Every Day Is Like Sunday

This has been a good Sunday. It involved raspberry pancakes at brunch, a walk, the cleaning of my hideous bathtub that would make strong men blanch and call for their mommas, a phone conversation with my mom wherein we plotted out all the times we’re going to see each other this year, the cooking of some excellent stew, and the kind of soft rain that makes you want to put on your fuzzy pajamas and read all afternoon.

This is going to be a busy year in terms of travel. I’m planning to go to the ABL in February and June, Florida in May (and in December too, I guess), possibly Minnesota in May, and definitely Arizona in April. This last will be for my first academic conference. A bunch of the high muckety-mucks at my work are going, and they happen to be the kind of muckety-mucks that are really nice and friendly and good dressers, so when I was all “Hey, dudes, I have a master’s, can I go?” they were all “Sure! You’ll have to first author a poster so you can go for free, but that’s easy! Knock yourself out!” So I’m getting together a little abstract and presentation and maybe will even be learning how to do some real statistics instead of my patented “Just Make Stuff Up And Hope No One Looks Too Close” method that served me, sadly, so well in grad school. The nice thing about this will be that I’ll essentially have no obligations aside from doing my presentation. I won’t have to schmooze or get a job or get funding or anything. I’ll just walk around and listen to some cool lectures and hang out with the muckety-mucks. Sounds pretty good, yes? If you happen to be interested in rehabilitation psychology?

The other trip I might possible make this year would be to Nevada to go to Burning Man. Carl and I (as well as some friends from the abovementioned ABL) went three years ago. I sort of forget now why we decided to go, but we did, and it was fun and interesting and yes, very trippy. Remind me to tell you all how I was almost on Swiss TV one of these days. Anyway, I haven’t been able to go these past two years because I was you know, unemployed. That all changes this year though. I think. Probably. If we can get good tickets and if a whole host of other things work out. We probably won’t bring a cooler full of frozen hard boiled eggs this time, if I have anything to say about it. Remind me to tell you that story too, okay?

And hey, you know what else? I just opened my inbox and found a notify from Heather for a new entry, in which she mentioned the very strange coincidence of her and I having gone to high school together. I had no idea, when I went through her archives like a starved hound a couple of months ago, (after having been recommended to do so not only by the Diarist awards people but also having heard rave reviews from Omar when I met him in October) and writing her one of those goopy “You’re the best journaller ever” emails, that she would end up someone I was in The Wizard of Oz and Li’l Abner with. She was in eighth and ninth grade and I was in tenth and eleventh during that time, and even though I didn’t know her too well outside drama club, I remembered her clearly once she emailed me and was all “Uh, are you the Chiara who went to Snooty Prep School?” And isn’t it amazing, my friends, how much people can astound you and make you laugh and also get all teary when you read their writing ten years after you knew them last? For many examples, go read her journal right this second. Read her fabulous roommate’s too, while you’re at it. I totally want to be this girl, and admire her more than I can tell you, and I am thrilled that she mentioned me in her entry today, and even more thrilled that we’ve emailed a couple of times remembering that strange time and place that was Snooty Prep School in the early nineties….all leading up to the even stranger (and tiny!) world of the online journal, with just our toes in the new millenium.

So that’s where Sunday’s brought me today, the recognition of a new journalling connection, and some very yummy stew (did I mention the stew?) and a clean bathroom and some quiet gray contemplative raininess. I hope I have lots more like it this year, it’s been pretty nice.


Posted

in

by

Tags: