I more or less successfully survived my first semester back in graduate school. Now I’m trying to recuperate, catch up on sleep and rest, and get over the cold that I’ve been suffering through for the past week-and-a-half.

Spent this past weekend in Little Rock, Arkansas, visiting one of my oldest pals Chuck and his partner. Little Rock was a lot more interesting than I could have imagined prior to my trip. Most of the buildings and homes were built in the first couple of decades of the twentieth century, and some were even pre-Civil War. The city was small, walkable (“human-sized,” as my friend Olja says) and quaint. We visited both the Decorative Arts Museum across the street from Chuck’s apartment and then the Arkansas Arts Center which was having the Chihuly glass exhibit. Also saw the latest IMAX film by Cirque du Soleil. In the fifty or so hours I was there, I saw every kind of weather imaginable at this time of year: pissing rain, snow flurries, sleet, 35 mph winds, sunny brightness.

No real plans for xmas. Good for me.

My position at Verizon is being yanked out from under my feet as of December 29th. Haven’t quite decided what I’ll try to do for money for the next 6 months or so. Maybe just live off of my (inner) beauty.