S & A 's wedding

Awwww.... I'm a sucker for weddings, even boring ones, and this one was awesome! When we first drove up I was surprised by how beautiful the location was (Warner Park)--I've driven past it but never guessed how nice it is beyond the big Mallards sign. A delightful little stream, woods and fields, a curved bridge, even a deer drinking from the stream off in the near distance--all golden in a late-afternoon, post-rain hazy light. We spotted two sandhill cranes making their way, with their uniquely deliberate bobbing that is somehow graceful, along the stream, over the road, and on into the meadow beyond.

They were still visible from the room where the ceremony was held (windows all around gave a lovely vista of the park). Just as the bride and groom entered the cranes suddenly took flight. It was beautiful! and seemed like a lovely auspicious sign.

S looked just stunning in a dress made by her sister (with help from Chels to do the fittings)--it was simple, elegant, and just lovely in every way. During the ceremony she looked so calm and... "happy" seems too frivolous a word. It's like what I was trying to say in my post about the Shrek/Fiona and Aragorn/Arwen love stories...(I hope if the happy couple ever see this they will not be offended at being compared to ogres--hopefully not, if they read the previous post!) S. just looked at A. like she knows him so well and chooses him completely, in comfort and trust and peace. (OK, scuse the mushiness but like I said--I'm a sucker for weddings).

A. was so sweet--he looked at times a bit nervous and shy and not always sure where he was supposed to look and what he was supposed to do with his hands... but it seemed that as the ceremony progressed he was more and more able to forget the room of people watching and find his home and resting place in S's calm eyes. (Toward the end they started giggling which was really adorable!) I was thinking that a lot of women would have been mad (or impatient) at the groom for not taking her hand at the "right" moment, not meeting her gaze at the "right" moment, not being "romantic" in some pre-programmed "perfect" way that she had imagined her whole life.

But S just seemed content to be there, to look at A and accept and love everything about him, just A being A in his own sincere and tender way. I think the hypothetical annoyance of some women in that situation would be based in insecurity, but it seemed to me, as an observer, at least at this moment, these two people had no doubt about each other. That's the same thing I was talking about in the post about ogres and elves, the same thing I feel like we have in our marriage too. The canter mentioned that S said that just because they survived A's cancer doesn't mean their marriage will work, and of course that's true, but conversely, I think there is something greater there--call it honesty and trust and belief in each other as one another's home and resting place--that enabled them to survive the cancer and will also carry them through the years ahead. Anyway, that is what I hope and wish for them. I was very happy and honored to be a part of this day.

The reception was also a blast--I haven't danced in ages. It seemed like a great group of people, all the friends & relations unknown to me, and everyone seemed to be having a great time, relaxed and friendly. The toasts were hilarious, the food was great and it was fun to hang out with friends without school stuff hanging over my head. A rare treat indeed! Well, time for bed. Tomorrow we'll go to the post-wedding brunch, where apparently A has made bunch of different delectable bread.

star wars revelation

Harry Potter's coming on June 4, I hear!

I'm mildly excited about this--I'm not a huge fan but I do enjoy the films, and it's always fun to see the next one in a good series.

I'm much more excited about the release of the Return of the King DVD (though I'm more excited for the extended version, not sure when that's due out). But, I haven't bought it yet because our DVD player seems to be broken.

Due to this unforeseen glitch in my ongoing LOTR viewing, I've been watching Star Wars (on videotape) the last few days (watching fun stuff is my bribe/reward/inspiration to encourage myself to go downstairs and exercise). What a hoot! I always rant and rave about how the "new" Star Wars films (I & II) betray the profundity of the original, but for some reason, this time around it's pretty clear...

Star Wars wasn't really all that profound to begin with!

:-) Oh well.



I still love Princess Leia.

Which way to cell block AA-23????

nice things

wow, we have had some kitchen machines in the past but nothing beats our latest acquisitions: a crock pot and a bread machine. I used to scoff at bread machines but no longer. this morning we had scrumptious french toast made of yummy bread from the bread machine, and this evening we had delectable pot roast from the crock pot. so delicious!!!! other nice things include our weekly CSA vegetable box, which provided the key ingredient in the fabulous rhubarb cobbler we had for dessert. could life be any better? i seriously doubt it!!! oh and as if that isn't enough lovey is a knitting genius--she is just finishing up my lovely shimmery t-shirt made of variegated blue ribbons, and maybe (maybe) next she will make me this sweater, only in blues & greens:



note the lovely frilly sleeves... yum!
Life definitely could not be any, any, any better. I can't imagine it. And isn't that a nice thing, in itself!

geek quotes

too many long thoughtful posts....

points will be awarded for anyone able to identify the following geek movie quotes (movie, character, situation). partial points may be awarded. points may be redeemed for ice cream.

