I haven't done much today, although I did make a list of things to do. I wrote this stuff, interacted with my roommates. Ester made the Bombay potatoes for lunch, and then Jess Pulver showed up to make latkes. I liked her poetry for her, and her latkes too (big like burgers.) Ester and I watched Chung King Express, like she's been wanting to. I fell asleep at a few points, but I enjoyed it anyway. Seems like a sort of meandering movie, the plot doesn't necessarily go anywhere, and the beginning doesn't have much connection to the ending. But it's nice to watch them talk to stuffed animals. Later Joel and Rebecca and I belatedly joined the rest of the world in mocking the Segway. We also enjoyed the Megway.

Right now I'm wearing a bright green cape. Well actually it's a towel pinned around my shoulders, with Hello Kitty characters on it. This is anticipation of the Hello Kitty vs. Powerpuff Girls party at the Yale house tonight. I'm listening to Infesticons, which is sort of about superheroes. I'm going downstairs to watch Catherine and Amalle's video. Here's more about Thursday:

~

We came here, anticipating latkes and people. When we first got in (10:00) place was hopping (maybe it more seemed like it because I brought three), but they mostly cleared out soon. And we were left with wine and latkes and crisp and other food. Which was okay with me. This was nice: Lillie called me up and asked if she could come over to return my TMBG CD. Far be it from me to put work ahead of a friend, I said, and besides she brought Elf Power to listen to, so how could we not. We hadn't talked in a long time. We went into the kitchen and Rebecca and I argued for her. I came up with the term equal-opportunity to describe my approach to Judaism, which I like better than vaguely, somewhat, half, etc. I'm an equal-opportunity religious professor, or really more like an equal-opportunity celebrator of holidays. And an equal-opportunity listener. And an equal-opportunity boyfriend, some would suggest, others would dispute for other reasons. We went into the bedroom and talked about our lives. She had thought I was single, and I apologized (yeah, she didn't think it was funny either.) I offered to tell her more about it, which was another good opportunity for me to reflect on stuff (not just this semester, spanning back to Mere and the way that ended), and to feel pretty good about it. When I was talking about Alyssa, her comment was "it sounds like you really like her." That sort of thing tends to catch me by surprise, and it makes me so happy. She is concerned about being away from Jon for a full academic year (she's going to Grenoble and then Dakar next year); I'm not sure exactly how I would approach something like that. It feels really different from just one semester. She also talked some about having an SO in an ML double, something we'll have in common next semester. We also share (this seems like something I already knew) a keen interest in names. She has no middle name - something she thinks of as rare, and I think of as more common than you might expect. She happened to have a student directory listing the full names of everyone on campus (Maureen?!), which made me nostalgic for the days when I knew all that stuff, which she used to test her hypothesis . The count (excluding international students without middle names, but not those with) came out to somewhat over 5%, which she said proved her point. I said it proved mine (one person in twenty doesn't seem particularly rare to me for a thing like that.) I played twenty questions to find out her mom's middle name (Zena), she recited the top ten names lists. Yeah, she's hardcorer than me.

Then she left, and I wrote a synopsis of the parts of the musical that we weren't going to actually write (including a ballet-dream sequence of the Thompson Camp Meeting) and did something - went to bed maybe? I listened to Ester and Rebecca talking in the common room, and then I went down to join them. About the party (Ester didn't like it), about the room (they were frustrated that it isn't more inviting), about Rebecca's "design sense," which may not be pronounced, but at least her opinions are. Joel appeared in the doorway draped in his grey comforter, hair disheveled, like a biblical figure or something: "you fucking showed me those fucking pictures and i said these are fucking great let's fucking put them up on the fucking wall." (NB. this makes Joel the best roommate ever.) Then he was sucked into it to; we talked about conflicting expectations and priorities, systems vs. accidents, chores and tasks and how to accomplish them, moving, and about next semester. There's been some talk recently about whether Nori or I are (is? am?) louder; particularly with respect to Rae's piece of mind. I'm sorry that I won't have her as a downstairs neighbor next semester, and somewhat surprised that our proximity didn't bring us together sooner. She came up to borrow Dummy, and I could her the bass of "Glory Box" well into the night last night. I went to bed on Thursday at 5:30 am Friday.

when the decent folks dance a two-step revival
denial and deviation
temptation and trial