Sort of back now
Dec. 31st, 2001 09:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quislibetBack in Mass. for a few days, then down to Philly to deliver The Paper. Assuming it is really and for true finally finished by Sunday. I have to write the last page or so today -- presumably easy, but I haven't touched the thing since I left for Ohio (although I did move the folder it's in once or twice). Then I'll start trying to trim it down to an "I can present this in 15 min. without sounding like that one fast-talking comedian guy who got all those commercials years ago" length. Wednesday I'll show it to Advisor Man, and we'll see what happens.
Thursday we'll drive down to Pennsylvania, a hateful drive. At least it's the near end. We will be accompanied by friends of J.'s from Brown, one of whom is also attending the conference with professional interest (she digs Petra, by which I am referring to archaeological activity in Jordan and not to a preference for a particular Christian rock band). Looks to be entertaining, I hope.
- - - -
Listening to this album (see below) makes me think of friends of mine in my college dorm, who were amused that Bowie's son Duncan, who lived upstairs (across the hall from the brother of the drummer, I think, from Warrant), had an Asian girlfriend. "It's his China Girl!" they pointed out happily.
Not much to do in Wooster, Ohio.
- - - -
Hmm. I thought Ihad posted twice while in Ohio, but see only one entry, which would be to my thinking the second one. It refers to "elves" in a vacuum. Or rather "out of context," anyway; those suckers rattle around in the mechanism a lot and you usually stop right away before they get up into the bag.
Anyway, some of the following may be mildly redundant if that other post ever shows up.
Holiday highlights: spent two nights and the intervening day at my dad's place in Columbus. Went to downtown Westerville, a land of antique stores and other non-chain shops, for some shopping and sightseeing; found some spiff JELL-O molds for J.'s stocking. Bought two Cranes EPs and the Best of The Birthday Party for a total of 8 bucks. Got a book for my mom. Later Dad and I put up Christmas decorations while my stepmom looked on, entertained by our enthusiasm but not sharing in it. Dad has somehow amassed a large collection of little ceramic churches and quaint wintry houses and was keen on arraying them and re-arraying them around the base of the little Charlie-Brownish artificial tree and on other surfaces nearby; I was surprised a little at how much time he spent on the activity, but I have since remembered that my grandmother used to make such things. If he has any of hers, they're in a box somewhere buried by frequent moves in the past couple of years, but these were perhaps close enough.
Sunday I went down to the Home Town, and was soon whisked off to the local mall, which used to bill itself as "the biggest little mall in the country," by which it meant agricultural area rather than the nation. (Concomitant strip-mall-ification of the highway that runs by the mall has pushed the "country" further away over the last 13 years or so, of course.) Mom and step-dad were going to see "Lord of the Rings," but I had made a pact to wait until I was back to MA to see it with J., so I finished up my final bits of shopping and occasionally exchanged brief words with my overworked brother, a.k.a. the guy in the Christmas elf hat at the grill in the food court Wendy's.
Sunday night I got together with two high school friends before they left town to go visit extended family for Christmas, both refugees from planned higher ed. academic careers. One is now the Latin teacher at our old high school, the other involved in a (third-)world-spanning cellular communications company based in Cincinnati (they buy up aging cellular telecommunications equipment, refurbish it, package it, and sell it in developing nations), which is only tangentially connected to her MA in Central Asian studies. We caught up with one another pleasantly over milkshakes. Very midwestern. Latin Teacher is expecting a second child. Yikes.
Christmas Eve was busy. Helped Mom do stuff: clean, bake, run errands, etc. Stayed up rather late wrapping presents. The day is a blur of not necessarily pleasant activity.
Christmas itself was nice, though chaotic. Mom, step dad, brother and I and three step-siblings, along with my maternal grandma, could barely fit in the room together, but that's been the case these past four years so nothing unusual there. We were joined later in the day by step-dad's parents and a friend of his, a retired Lutheran minister facing marital troubles and leg amputation for mysterious reasons. (I can't imagine having a leg amputation a few weeks ahead in my date calendar.) He was in good spirits, though, and joined us for lunch and shared dumb jokes:
"A guy gets home and says to his wife, 'Get me a beer before it starts.' She gives him a beer, and he sits down in the comfy chair, opens the beer, turns on the game, and starts drinking. After a while he says to her, 'Get me another beer before it starts.' 'Are you,' his wife says angrily, 'just going to sit there and drink beer and watch TV all night?' 'Well,' sighs the man, 'it's started.'"
Anyway.
The rest of the week contained visits to my sister's family nearby (on one of which visits I got to witness the first screaming fight between my mom and sister since sister moved out of the house many years ago, so yay that) and preparations for The Big Battle, to wit, a fantasy Warhammer game with two 2000-point armies on each side. I nominally own an army of high elves originally bought by or for my older step-brother until he switched to dwarves, whereupon it was decided I should have them (as everyone else in the house, including my mother [though she has yet to use it], has his or her own army). I never play up here in MA as I don't really know the game well and have plenty of other ways to waste time (and because leaving half-painted Warhammer figures set up on tables around the apartment might be one possible path to being single again, as J. has an ex-induced aversion), but my older step-brother especially has been wanting to do this battle since last year. There being little else going on in south central Ohio, I looked over the (apparently revised since last year) rules and painted the miniatures enough to "pass" and, with my faithful Bretonnian allies (my stepfather), faced the powers of Chaos (my brother and older step-bro.). Younger step-bro was given some units to run on my team, and my brother's friend Aaron ran some dark elves on the other side. About one and a half turns had passed before stepfather had to go to bed (work and all) and younger step-bro had randomly fallen asleep himself. Older s.b. stepped around the table to take over the Bretonnians and we all played until 4 a.m. We seemed to be winning for a while, but then the tide turned when finally having to face Chaos Warriors toe-to-toe coincided with a sudden inability to roll dice successfully. Alas, the Powers of Good were defeated.
