Okay...snif...I'm ready to blog again

T'other night I had a joint going away party with two of my local barista chums, VH and JO, and another friend of mine, AK.  It was at a local club; no cover, cheap drinks, lots of dancing.  There was much mack slung and much widespread drunken flirtation.  And it was a nicely odd night.  For one thing, Molly From the Coffee Shop was there, the woman I developed a low-level but constant crush on for a year or so while she frothed my foam, with the brain-melting smile, the cute nose, the batman t-shirts, etc.  She's in L.A. now, selling Harley Davidsons, and she was just here for two days.  Serendipity.  "Hey, I know you!" she said on the dance floor.  Yes, yes she does.

There was a singer/guitarist on before the DJ started, and she was really quite good.  Breathy sort of Ani Difranco-esque dyke rock.  My lesbian friends and I were trying to work out whether she was gay.  I talked to her after the set, because she didn't have anyone else to talk to, really.  She was on her way from Columbus, OH to Ventura, CA, in a beat-up station wagon, and perfroming solo (she does have a band) in various places along the way.  She's really cool.  We bonded over David Cross.  AND it turns out we have lots in common.  She's pursuing music during a break from her PhD in Cold War history, which she was doing at the University of Warwick!  She was there when I was, actually, living in Leamington Spa.  Smallish world. 

Anyway, we talked on and off for much of the night, and then she came and said goodbye-I-really-liked-talking-to-you, and looked me in the eye and planted one on me.  It kicked ass.  A nice, sweet, lingering, deliberate sort of smooch.  And then she bundled into her car and drove off into the night towards Montana.  It was so western.  Just like Shane, but without the gunfighting.  I was left smiling goofily, and slightly bewildered, but I was able to report back to the lesbians that she's pretty much not gay.

Yesterday I finally got tired of the five huge tubs of books earmarked for my office that have been blocking the path to my bathroom, so I borrowed a car (thanks, A&J) and trundled them down two flights of stairs, 75 miles upstate, and up two flights of stairs.  Exhausted and very sweaty.  But I managed to set up my office computer, put up some posters, and organize my books to a certain extent on my bookshelves.  I made some organizational mistakes, though, and many of the books there will belong at home--I'm not really going to teach Finnegan's Wake, am I?  Or Empowering Your Inner Child?  (Yeah, okay, I went through some therapy.  Not all my books are cool intellectual poseur material.  I have Finnegan's Wake AND Mars and Venus Starting Over.  Happy?)

The town and the College are starting to grow on me.  As I sat in MY office, Professor M's office, and did paperwork and listened to the bells announcing 6:00 over the neatly trimmed, tree-lined quadrangle, it struck me that things in general could be lots worse.

I dropped by my new apartment and it is indeed as funky as I remember.  The bedroom wall paint is not coming out as dark as either I or my landlord remembers.  But it's going to be cool.  I have pictures, but not as many as I thought, because my camera ran out of batteries.  I will leave you with them.  Till next time.

Here's a blurry photo of my office, formerly Spenser Tracy's dorm room.  And here's my living room as viewed from the kitchen.  You'll have to imagine cooler colors for now.