Let's get domestic

Merry Christmas, L-I-P readership!

Things my dad said today

"She's clearly eating her feelings. I sympathize. And what's the deal with Stedman, anyway?"
-on Oprah's regaining the weight

"What did she get me? What did she get me? What did she get me? I hope it's good... It better be good."
-to me, while I was discussing Christmas goods with my sister on the phone

"High five! No, let's do a terrorist fist jab."
-to my mother, when discussing the fee she will earn for an upcoming article

No more school, too much free time.

In high school, I was really into the "best of" lists that were coming out around the turn of the millennium. I remember sitting in Wigg with Jeffrey Jackson checking out the Modern Library's list, before they got a little carried away and started making, like, the 100 best self-help books ever and stuff. Stealing a trick from J-bird, I am going to discuss what I have read of the Strand 80 (what order is this in???):

1. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

YES. I cried.

2.Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen

Lit Hum, what up? Thanks for helping me to see those hidden capitalist themes.

3. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

I love the part with the shirts, and saying "the middle west", as some of you have no doubt noticed.

4. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

Phonies! Great one.

5. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

Aw, hell no.

6. Fountainhead - Ayn Rand

Aw, hell no, take

7. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien

Nope. No interest.

8. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Ok, I have read this, but I did not love it like everyone else. I think magical realism disturbs me.

9. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

Yes, I am a good little budding librarian.

10. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Was this the first one? Baby Harry!

11. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

Love the book, love the movie, love the trip of the tongue part

12. 1984 - George Orwell

This one is pretty good, despite my hatred of scifi.

13. On the Road - Jack Kerouac

Ack, do I have to? Ok, maybe.

14. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell

This shit is racist. But really entertaining, admittedly.

15. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

One of my top five faves of all time.

16. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Meh. I don't like Dostoevsky that much... too hysterical. Laura Bush's fave!

17. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky

See above, although this one is marginally more enjoyable.

18. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith

Nope. Is this for kids?

19. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut

Never read Vonnegut. Maybe I will give this one a whirl.

20. Ulysses - James Joyce

Yes, indeed. Thanks, Mr. Fricke!

21. Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

ACK, no way.

22. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller

Hm, no.

23. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

I think so? Maybe I just saw the movie.

24. East of Eden - John Steinbeck

Nope, although I have an ex-boyfriend who once narrated me the whole plot. Does that count?

25. The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

Alcoholism never seemed so sexy.

26. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

SO GOOD. And does not deserve its weird pop culture status as hardest book ever. It's pretty enjoyable!

27. The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again - J.R.R. Tolkien

No interest.

28. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling

Mmmm-hmm.

29. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon

I have tried to read this book like a million times (or twice), and just can't get through it, even though I love Mysteries of Pittsburgh.

30. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

Yes. A nice read.

31. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

No! I was just talking about this one. I would read this.

32. Alice's Adventure in Wonderful and Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll

Yes indeed!

33. The Stranger - Albert Camus

Yep, in English and en francais.

34. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

Yes. Freaked me out good.

35. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

AHHHHHHH. I just reread part of this this morning!! So great.

36. Moby Dick - Herman Melville

Nope. I should, though.

37. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

Are you fucking kidding me?

38. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

No...I think the musical aspect turned me off.

39. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

Nope, I've only read a little Dickens.

40. Anthem - Ayn RandAw, hell no, take three.

41. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami

Started, but never finished.

42. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain

Yay! A great one. I cried.

43. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

Mmm no interest.

44. Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut

I should read Vonnegut, I guess...

45. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

See above magical realism discussion. This one, I liked better.

46. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

High school yearbook quote, what up?

47. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

Meh. Really?

48. Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

A great one.

49. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera

I should read this... I heard it's dirty.

50. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

I love this book. Is that cliched? I don't care.

51. The World According to Garp - John Irving

Two Irving? Really? I think I liked this one better.

52. Middlemarch - George Eliot

SO MUCH SHAME. I never finished it.

53 .To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

Once again, thanks Lit Hum! This book also made me cry.

54. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

One of my old faves from high school... I should reread and see if it holds up.

55. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J.K. Rowling

OK.

56. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J.K. Rowling

Sure.

57. The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

BO-RING.

58. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card

Um, is this sci-fi? Do I have to?