And I don't need to play again for a year or so.
More later.
Thursday we'll drive down to Pennsylvania, a hateful drive. At least it's the near end. We will be accompanied by friends of J.'s from Brown, one of whom is also attending the conference with professional interest (she digs Petra, by which I am referring to archaeological activity in Jordan and not to a preference for a particular Christian rock band). Looks to be entertaining, I hope.
- - - -
Listening to this album (see below) makes me think of friends of mine in my college dorm, who were amused that Bowie's son Duncan, who lived upstairs (across the hall from the brother of the drummer, I think, from Warrant), had an Asian girlfriend. "It's his China Girl!" they pointed out happily.
Not much to do in Wooster, Ohio.
- - - -
Hmm. I thought Ihad posted twice while in Ohio, but see only one entry, which would be to my thinking the second one. It refers to "elves" in a vacuum. Or rather "out of context," anyway; those suckers rattle around in the mechanism a lot and you usually stop right away before they get up into the bag.
Anyway, some of the following may be mildly redundant if that other post ever shows up.
Holiday highlights: spent two nights and the intervening day at my dad's place in Columbus. Went to downtown Westerville, a land of antique stores and other non-chain shops, for some shopping and sightseeing; found some spiff JELL-O molds for J.'s stocking. Bought two Cranes EPs and the Best of The Birthday Party for a total of 8 bucks. Got a book for my mom. Later Dad and I put up Christmas decorations while my stepmom looked on, entertained by our enthusiasm but not sharing in it. Dad has somehow amassed a large collection of little ceramic churches and quaint wintry houses and was keen on arraying them and re-arraying them around the base of the little Charlie-Brownish artificial tree and on other surfaces nearby; I was surprised a little at how much time he spent on the activity, but I have since remembered that my grandmother used to make such things. If he has any of hers, they're in a box somewhere buried by frequent moves in the past couple of years, but these were perhaps close enough.
Sunday I went down to the Home Town, and was soon whisked off to the local mall, which used to bill itself as "the biggest little mall in the country," by which it meant agricultural area rather than the nation. (Concomitant strip-mall-ification of the highway that runs by the mall has pushed the "country" further away over the last 13 years or so, of course.) Mom and step-dad were going to see "Lord of the Rings," but I had made a pact to wait until I was back to MA to see it with J., so I finished up my final bits of shopping and occasionally exchanged brief words with my overworked brother, a.k.a. the guy in the Christmas elf hat at the grill in the food court Wendy's.
Sunday night I got together with two high school friends before they left town to go visit extended family for Christmas, both refugees from planned higher ed. academic careers. One is now the Latin teacher at our old high school, the other involved in a (third-)world-spanning cellular communications company based in Cincinnati (they buy up aging cellular telecommunications equipment, refurbish it, package it, and sell it in developing nations), which is only tangentially connected to her MA in Central Asian studies. We caught up with one another pleasantly over milkshakes. Very midwestern. Latin Teacher is expecting a second child. Yikes.
Christmas Eve was busy. Helped Mom do stuff: clean, bake, run errands, etc. Stayed up rather late wrapping presents. The day is a blur of not necessarily pleasant activity.
Christmas itself was nice, though chaotic. Mom, step dad, brother and I and three step-siblings, along with my maternal grandma, could barely fit in the room together, but that's been the case these past four years so nothing unusual there. We were joined later in the day by step-dad's parents and a friend of his, a retired Lutheran minister facing marital troubles and leg amputation for mysterious reasons. (I can't imagine having a leg amputation a few weeks ahead in my date calendar.) He was in good spirits, though, and joined us for lunch and shared dumb jokes:
"A guy gets home and says to his wife, 'Get me a beer before it starts.' She gives him a beer, and he sits down in the comfy chair, opens the beer, turns on the game, and starts drinking. After a while he says to her, 'Get me another beer before it starts.' 'Are you,' his wife says angrily, 'just going to sit there and drink beer and watch TV all night?' 'Well,' sighs the man, 'it's started.'"
Anyway.
The rest of the week contained visits to my sister's family nearby (on one of which visits I got to witness the first screaming fight between my mom and sister since sister moved out of the house many years ago, so yay that) and preparations for The Big Battle, to wit, a fantasy Warhammer game with two 2000-point armies on each side. I nominally own an army of high elves originally bought by or for my older step-brother until he switched to dwarves, whereupon it was decided I should have them (as everyone else in the house, including my mother [though she has yet to use it], has his or her own army). I never play up here in MA as I don't really know the game well and have plenty of other ways to waste time (and because leaving half-painted Warhammer figures set up on tables around the apartment might be one possible path to being single again, as J. has an ex-induced aversion), but my older step-brother especially has been wanting to do this battle since last year. There being little else going on in south central Ohio, I looked over the (apparently revised since last year) rules and painted the miniatures enough to "pass" and, with my faithful Bretonnian allies (my stepfather), faced the powers of Chaos (my brother and older step-bro.). Younger step-bro was given some units to run on my team, and my brother's friend Aaron ran some dark elves on the other side. About one and a half turns had passed before stepfather had to go to bed (work and all) and younger step-bro had randomly fallen asleep himself. Older s.b. stepped around the table to take over the Bretonnians and we all played until 4 a.m. We seemed to be winning for a while, but then the tide turned when finally having to face Chaos Warriors toe-to-toe coincided with a sudden inability to roll dice successfully. Alas, the Powers of Good were defeated.
And I don't need to play again for a year or so.
More later.
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Re: :o
Date: 2002-01-02 09:44 am (UTC)