1. "do, or do not. there is no try." (5 points)
   
2. "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or the one." (5 points)
   
3. "young fool!.... only now.... at the end.... do you understand!" (10 points)
   
4. "now for wrath, now for ruin, and a red dawn!" (15 points)
   
5. "botany bay.... botany bay! we've got to get out of here!" (15 points)
   
6. "forgive me...I did not see...I have failed you all" (20 points)
   

hint: only 3 film series are represented.

a sad situation

Cm was one of our best friends for many years. we met in NYC and hung out with her all the time. then we helped her move to LA and we visited her there, she visited here. we had the same wacky sense of humor and could appreciate each other's bizarre random ideas and thoughts.

now she's gone off with an abusive guy and it's like she's disappearing. it's like gollum eating smeagol (sorry, lotr-nonfans). funny-smart-sweet friend is replaced by raving, angry, delusional person who is digging herself deeper and deeper and deeper into this hole.

(moving to another state with this guy, far away from family and friends; quitting her job--really her whole career since she's an academic--and becoming financially dependent on him...rejecting her rich cousin's offer to bail them out financially because she felt her cousin was too condescending in making the offer, even though the financial problems are what keep her bound to this guy..........) going, going, gone.

finally, what i knew would happen eventually, she turned on me too--she leaves these messages on my machine about how i've let her down, i obviously don't care about her anymore, blah blah blah. she can't hear anything i say anymore--e.g., I offered to fly out and try to help out with something, and she got really angry and said I was being condescending and that i obviously think she can't take care of herself.

whatever i say gets twisted into something bad. this isn't like some of my other friends who got into abusive relationships and seemed to shrink down and just get sadder and sadder. it's like she gets more and more angry, but at the wrong people.

I still love and care about her, but it becomes clear that, to the extent that I placate her and try to act like everything's ok, I'm enabling her to continue to pretend to herself that everything's ok, as well as setting myself up to be on the receiving end of her ranting and raving at me. Not especially useful for either of us.

it's sad but as i have been going through this process i have come to feel peaceful in a way because i know that no one could be a better friend to anyone than i was to her. there's nothing more i could have done. so if it wasn't enough, then, nothing would have been enough.

maybe another person could have been "the right friend," maybe not, but anyway there's nothing more i personally could have done, from whatever my strengths and limitations are. so... a type of peace, even though I'm sad.

anyway, tomorrow (today, friday) is her birthday and i sent her an e-card, and then, worried she wouldn't figure out how to open it (she's pretty non/anti-technology), i sent her a quick email too.

i think my messages on them were weird, but i'm trying not to worry about it. no matter what i write it will be the wrong thing (or not, depending on her mood), so there's no point in obsessing over the idea that if I just said the "right" thing i could make it all better, because that won't happen. I just sent her birthday greetings because it would have seemed unnatural not to, i.e., I can't expect any particular result from this action, and that's ok. Mbly got upset when I said this, but I'm trying to use this situation to practice staying true to myself even when someone else is going nuts on me. Good practice for students and teachers and parents and bosses in the future. It doesn't make it any less about Cm. It just helps me draw a line between her sh*t and my life.

i listen to my lovey sleeping, breathing in the other room, while the tempurpedic infomercial chirps on with enthusiastic testimony. i may be losing someone important but i still have my lovey loopy. i'm still the luckiest girl in the world.

by the way i enjoyed shrek 2

It was lots of fun. The first one was probably better but so what? I love the love story between the two main characters. It's so REAL, compared to the usual hollywood dreck, where "love" apparently is essentially the same thing as admiration + insecurity. And the whole concept is SUCH a refreshing antidote to the princess-prince charming story, which of course it's meant to be....

maybe there's a slick hollywood side to that, a sort of irony in the selling of the antidote by the same people who made the poison (just like there's some company, duPont maybe? that sells a fertilizer or some such that's a major carcinogen, and they also sell chemotherapy drugs).

