The first meeting of the Thesis Support Group went very well. All four attendees shared general information about how freaking far behind they are, made lists of Thesis Goals for the coming week, and then played a few vocabulary-building rounds of Boggle. We'll meet again next Tuesday at 8 at my house. You should come.
Today I took care of the dental section of my Peace Corps medical evaluation—panoramic x-rays that show my earrings, and lots of poking and prodding of the teeth. I was silly-early for the appointment, so I kept driving on Far West into the 1970s/1980s version of all the McMansion crap out Bee Caves—mansionettes with breathtaking views of hillsides speckled with other mansionettes.
Other than that, I've been mostly lazy. I made tea; I fell asleep while reading Thomas Paine's Common Sense; I watched Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her, a quiet movie that was a good companion to the other half of my Vulcan 2-for-1-Wednesdays rental, Whale Rider.
So I received confirmation today from Matt that the girl he saw the Disappearing Ex-Boyfriend with in Austin at New Year's was, in fact, Valeska the Evil Soul-Sucking Ex. This, in my opinion, serves him right.
Hey all you Plan II 1st- / 2nd- / only- semester THESIS people—I'm starting a Plan II THESIS Support Group for myself and everyone else who is just now realizing that they fall in the need-a-topic / need-a-new-topic / need-to-get-moving-cause- oh-fuck-the-thesis-symposium-is-on-March-7th categories... I propose meeting every two weeks at some location TBD to have food and share ideas, rough drafts, and our progress (or lack thereof) so far.
Meeting with a group of fellow panicked persons will provide deadlines of even the loosest sort—plus just general therapy/catharsis...
Who's with me? What're good days/times? Every other Sunday at 6pm at my house?
The only two books listed at the Co-op for Bob Jensen's TC357 "Social Justice and the Media"? Thomas Paine's Common Sense and The Communist Manifesto. Grand total? 149 pages and $7.69.
I've often woken up with strange things running through my head—"Hold On" by Wilson Phillips being just one of many quality songs to hold this honor—but this morning it was just one word: "avuncular."
Did I have any idea what "avuncular" means? No. Did I run across it in recent conversation or reading? Not that I remember. But it was definitely there, and a quick trip to Dictionary.com tells me that it means (1) Of or having to do with an uncle; and (2) Regarded as characteristic of an uncle, especially in benevolence or tolerance.
Both movies I watched yesterday—The Last Samurai and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly—were essentially all-male casts... But I wouldn't have guessed that my subconscious would interpret 18th century Japanese warriors and squinty-eyed cowboys as all that uncle-ish.
In other news, I have four pounds of crawfish tails to take home with me on Friday, and today's audience on Jerry Springer was shouting "Mom's a whore! Mom's a whore!"
My visit to California successfully completed, I'm back for a few action-packed days in Baton Rouge before heading home to Austin on Friday.
Saw The Last Samurai this afternoon with Kathryn and Maryann. It was worthwhile—pretty to look at and very close to moving—though predictably wanky at the end. Tom Cruise not only survives massive bullet wounds but is poised to bang the one female in the entire movie. Go figure.
After Leslie and Bryan went to yoga and I sat around on my ass, I cut Leslie's hair, which had gotten to her shoulders.
Today's expedition started around 2pm, when we headed west to Butano State Park. The drive out there almost ended me, full of twists and turns and up and down that knocked on my stomach and said "Hellooooo motion sickness!" At the park we hiked through a redwood forest covered in ferns and moss. I hugged a tree.
We drove back along California 1, right after the sun set over the Pacific, then ate at an over-priced Santa Cruz restaurant.
Now it's 10pm and Leslie and Bryan are going to bed. Woot.
My one resolution for this year is to do all the Essential Austin Things that I haven't done yet. Things like hiking the Greenbelt and seeing the Trail of Lights, which I hadn't gotten around to until this past semester.
So far my list includes going to Mt Bonnell and tubing. What else?
I'm in California right now, visiting Leslie and Bryan—my first time to the West Coast.
I feel like I've found the home I only vaguely suspected I was missing.
Everything about the Bay Area is perfect. The weather. The mountains. The huge, surreal trees.
Today we walked around Berkeley. We ate lunch at a restaurant filled with crunchy-hip college kids—I had a "marinated tofu madness" sandwich—and watched painfully beautiful people walk by. Then we strolled through the Cal campus, which is utterly gorgeous.
After that we went into San Francisco and hit Good Vibrations, the classiest sex shop imaginable, where I found the vibrator to end all vibrators. I'm trying to decide if I can live with myself for not buying it right then and there, and I'm starting to suspect that I can't.
But anyhow. I'm madly in love. This place has surpassed all my expectations. Which is saying a lot, since I had built the Bay Area up in my mind as the Promised Land. And it is. It so is.
