Trevor: "You know what the Mormons are saying, don't you? 'Thank God for the Scientologists.'"

Just once it would be nice to have a romance (or non-romance) for which Dar Williams' Iowa is not an appropriate theme.

How I long to fall just a little bit, to dance out of the lines and stray from the light,
But I fear that to fall in love with you is to fall from a great and gruesome height.

Let Me Be Your Wendy

Downtown with Cameron and Steph, post V for Vendetta:

A: I love your brothers! And you! Can you adopt me as your big sister?
S: I don't know, Alice-- I think their family is a little violent for you.
A: Yeah, but I think they could use the estrogen.
C: Yeah... can't argue with that logic.

S: Any family where it's normal to start a story with "so my brother was coming at me with this huge sword"...
C: What's wrong with that? That's a perfectly normal way to start a story!

A: So, Cameron. If you were a subatomic particle, what would you be?
C: I wouldn't.
S: Oh, come on. You had a conversation with me about "If you were going to storm Helm's Deep, how would you do it?"
C: That is a conversation with real-life applications!

Agenda for the night: Laundry and Paper ALL NIGHT LONG.

The post-it Mr. Weijer left for me at the Reg is telling me to "Stop Sleeping and WORK!!!" I'm sure he'd tell me to stop blogging if he could, so off I go...

The desert never leaves me.

I've never seen a spring as lovely as this one. The sun is shining every day, the flowers are so abundant you can smell them on the wind, and there are robins everywhere you turn. The Hyde Park parrots are nesting outside my apartment. Spring-- a real spring, with bulbs and blooms and birds-- is not a San Francisco phenomenon, and I love it.

Yet I am terribly, debilitatingly, homesick. Third year burnout, perhaps, but all I want to do is sit outside Cafe Roma in North Beach, drinking lattes and reading poetry. I want to walk miles along Ocean Beach in the rain. I want to work in my garden. I miss High School, of all things: I want to go back to Urban, sit on the Gumption stage, and write plays. I want to fold origami cranes in Charis' office and talk to Munaf about love and life and wooden mammoths. I owe LeRoy a letter about History and God, and Jonathan an e-mail about... everything.

Four years ago I was in the California desert with my classmates, bouldering in the "Cavern of Doom". I still remember how scared I was as I got to the top, Jesse spotting, and the exhilaration of coming out on top as the moon rose in the sky, the shadows of the Joshua trees bowing to greet her.

Janicke asked me to write something for the talent show, and so I did; a monologue which began (and I still remember), "Jessica and I had our hearts set on learning how to fly. Although she loved dogs and I lived for animals of an equine persuasion, we were both birds inside."

Climbing the Cavern of Doom, I knew how. I didn't need anyone else to hold me up.

How can I be weaker now than I was then?

If this were a poem (of my mother's school), it would be called

I used to know how to fly./The desert never leaves me.

Mr. Brinkman is not your friend.

From last night's massive Divine Mercy Sunday dinner party, to Cameron:

"I don't think he can finish that pie. Can't ask a Jesuit. I bet a Dominican could eat that pie. I bet a Franciscan could eat that pie. They don't eat anything! They dance around outside and sing hippie songs. I bet a Poor Claire Nun could eat that pie."

Cameron, our wrestler/ future Jesuit, ate the pie, A.M.D.G.

With an exclamation point.

I clearly can't live without my planner...

So I opened my planner, looking for an answer to Joel's question (in re Scav), and my eyes fell on this week's pages. To my moderate surprise, the line before today's latin class reads *breakfast w/ Anna* (yes, with little stars, because I've stood her up before). I had completely forgotten. (Don't feel hurt, Anna, I do it to everyone) I'm glad I got up before 9:00 today... and I still don't know the answer to Joel's question.

In other news, I'm somewhat obsessed with the Kyrie and Credo from Louis de Victoria's Misa O Magnum Mysterium (yes, out of liturgical season). Go listen! Now!

In other, other, news, ACK! Ephron Seminar paper due tomorrow!

Upcoming story of roommate's annoying fidel boyfriend and/or annoying friends.

And Dad has purchased a digital camera.

Calling Home

Mom: "I thought you might be Dad, calling for the third time trying to find a Korean grocerey store next to the IHOP in Daly City where you can find Genevieve's favorite dried fish treats, according to Lana."

We don't spoil our cats, oh no. Not us.

Pam: It's the most beautiful day outside! My roommate and I fell asleep in the sun on the quad. Like kittens.

I know I was talking to someone about eighteenth-century script.

I am perennially misquoted.

I can't believe that I'm on Joan W's facebook quote list. I said that over a year ago, and while I confess to the overuse of "like", I don't remember saying "I have permission to take all these measurements." Then again, I wasn't taking notes on it.



(For those whose curiosity is piqued, and who are not at the U of C, the line was, "Humboldt was like, 'I have all these cool instruments. I have permission to take all these measurements.' Darwin was like, 'I'm gonna poke this lizard with a stick and see what happens!' " The most witty part of the quote was probably me acting out Darwin poking lizards with a stick.)

5:12 04.18.06

San Francisco Earthquake Centennial

The Bancroft Library's Online Exhibit

Take Note

Cameron's laugh makes babies cry.

This may have something to do with Carolyn's comment (addressed to her six-month-old cousin): "Tommy, this is Cameron. He could crush you like a bug."

Post Easter Vigil Party

Andrew: Who here thinks that was a pun?
(Four out of six people raise their hands.)
Andrew: You see? Now hit me with the bottle!*

Mrs Behnke is throwing her Wheelock party tomorrow night, and I have no idea what I'm wearing. I've worn all my nice clothing over the course of the holiday.

*Necessary context: Steph reacts to puns with violence, but she didn't believe that "Nominal? I think Phenomenal." was a pun.