But, what the hell, you can't be thinking all pomo all the time. I just had fun and enjoyed the story. I'm a sucker for gooey love stories since I have my own.

I was thinking the other day (while watching the Aragorn & Arwen scenes in The Two Towers), that when I was younger I used to watch gooey love stories with this pining angst-filled longing, but now I have my own gooey love story, it just makes me happy to see it reflected onscreen. I think the Shreks and the Aragorn-Arwen thing both have the same quality of realness that you don't often see in Hollywood love stories--i don't know what it is exactly, maybe because the two characters seem just supremely comfortable together, they fit together in some deep profound way--they really trust each other, they really know each other (unlike, as i said above, the usual hollywood couple).

Is it significant that these 2 stories are both completely imaginary and that none of the four individuals in these stories are 100% human? (counting Fiona and Aragorn as half-human) Hmmmmm............

Well my own lovey wants me to come look at a huge spider on the ceiling of the dining room. I'm pretty sure she's human and she's definitely not imaginary and I definitely love her as much as any Shrek or Elf thing. So there, hollywood *sticking my tongue out* who cares what you think.

A or B? A...... or B?

So, this is exciting. I have two options for student teaching... I'll call them Wallie and Birdie (both middle school).

I don't know anything about Wallie except that her school is organized into "houses," and 6-7-8 graders are in multi-age classrooms with the same set of teachers for all three years. It's supposed to be really great for the students b/c it's a stronger sense of community. Drawback: Wallie doesn't always teach social studies, and I'm not sure that, when she does, I'd be able to have my own class (if she only has one social studies class, for example...). I'll have to think about whether it's important to have my own class or whether I had enough experience with that last year.

Birdie came highly recommended. Her school has a reputation for really being committed to full inclusion (that means that students are not segregated by "ability level," i.e. according to what teachers have decided they should be when they grow up), which is something I really wanted (plus, I understand it makes me extra-marketable). There are some superficial bonuses to Birdie's school--it's much closer to home (not saying much--it's ~50 minutes while Wallie's is ~65-70 minutes from home--not that this should be a huge priority but I can't help thinking about it). It's also across from a lovely park with a body of water.

Both schools are relatively small. In terms of the students, I know very little. My vague impression is that Wallie's school is in a "tougher" neighborhood (the high school from that neighborhood has a "reputation," and one of my favorite students last year came from there, a white white working class girl, at times a real hell-raiser, but also a sweetheart). When I went by Birdie's school, the students seemed pretty diverse (for this town), at least racially, which is all you can really tell from driving past the playground. I would like to get more practice working in multicultural classrooms (and I'm not just using that as a euphemism for "nonwhite"--a classroom that is "monocultural" along one major axis (whether it's Latino, Black, rich/white, poor/white, or whatever) has different challenges than a multicultural classroom with few points of reference in common, like my classes at Shabazz)(......and while I was writing that parenthetical comment, I revised it about ten times and started re-evaluating my assumptions about several things...but that's another post for another day). But I think I should focus on working with the best teacher I can find, almost regardless of the students. Almost. Because the school I've been observing in is pretty monocultural (in one sense anyway) and the teacher I think has a distorted perception of how much she actually teaches them--they get a lot from sharing the same culture as the teacher, that she woudl have to teach if they were from another culture. Everything from the unwritten rules of "how to behave" to the technical stuff like "what is an essay?" The teacher talks a good game about teachiing multicultural students but it's hard to guess whether that's based on actual experience.

ANYWAY! I'll be spending the day at Wallie's school on Tuesday and Birdie's school on Wednesday. I can hardly wait!!!

Well, I'll keep you (whoever you are!) posted.

I'm going to start a teaching blog too. Both so I can make that more public, and so that my friends who are more interested in my opinion of Shrek 2 than my teaching experiences don't have to slog through lengthy teaching-related posts.
~V

are you going to cooperate?

good news! i heard back from the two potential cooperating teachers today and I have appoimtments to go sit in on their classes next week (tuesday & wednesday)! Yay! What a HUGE RELIEF!!!!

k gotta go see shrek :-)

the places we will go

loopy just sent me this list of places we will go in SF when we visit in August. Pretty exciting!!! They are not linked; I'm lazy. (plus we have to leave and go see shrek 2! yay!)

