Folks, that's a fucky. Classes were a little thinner today; some detailed document work in Murder may or may not prove helpful for the paper. I think this one should be easier than the first, I just don't know where to begin, with the huge mass of reading that I've only sort of done, all of which might be relevant. At least there's no indication that we need to talk about everything this time, just something I suppose. The SEO was closed annoying, I read at my chair and talked to Sarah Wood. The book is good. Were we supposed to read beyond 41? That's what the syllabus says online, but he talked beyond it in class. Whatever. Bénédicte expressed distaste at pomme de terre sucres and pumpkin pie, she'd rather eat oysters for Christmas and foie gras. I could eat some foie gras right now too, or especially some Chinese takeout.

I had another dilla for lunch while Becca made pumpkin muffcakes. Not sure where she is now, but I'd like some. Schmidt e-mailed to commend my "brilliant insights in your 2:15a (ahem!) posting." Not sure if the ahem was for the lateness of the hour or the posting. Credit union (how do I still have so much money left? I'm going to have to buy a lot of Christmas presents or something) and class. Most people were there, and it was good. Like, really good. Small discussion topics - fantasy, conspiracy, frame narrative - were all interesting, I chose the latter, and did a decent amount of the talking, partly still riffing off my ideas from last night. I'm still curious about the reasons for this specific group of people in the framing narrative. The last hour of class we did a lot of readings, I encouraged character voices - so Rae read Amelia the Brooklyn milkmaid ("and he's as,") and somebody else Mason to my narrator, which made it 10x funny (that's on page 400.) Lots of good passages, "royal geography," bodice-ripping, Tox's Pennsylvaniad and the "S of J" song that Ben's harmonica accompaniment was a little sprightly for ("was that foolish?"). What a great book. Schmidt sent us a Rick Moody review. I have to arrange a lunch with he. Want to come? Talked to Gabe at break about St. Louis.

So the plan, as decided in the room last night, was to go into "the City" for Indian ("'a Passage to India' is also the name of the restaurant") with Ali and Zabby and Eva, between 4 and 5. I called after class as suggested, and then stopped by, nobody home. Retrieved the Liza CDs from Tika and the Claudia CDs from Dave, home not ten minutes later, around 4:20 as specified on the white board as Holman return time. Called again but still no answer, so I don't know what happened. I'm annoyed, I was looking forward to that. The silence here is oppressive and there's nothing to eat. Pack and plan.

knowing what I know now,
I should have had a cow