59. Bleak House - Charles Dickens

I could never get past the title... sounds boring. And bleak.

60. Beloved - Toni Morrison

BE-LO-VED. I read this thrice for school.

61. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

Yes, a Dickens I have actually read!!

62. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers

I liked this a lot in high school--I'm not sure how I would feel about it now. Twee?

63 .Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk

Um, no thanks.

64. The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner

Aw, what a great one. Caddy smells like... grass? Green?

65. Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf

said she would buy the flowers herself. My cat is named after Clarissa Dalloway.

66. The Giver - Lois Lowry

This book disturbed me greatly in the fifth grade.

67. The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov

Ooh, I should read this.

68. Blindness - Jose Saramago

I vetoed this for book club. I don't like parables.

69. Life of Pi - Yann Martel

This was a sweet book, but one of the best 80 of all time? Really?

70. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

Did I finish this? I should.

71. Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak

Yay! Let the wild rumpus start.

72. The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis

I could never get past the Christian allegory thing.

73. The Odyssey - Homer

Yes indeed. Where is the Iliad?

74. The DaVinci Code - Dan Brown

This was seriously one of the worst-written books ever, but I def turned those pages.

75. Franny and Zooey - J.D. Salinger

Yay! Where is Nine Stories?

76. Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides

I just got this from the library!

77. A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle

These books also freaked me out. I was an impressionable child, all right?

78, Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer

Cried.

79. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

No! Should I?

80.The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

This used to be my favorite book.

Gimme a toot-toot, now gimme a beep-beep

I am done with my first semester of library school! To quote my friend Sarah, I am now 25% of a librarian. Actually, I just crunched the numbers, and I am actually 30% of a librarian, credit-wise. Exciting! Celebrate good times, come on! It's a celebration. I still have to go to work til next Thursday, so no cold lampin' yet. But it feels good to be finished with classes. Today I am lounging around, then going to the library (some things never change, oookaaay?), getting my hair cut, and whipping something up for the GSLIS holiday party tonight. Great day, right?

Oh man, I am listening to WILL-AM, the local NPR station, which is seriously weather obsessed (they actually have a feature where people CALL IN and ask meteorologist Ed Keeser, whose name I know better than my own, so frequently has it been mentioned on Morning Edition, what the weather will be like in Decatur or Mt. Zion or Memphis or wherever their weekend travels take them, as if they had no access to a TV or the internet or any other means of weather prediction other than CALLING SOMEONE ON THE RADIO; Pat thinks it's just an excuse for people to brag about their weekend plans) and the host dude just said to Ed "if you don't like the weather, just wait a minute!" I thought people didn't actually say that. Turns out it is alive and kicking here in downstate Illinois.

Ok, time to shower and visit Champaign Public!

Law and Order SVU is funner than actually being a lawyer

Ok, it has been a month since I last posted. That is fairly unacceptable. But I've been working SO HARD in library school that I just cannot blog. Ha, I am lying. Library school is pretty easy, guys. I highly recommend it as an alternative to law school if you are a humanities major with no job prospects:

• It is usually way cheaper than law school.
• Classmates are cool and helpful, not shitty and undermining.
• It's really pretty easy to get in. Even Illinois, which is apparently the cream of the crop (woooo creamy) accepts a third of its applicants. Last year, I think Yale Law took two people. That's just what I heard.
  
• No LSATs. Only GREs. And really, not even the GREs.
  
• You don't want to kill yourself from depression when you graduate and actually have to get a job in your field of study (I'm looking at you, sad lawyers!)
  
• The bulk of your classwork is watching YouTube videos.

I kid! I have actually learned some things (for real). I guess the main problem with librarianship vs. lawyering is that you don't make any money as a librarian. I will rebut with this point: we will not have money, as a currency, in five years. We will resort to an all-barter economy. So work on amassing some cows, and go to library school! I'll see you in Champ-Urb.

Final thought--it is so so cold out. I want to die. When people here find out my parents are from Maine, they are always like "Ohh, Maine! Must be pretty cold!" It was 37 degrees in Maine today. It was SEVEN degrees here this morning. I don't even want to talk about the real-feel temp. I don't know how I am going to get through winter, people... I am already wearing a coat that is the equivalent of a down pillow, and I am freezing my tail off. (That's a literary device--I don't really have a tail.)

Stratford-on-guy

This weekend I took a vacation in Intenseland, as Cora calls New York. It was really wonderful to see everyone, but the city made me cranky, stressed out, and very drunk (and then hungover). We just don't party like that in Champaign-Urbana. I got to see my sister and her boyfriend's new place in Ridgewood (sorry I kept calling it Midwood!), which was a great neighborhood! If I move back to NYC (unlikely) I am gonna live way out in the boroughs--it helps take the edge off.

However, I did love the culture (the CULTCHAH). I saw the Babar show at the Morgan, which was awesome, and my last morning I went to the Guggenheim and saw the Catherine Opie show as well as the new Jenny Holzer installations, which were both pretty fucking reveletory. I was sorely tempted to spend the night at the Guggenheim (only $250 for students!) but had to return to Chambana.

For Halloween, I was a member of the fighting Illini basketball team. So it pretty much looked like this:

You get the idea. A highlight was maybe flying home--while flying into Chicago at night, I sat in 27D, behind the wing, watching the lake turn the sky into blue-green smoke, which is a life-long goal of mine.

Then President Lincoln, I mean Obama, was elected, and my occasionally wavery faith in the American public was restored. Indiana went blue--thanks Dawn!

It's been a while...

...but I can still remember just the way you taste, blogosphere. (Kind of fruity.)

Greater Chambana and the splendidly autumnal Midwest have kept me pretty busy for the past few weeks. I have gone on wonderful DAY TRIPS to archives in East St. Louis and Evanston (two very, very, very different places), cried tears of joy and then pain over the Red Sox at a local bar, visited to a orchard/pumpkin patch/kitcshfest with my roommates, been weirded out by Thandi Newton's "impersonation" of Condi Rice, and done lots and lots and lots of busy work. (So much busy work. But if you need to compare owls and bats for your third grade paper ever, I'm your woman.)

I really love library school, as I think I have mentioned. Somebody told me today that I was a born reference librarian (thanks, friend who told me that!) It's a really good feeling to have found something that I like and am somewhat ok at (fuck false modesty. I am AMAZING at this). However, I am already thinking of places to move after I'm done with the program:

• NEW YORK: Pros: everyone I know lives there, lots of culture and fun, great seasons, the Morgan. Cons: everyone I know lives there (KIDDING!), expensive as shit, made me mildly insane over the course of six years.
• PHILADELPHIA: Pros: seems cool, lots of museums, Erin is there (hi Erin!), cheap, cheesesteaks. Cons: Have spent probably less than 48 hours total there, so I don't really know.
• CHICAGO: Pros: has really come from behind (heh) to be one of my fave towns. Cheap, lots of stuff to do, fun people. Cons: far from the folks at home, really cold.
  
• ALASKA: I would really prefer not to move to Alaska.
  
• ANYWHERE ELSE???

Weigh in, friends! Or don't because maybe no one is reading anymore...

I am going to New York the day after tomorrow! I can't wait to see everybody, eat some delicious food, and go to the Guggenheim.

Inner, Inner City, Inner City Pressure

Turns out Chicago fucking rules. Apparently you just need to go WITH someone. Who knew? What fun times. Saw the Silver Jews Friday night, and a wasted, wasted Bob Nastanovich guested on drums. Cassie is so pretty up close. One thing Chicago has to recommend--great sight lines for shows. I could actually SEEEEE for once. They played "Pretty Eyes", which I'm pretty sure was just for me. Also saw these guys, who were pretty great, especially their hymn "I Hope There Is A Crack Whore In Heaven". Pat and I were confused as to whether they were actually Finnish or not. Jury's still out. Also geeked out at the Newberry for a long time. Met many charming people, and saw the start of a motherfucking marathon! Which was exhilarating. I will probably run one. Maybe that will be my next post?

Came home to cuddle this new addition to the 1211 W. Green family:
She's very small.

Hoosier? I hardly know her!

Today I went to a place I had never been before--the great state of Indiana. True story--several years ago, I forgot Indiana was a state. I am embarrassed now. Indiana is totally a state, and an important one indeed to the future of our country, for it is a swingy, swingy little state. Of course, now it is a radiant midnight blue, thanks to the canvassing work of this lady here.