http://www.thinker.org/legion/about/index.asp

http://www.sfmoma.org/visit/visitinfo_hours.asp

http://www.sfzoo.org/visit/

http://www.asianart.org/

http://www.sanfranciscoonline.com/citysights.html

http://www.gracecathedral.org/

http://www.sanfranciscochinatown.com/culture/dimsum.html

http://www.japantown.ws/top.html

prince of extremely orange

so yesterday was gorgeous gardening weather--not too hot, slight breeze, no bugs, it has rained for weeks so the soil is wet and easy to work. so i bought lovey three beautiful poppy plants (papaver orientalis "prince of orange")(see below)

isn't it gorgeous?? it's for lovey b/c she loves bright colors and especially loves all kinds of colors together in a flowerbed. so it will be next to a pink stargazer lily and two purple delphiniums and a bunch of yellow daisies and also pink and white peonies, wow!!! i planted them, also weeded the beds and moved a bunch of columbine and solomon's seal off to the woods, since they're native woodland plants and i wish there were more of them.

i also had to "thin" some seedlings for love-in-a-mist... i hate "thinning" seedlings...it's like frickin' sophie's choice, ok, well, it's probably icky to compare myself in my lovely garden to sophie in a concentration camp, but i'm so thrilled when anything grows, i hate to pull it up, even weeds! and when i have to pull seedlings for pretty flowers--and then sitting there trying to decide which seedling looks the most vigorous, then pulling the others, seems sad for some reason. well, it did yesterday. maybe i got a little carried away.

every day can be LUSH day

my bath is filling up right now. which bath ballistic should I use?? avo-bath, the sparkly green one with avocado oil? big blue, which smells like the ocean and is full of seaweed? butterball, so full of coco butter and other yummy things to make your skin so soft? this is the best kind of decision!!!! too bad more of life's decisions aren't like this!

if you don't know what i'm talking about go visit LUSH right now and buy yourself some faboo stuff!!!

I went with Avobath.... mmmmmmm!!! lemon and bergamot scented! can't wait to get in! so bye!

going off antidepressants...

...was the best thing i ever did (well, other than start taking them in the first place when i needed them!). i think they helped at the time but when you don't need them anymore they can actually cause anxiety. i feel so happy lately! it's downright unnatural!

I wrote letters to possible cooperating teachers. it's always so hard to contact teachers. they don't always respond to email and you can't call them at work because they're teaching. So I wrote letters and included stamped self-addressed postcards. is that weird?

SHE'S DONE!!!!

loopy finished her thesis!!! at least for now. now we get to playplayplay!!!!!



YAY LOOPY!




will we go see shrek2?? will we have a nice yummy dinner? will we put things in the garden? oh i just don't know what to think, the possibilities are endless!!!!!!!

oh my god

i still do not have a cooperating teacher, nor did i make any steps forward in that direction today! Yesterday and today i gave my whole life to loopy's thesis, which felt wonderfully supportive and helpful at the time, but now it seems sort of insignificant because she seems to be right back where she started, i.e. hunched miserably over the computer. will it never end? oh!!! the magic words...."we're going to print it and go!" yay!!!

but you have to care, it's your paper

now i'm worried that i ruined loopy's paper. i got overly enthusiastic i think. this is all new and exciting for me but she's been suffering in labor with this thing for years. ah, it's been what, five years? what's a few more hours? (of course, she just can't wait for it to be over! so close!!!)
yay loopy, go loopy, go GO GO


  loopyyyyy!!!!!

                     yay yay yay!

          almost there!! *cartwheels*  whee!

i know she will put humpty dumpty back together again, i hope it's not too too painful!

it's tough because you want to put in more of the interesting little details and tidbits. we got so much awesome dirtout of all those interviews, and a lot of it would probably be fascinating to her colleagues who study religion and social movements--even without any theory attached, just all by itself. but the "rules" of the academic game dictate that we can only put stuff in that "counts" as "evidence" toward her fabulous new theory.

maybe she should scrap the theory and write a research report. cuz then she could put in about being "off the ball on the second standard" (i.e., don't ask intellectual questions or we'll accuse you of masturbating...... huh??? what kind of sense does that make? god, those people were freaks!!) maybe she could do a separate article about all the fascinating dirt............................

