on the Pathologist to success...

It's been a lovely last several days... Since Saturday aftereve much has happened. We've not been without houseguests, we met the house we think we might LOVE, and we made an offer (and had said offer rejected) on said house.

Saturday we discovered a lovely 2-story colonial... that's just about perfect... and we think we'd like to buy it. Then, Saturday, andy flew in from Atlanta, after a conference presentation, and good times were had... Dinner at Lulu's, then some drinks at At Random... He stayed long enough to watch the Bears lose and for us to put an offer in on the house and headed to Clinton Monday morning... at which time, the wheels of houseguest fate spun joel miron in our direction. Miron is interviewing pathological programs for his residency coming up next year and one of his possibilities was here in the greater Milwaukee area.

We explored a bit of Milwaukee - drinking, seeing the lake on a cold, sleety, rainy afternoon, drinking old school cocktails (Bourbon Old Fashioned - Sour, Tom Collins, & a Harvey Wallbanger) at Comet Cafe, revelry, drinks at Paddy's, sleeping.

Our alleged new house is in the Tippacanoe neighborhood (seriously) of southern Milwaukee... Theme party's abound - then, it's also a two-story colonial, opening up even another realm... So, start your theme engines now... and get ready to visit real soon...

Posting on the Down-Lo

So, it's saturday morning and i'm at work.

That's right, despite my return to grad school, i've become a soul-less, corporate, sell-out. I come in a couple days a week and play office-guy. They seem to enjoy it & they occasionally give me money in exchange for my time.

So now i'm the kind of guy who wakes up on Saturday mornings and goes in to the office after (for instance) a lively English Department party at the Department Chair's house (which somehow we & the v.cool 'Angy' ended up being the very last people at. One moment the house is swarming with smarmy English majors & professors, the next moment we're in the foyer sipping chardonnay and realizing the homeowners are quietly chatting with close friends in the kitchen and no one else is anywhere to be seen - we slipped out and took our drinks to the street.)

Some Saturdays have been harder to get going than others, but overall it seems to be an ok arrangement. For now, i'll carry on working hard at not working, yet getting paid for it, whilst i simultaneously working hard, not working and not getting paid to go to school and also avoiding work for which i am paid, but don't really have time to do teaching freshmen 'how to write', yet actually not telling them anything.

Get that?

Back to Basicks

It occurs to me that both of you loyal Roman Numeral J readers may have, in recent days & posts, been disturbed by the blogs tendency toward the overly political -- Whether it be solving social secuity, finding deep political arguments in juvenile comedies, or pointing out the persecution of atheists going on all across the world (by which i mean america).

But, i am now announcing a turn toward the undead... again. As i put my PhD applications together, making statements of purpose justifying my year spent thinking with zombies & editing and rewriting my Romero paper. Also, i will try to turn the blog back toward the momentary and incidental (everything is momentary and incidental, i suppose, but i'll shoot for what most would consider trivial)...

On that note, i had some tawny port tonight... after work. Watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, the first third with subtitles (which i initially thought were part of the movie... thinking it 'really arty'). Now i'm hanging out with my guinea pig for a while. Yeah. that's exciting...

but, in an exclusive announcement, i'd like to toss out some feelers for a Christmas Party... December 16th? who might make it? An exclusive (and by exclusive i mean hardly anyone will show up unless you readers make it sweet) party at the Martha house... anyone... anyone...

Master J

I often wonder to myself, "self, just what the fuck were you thinking when you decided to go spend around $50,000 to get yourself a Master's Degree in zombies," and i almost never have an answer. Certainly, i am not the foremost expert on the unpleasantly undead that i hoped to be. The UniversityC of Berkeley decided my zombie thinking wasn't up to snuff (or perhaps that i didn't have enough acadeCred built up), so i can't present my thesis on zombies at their conference entitled "The Undead".

Furthermore, the book coming out next year, entitled Zombies in Film and Literature also doesn't seem to think that my paper on Romero fits in with their project. wtf. They cordially refuse to include my thesis.

Which sucks.

And so, i am an undead failure. I am not the zombie-genius, nor the supreme academic knowledge on death that i'd hoped to be by this point... And so... ...

A party. October 28th? Anyone? A Halloween Party in Omaha. We have not formalized yet, but would like to know who might want to/be able to make the trip... You're all welcome. I will be coming as Mr. Clean, shaved head & all, to symbolize the zombification of our society (paper pending)... but, just want to know who might want to come to a Halloween party in Omaha the last weekend in October...

I'm sailing away...

Saturday morning arrived sunny, hot and lovely in Omaha and while we weighed various options i thought i could come up with nothing better than sitting in a car for 5+ hours en route to Minneapolis.

So it was that i was able to attend the 2nd bienniel (is that the word for every two years?) Luau, hosted by Nate & Lissa. The party was once again, a success, though i did miss portions due to "seasickness". Nathan allegedly drove a moped through his yard & the cops showed up at 3:45 AM... a good party by any standard. The cops came to the door, alleging they had just seen the front door wide open and were checking in. They warned that thieves often see a party going on, walk in, swipe a few purses and leave... not a bad idea, in fact. Their scenario reminded me of the first luau, two summers ago, at the Longfellow house. Some stranger was wandering around the party and at some point in the evening we approached him. He said he couldn't find the people he was looking for (we hadn't heard of them). We eventually realized he was at the wrong luau. He'd actually been going to a different luau on Longfellow Avenue (which in retrospect seems unlikely).

Nate's small sunfish was again in the backyard, beached and filled with ice and beer with a christmas light sail. There were several pitchers of tropical drinks, of all shades - a blue, a red, a pink, and a yellow - mostly terrible and terribly fruity.

The next day, miserable and hungover, i decided against the Twin's game, and we went down to Lake Nokomis and sailed the very same sailboat. I got the chance to take complete control of the boat for the first time ever (almost flipping us over twice), we played a game of wiffle ball (which i think i won) and then drove our sorry asses back to Omaha.

Overall it was a fun, fleeting weekend. The Twins took two of three and gained a game in the Wild Card hunt & we made a quick stop at Crate & Barrel to pick up some stuff off the registry that we really wanted.