Vaycay!

Tomorrow’s my last day of work for ten whole days, and I am really excited about my vacation. What, in particular, am I excited about regarding my vacation, you ask? Well I’ll tell you.

I am tooootally psyched about

• Gardening!
• Taking some pictures with Meg’s camera
• Visiting my mom in DC for a night
• Visiting my sister in Charlottesville for a coupla nights
• Shopping for clothes, a bike helmet, a bike lock
• Writing a couple of short pieces on neat artists and makers for RM, and making a little extra cash-money

And then there were the bigger things. Like, taking 400 Words in hand. I have wanted some time to do some blogwhoring. To look into grants, for that matter. I think my project is grantable. I think it could be. And…I wanted to distill my thesis back down to regular-paper length and send it to some journals. In case I, you know, ever want to go to school again. So researching what journals I could send to, and how. And I wanted to do some writing of my own. And make a pitch to The Believer that I’ve been wanting to make for over a year now. Digging back into that stuff. A-and thinking about jobs. This one. Other ones. Maybe changing. Where the project fits into that. What I’m, like, trying to do overall.

“That’s way more than you can do in a week,” my mother said last week on the phone, as I was excitedly describing my plans for this vacation. She is right.

Well, at least the weather ought to be very nice. And I’m looking forward to a break from NY’s endless pavements, looking forward to new green leaves. It’s a really good time of year for Virginia.

Blort.

Well, my brain's fried.

The last week's been a journey of fantastic dimensions. Going back into grad school mode for four days was like getting hit with a cannonball in the chest. It was like getting blasted sideways into a completely different mode of life. A world parallel to this world. Weird.

It's not quite over yet, either, but we are winding down. The defense is officially on for February 9. I'll be buying a bus ticket soon, and getting ready to see Yoel and a few other friends again. If you are reading this please cross your fingers and silently hope that a travel-obliterating blizzard doesn't blanket the region on February 7 or 8.

In the meantime I'm salivating over the thought of all the other media I'll plug into my head once it isn't all Pynchon, all the time (and it has been: all Pynchon, all the time, for quite a long time now indeed).

In honor of the last incarnations of it, I present

Books We Wish We Were Reading: The Revenge.

• The 'Century Girl' book (I think the author has something to do with Smith mag?)
• Random Family, by Adrian Leblanc (she is a current MacArthur Fellow, right?)
• Steven Millhauser (I just read a short story by him in Tin House and it made me remember how much I liked Martin Dressler. Writing books that are basically about fanciful buildings and peoples' emotional reactions to them? Hottt)
• Time and Again (Meg says it is amazing)
• Motherless Brooklyn (seems like about time)
• Nancy Friday (taking back the Weird Feeling I got from what I now realize was her stuff, in a musty basement a very long time ago. Also as a godmother of personal media)
• Schopenhauer. Whichever one had those quotes abt art (comparing it to weeds, I think) that I was reading on that one science blog a while ago
• Open City
• The NYRB (mom got me a subscription but it's not here yet. I'm going to be so informed and middle-to-highbrow)

Yes, these last two are not books.

Books We Are Currently Reading:

• Dream Whip #14, by Bill Brown (Microcosm Publishing.) I should just get off my duff and write Bill Brown the fan letter I've been meaning to write him for years,. I was reading Dream Whip on the train today and thinking about Bill Brown and Al Burian, and how I'd happily read about the aimless travels of crackpot smart men for...well, how long you got?

I heard it might snow on Thursday.