ANYWAY, all this reminds me why i'm so glad i dropped out of grad school. if i don't have to go back to school for "professional recertification" (some teaching BS) then I only have probably two more papers to write, ever, ever, ever!!! although, i wonder what it would take to finish my MA at Columbia. I finished more classes there than I thought. (I always thought I only had like one grade, but actually I only had two or three incompletes. Who knew?) I still remember the classical Japanese stuff, but I don't know if I could read the theory. Maybe my new Japanese tutor could help me.

Geek comment du jour: This morning I learned that Sam (Sean Astin) got a piece of glass right through his foot while filming the scene where he wades into the river after Frodo ("Of course you are, MrFrodo, and I'm going with you!") I knew he cut his foot at some point, and that's why he was so cranky when they filmed the Black Gate sequence, but now I actually saw the event (including the dressing of the wound) on camera. eeew, grody!

take that whole section and shove it up your ass ;-)

"Take that whole section..."
"WHAT whole section? From where to where? You have to tell me from where to where!"
"From 'Emotion capital' to 'sucks eggs.'"
"AND DO WHAT WITH IT????? Jesus Christ, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about!"
"Just put it at the end, after the block quote from Sir Hildegarde Pigglewiddle."
"OH MY GOD IT'S THREE FUCKING THIRTY!!!!!"

And the afternoon wears on, with the editing gonzos. ;-)

love
loopy

here we go, here we go

another day of editing loopy's thesis! wahoo! it is almost done and i think it's looking great. i'm so proud of loopy for reading every single word Bourdieu** ever published, at least twice, and then coming up with a brilliant new application of his theory! i hope loopy's colleagues appreciate how smart she is. which is very very.

the best part is the theory is all about fields,* so i get to draw lots of silly cartoons of people doing things in fields, like having emotion acts. these are supposed to cheer loopy up and sometimes she laughs but other times she just moans quietly. today i brought lots of snacks because yesterday i was only supposed to stay for a couple minutes and i stayed for twelve hours and everybody got pretty hungry. and cranky.

uh oh, loopy's opening the document for some more hot front-stage action, so i guess i better go. almost there! almost there! yeehaw!

---

*here is a pdf of an interview of Loic Wacquant called "Taking Bourdieu Into the Field." It begins with a joke I do not understand. The interviewer asks, "If you will forgive this joke, how did the 'ontological complicity' between the 'history embodied' in you and the 'history objectivized' in his writings take place concretely?" Ha ha ha that's so funny! What??? Wacquant says he likes the joke though, in the next sentence. So that's probably what's important.

**Here is Bourdieu:

Bourdieu

no, it's like a 12-hour root canal!!!!!!!

"Cut the colon and put a period. No, a period! A period! A PERIOD!!!!!"
"Where? Where???? WHAT COLON? WHAT PERIOD?????"
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHH!!!!

like a root canal

why is it so painful to help lovey with her thesis?

I guess it's not as painful as being lovey, working on her thesis. I'm so glad I dropped out of graduate school!

You go lovey, hang in there!! I'm on your side!!!

i am gone, yet i live on.............

I just discovered that I have a page on the website of the school where I student taught last fall! Well, my name's not on there, but the names of several of my classes are... it's basically a half-heartedly edited version of an email I sent the teacher about all my guest speakers. It's in the "Cultural Connections" section of the website. Some of my favorite people are immortalized as well. Check it out:
Culturally Diverse Visitors to Shabazz City High School. I don't know why this makes me happy.

i'm sooooo sleepy

so go to bed. jeeziz, what the hell is wrong with you anyway???

i'm rereading poisonwood bible. that is an awesome book. (the connection here is "jeeziz" which I respelled to avoid offending anyone unduly).

i'm almost done with my semester. so why don't i just finish already and go to sleep? what am i a glutton for punishment????????????
(see previous post for the answer to that question, i guess!!)

as soon as i'm done with my semester here are some other things i have to do...

• find a cooperating teacher !!! for the fall (i.e. someone for me to be a student teacher with)
  
• prepare to be a student teacher (lesson plans etc)
  
• clean the whole goddamn house, which is slowly filling up to its gills with STUFF
  
• put our scotland photos in an album
  
• make loopy's knitting binder which was sposed to be a bday present but my arm got hurt
  
• make loopy's green notecards which ditto
  
• fix the garden!! dandelions everywhere, worms on the roses, blackspot looming too, more worms on the hollyhocks (it seems that hollyhocks are the most deliciousest things ever, even more delicious than roses, cuz i have to spray them all the time and pick bugs off... but they are so gorgeous it's worth it!!), plant the half-barrels (petunias this year?), fertilize everything (get compost out of the bin and make compost tea)...
  
