving The move wasn't a very big one--just downstairs in our building--but the space is bigger and there is a separate kitchen with a huge window which I love. You'd think that moving downstairs would simplify life, but moving sucks no matter how far you go. I am sure we will have some sort of event soon, so you can all see it.


Writing I wish I could impose a word count on myself like Dr. Write has done, but I'm not very good at structure. But the writing projects are going pretty well. Hopefully by the end of summer I'll have a report with good results.

Otherwise, I've just been playing outside and anxiously awaiting the start of the farmer's market. This weekend we went to Moab--more eating than hiking, but it was a good trip. Everyone there but me was a mathematician. Of course, I was the one who ended up figuring out every restaurant bill. Why is it that mathematicians have no ability to do simple arithmetic?