Regina Caeli,

Laetare, alleluia!
Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluia.
Resurrexit, sicut dixit, alleluia.
Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia.

Gaude et laetare Virgo Maria, alleluia.
Quia surrexit Dominus vere, alleluia.

Fr. Pat gave me the morning off, but I think I'm going to mass anyway... mostly because today's readings are my favorites-- and Morgan threatened to make the alleluia verse "look, everyone, Alice isn't here, if anything is screwed up, it's because Alice isn't here."

I spent six hours working at Calvert today in preparation for the Triduum, and now have a whole new understanding of why Holy Thursday is (in some countries) traditionally celebrated with sangria. It must have been invented by sacristans.

Now I just need to find (a) companion(s) with whom to keep the tradition...

Most stressful moment was returning from Bond to discover that Fr. Peter was hearing confessions in the sacristy. When he had finished, I informed him that in some countries, preventing a sacristan from entering her sacristy during Holy Week is a hanging offense. He acknowledged that it is "almost a mortal sin" and moved upstairs to an empty office.

Missive from the Reg

Having discovered that everyone's favorite Marxist and his Hapsburg roommate a) are roommates and b) host dinners, I've been burdened with the desire to get myself an invitation to one, just to listen to the ensuing conversation. I offered to bring dessert.

Although the fact that said Marxist has "dragged me kicking and screaming into the discussion" (to quote Dan) by mentioning that I look up the historians on Wikipedia makes me a little embarrassed.

Another almost-overwhelming desire: to build a little fort under the staircase in the Second Floor Reading Room.

I don't have much work to do tonight, so I'm procrastinating by looking up books on medieval history. Soon I will go home and read Cicero. I really ought to write my Architecture paper, too, but I don't see that happening. Early morning tomorrow to iron altar linens/ talk to Phil about how frustrating the class is.

Oh, and the Classics Cafe is open again. Huzzah for Caramelias Cookies!

I'm SO happy!

And it's not boy related.

I had an amazing weekend. Friday and Saturday were spent at our very own Medieval History program's Devotion Before Print conference. I was a little nervous; Saturday I was the only undergraduate there. The talks were rather technical, and it was easy to get lost in references to obscure towns and manuscript numbers. Despite that, it was have been one of the most inspiring things I've done in a long time. I got to talk to the new Associate Professor, who specializes in Medieval Social History, about the classes he's going to be teaching, and I'm really looking forward to them. I talked to a few of the presenters about their (fascinating) research, and they listened to my insights (or at least pretended to). Miri Rubin (of the University of London) and Carol Symes (of UI at U-C) are my new heros. Further, the presentations showed me where my own research should be going-- from secondary texts to primary sources, from edited texts to manuscripts. I'm so excited, I almost want to write two thank you notes: one to CVN for organizing the event, and one to Danielle Allen for funding it.

Sunday, of course, was Miss Schriver's 21st birthday. We went to a German Restaurant in Lincoln Park. It was, as she said on the way in, "kinda crazy German". There was this middle-aged singer from Germany named Vanessa, who sang poppy German songs while wearing many sequins and insisting that we clap. As Conor said, "she's kinda demanding." German food was eaten, beer was drunk. I even found something I liked-- and then realized that I liked it because I'd eaten it before, in my Dad's (very German) part of Iowa, in sandwich form. Conor was convinced that he does, in fact, like pickled beets (they were totally beets, not cabbage, as Carolyn will have you think), and there was a not-insignificant amount of "dancing".

Today, the sun is out, I rocked my latin quiz (in part because the unmentionable one can't be bothered to actually come up with sentences on her own-- she just takes them from the homework and alters them slightly), I wore my springtime shoes, and I felt really, really happy-- almost giddy. Then I remembered: today is my baptism day!

I'm not a baby Catholic any more-- I've hit the terrible twos.

Cheesecake was eaten in honor of the day. It has been a better day than I ever thought it would be. Wednesday was bad, but each day is a little better. Who needs boys?

That said, two boys I dearly care about, and who have been very kind to me, very much need prayers. I'm not saying who, for their privacy, but please keep my intentions in mind.

Whew! I didn't expect this to be quite so long and incoherent. I must still be hyper.

Well, Patrick may find rejection liberating, but I find that it sucks, although I guess that I now I might find some of what (as we all know) Odysseus was looking for in Chapter Ten.

No, not cleavage. Closure.

In other news, am I going nuts? I used to be able to hear the security "don't steal books from us" detectors at the Reg when wearing headphones, but now I can hear buzzing even without them when I'm on my way through the door.

Self Promotion

M L-E: As I've joked, books and girls will be the death of me.
A H: Yes. You've got to look out for those... books.

A (to C): I give out advice like candy. You just give out candy.

A (looking at Lincoln Park Zoo website): Meet the goats! I want to meet the goats...
V: Okay, Alice. We'll take you to meet the goats.

So Many Books!

I just spent the morning ordering used books on abebooks.com. Eight out of the nine were by or about Freud (all, of course, for the same class. I already own the Rousseau). She didn't really expect me to buy Foucault's History of Sexuality at full price, did she?

Let's not talk about how much reading I have to do today. I was going to count it up, but as Dan and Neil have pointed out, that's just procrastinating. The answer, of course, its "lots". Some titles: The Uses of Gothic, Egypt in Late Antiquity, The Social Contract, and Witches and Witch-Hunts. Next weekend is completely shot for productivity, due to the Devotion Before Print conference, Palm Sunday, and Carolyn's birthday.

The day was made by hearing Missy Higgins' "This is How it Goes" on Pandora, the poor girl's answer to messing around on iTunes Essentials lists.

I have no money, but I do have a meal plan. Therefore, I'm off to Bartlett for brunch. I might even splurge and buy myself a chocolate milk.