• consider flying to Boston to get married (the excitement has worn off a bit but I still feel sorta like we shuold take advantage of this momentous historical moment.......... but really mostly i'm kinda sleepy)
  
• contact folks I know in the SF bay area to see if they want to get together in August (i really want to see my English teacher from Japan, but somehow I always end up offending her....last time i said that she was an inspiration to me, considering that she is just as procrastinatory and ineffective as me and yet she accomplished a lot of stuff. somehow it came out wrong and just sounded like an insult. I hope she wants to see me... there's also my high school friend Mari who got married and had a kid, only now she has two. I gave up on her but Mom got a card from her. Maybe it would be nice to see her... she didn't seem too happy to see me last time, but.... who knows. maybe she was just tired. i hear being a mom is tiring)
  
• oh yeah, write that darn article on a socialist perspective on gay marriage that i promised to soli news...
  
• double oh yeah, i am going to write an email to Camilly to explain everything, like, how I can't be an enabler for her abusive relationship anymore. that won't be fun. But, well... what can I do?
  
• also loopy says I should check out Alanon so I would get better at not letting people dump their crap on me (her, Camilly, the students, other teachers.....)
  

aside from the last couple, a lot of that is actually fun stuff. so let's do it, let's get this over with, let's finish this damn paper and go to bed and be DONE with semester #3 out of 4 semesters of teacher education. yee haw! actually a terrifying thought. ok, nuf already gnight.

i'm working on it

insight for the week: if I'm always late or overdue with something, then I always have a reason to refuse to do anything I don't want to do. So it's an inefficient way to control everything and make other people adapt to me. But it's not very much fun and it's sort of embarrassing. Think of how many more things I could do with my time if I just hurried and finished up what I have to get done, and then had all this spare time! Well, the worry is of course that I wouldn't get stuff done, because I tend to fill up all the available time working on whatever it is. So if I leave it to the last minute and do other stuff in the interim, the (somebody's anyway) idea seems to be that I will get to do more stuff. But it's very stressful and it's not necessarily what I would first most choose to do. So I have to be able to just decide not to spend much time on something, but do it first instead of last. It would be great to always be ahead of the game. And also give myself permission to say "no" to things I don't want to do, instead of "needing" this backup "reason" or excuse for not doing stuff (i.e. "i can't because I have to do my homework").



all my boring posts will be that color i think. i'm going to color code instead of making separate blogs. I think. maybe.

just testing

loopy wanted me to see how to make colors...

what color is this?

i have a feeling some of these colors are from banklers trust... heh, i used the same colors for iq-pc, hah hah. i'm misspelling htem on purpose, don't want to be google-able.

well, the color thing is working, how bout some other stuff?

well, this is it

this is my blog. i just finished my EdPsych exam, so one of my classes is completely done. this is my reward. i have some mixed feelings about this, but, we'll see how it goes. i can't decide what the purpose should be.

1) to post silly, funny things to make people laugh and think I am silly and funny
2) to muse about therapy-related stuff like my relationship with my mom and being more confident, calm, etc.
3) to rant about politics and education and stuff.

i'm considering having three blogs but i'm not sure it's worth the trouble. but i'm not sure who should be allwoed to read my blog, or read which blog. who would want to read about blog #2? I would be surprised but gratified if lovey read it. maybe miriam and nadine might possibly read it sometimes, although it seems extremely narcissistic to think that just because people are willing to tolerate my blabbering on about that stuff in their presence, and even listen and respond, that those people would therefore be willing to actively go to my blog and seek out the meandering therapy blabber. blog #3 could be semi-public, maybe share with my teacher friends. is blog #1 worth the time? it might be fun. maybe i could combine #1 and #2, and people who weren't interested could skip over the introspective bits. otherwise who would even read #2?

so who am i writing to? that's the intriguing part. maybe nobody! maybe just to myself. we'll see.

maybe i should have a separate blog for lotr stuff (that's lord of the rings, in case anyone else ever reads this)

one thing's sure, i'll probably write really, really really long posts and probably no one will want to read them! ah hahahahahahaaha!