Indiana looked strikingly similar to Illinois. There was much corn, and some small towns with antique stores and such. We were canvassing a subdivision outside Lafayette (where Purdue is). Here were some of the subdivision's street names.:

• Waterstone Drive
  
• Waterfall Court
  
• Stoneripple Court
• Stonegate Circle
• Stonegate Court
• Stoneripple Circle

Please imagine trying to tell these apart. On foot. With clipboard.

Then there was another subdivision:

• John Adams Street
• George Washington Lane
• Thomas Jefferson Drive
• Pennypackers Mill Road

So apparently that last one is the name of a Revolutionary War battle site in Pennsylvania. At the time, though, we did not know that, and we thought it was rather endlessly hilarious.

I think I mayyyy have convinced one lady to vote for Obama. Dawn, if you're reading--remember what we talked about! Then we went to a soda fountain. I loved Indiana. Also, me and my co-canvassing partner discussed Obama's probable Jedi status with an 8-yr old boy. If he could only vote!

Overheard on Green St.

"Yeah, she invited me to a weenie roast, you know, but her parents don't know about my age yet..."
-weasely-looking guy smoking a cigarette outside Kam's (gross undergrad bar here)

Is that what they are calling it these days, Chambana?

On an unrelated note, I am sharing with you yet another delightful peek into my life as a baby archivist. I have been confirming the death dates of the members of the board of trustees. Boring, you say? Not when the obits in question are from olden times, I counter! To wit:

• One subheadline reads "Cheerful to the last", with the heartbreaking paragraph that follows describing just how cheerful the deceased was:

"It's pleasantly cool this morning", he commented to his nurse...then he lapsed into silence. A few minutes later he was dead."

Dun dun DUNNNN feel the drama!

• Another of my faves, about a Democrat (in the minority) who died was entitled "Joined the Majority". BURN
• Some podunk poet's was called "Poet and brother of greater poet dies"
• Some other dude's mentioned that "Regret was generally felt."

Obituaries in the past were kind of harsh. I am trying to imagine the widow reading one and being like, "Um, brother of greater poet? That's the nicest thing you could say, Chicago Tribune?" [sobs]

I love my job

So, as we all know, olden times are often hilarious. (Why else would I do history but the laff factor?) Since my job involves getting up close and personal with these olden times, I am beginning herein an occasional series where I share with you excerpts from the kinds of documents I read/process/lug around in 40-lb boxes all day long. Ok, usually only half a day long.

Today's excerpt comes from an anonymous fellow's recollection of an early member of the board of trustees of Illinois Industrial University, the precursor to this fine institution of higher learning:

"The second wife of Griggs was 'Grandma Kittie', as she was called, a very fleshy woman. She took anti-fat, they say, and it killed her."

Anti-fat again! That shit was the crack of the late nineteenth century.

Every blogger's nightmare

From this article on everyone's fave aerial wolf shooter:

And four months ago, a Wasilla blogger, Sherry Whitstine, who chronicles the governor’s career with an astringent eye, answered her phone to hear an assistant to the governor on the line, she said.

“You should be ashamed!” Ivy Frye, the assistant, told her. “Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!”

We will never stop blogging, Sarah. NEVER

Sympathy cards are a subject rife for satire

Ok, I am finally feeling blogspired:

A lot of people ride motorcycles here....it's weird. There was an article in the Daily Illini about it today--hard-hitting, as per usual ("I love my motorcycle!") I think there is a whole biker bar here called the Ice House. Should I go? This poll is pointless. Of course I will go.

For a moment, I thought that the bookstore sold Illini-themed sympathy cards, but the reality is even more hilarious. They sell these cards that say "Sorry for your loss..." in muted orange and blue with sad looking flowers on the front. Then you open it up and it's a big cartoon of a scoreboard with Illinois winning and your team losing and it's like "BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME! GO ILLINOIS!" Haha, sucker! You thought a loved one died! Really your football team lost. I am going to send this to everyone. They have non-ironic Illini-themed anniversary cards though. Seriously. It's like Happy Anniversary... Go Illini.

So I recognized this prominent dude on Champaign's Yelp at the grad mixer yesterday. (By the way...the grad mixer...the dorks are NOT in the library science program. I said it.) I kind of wanted to call him out and be like, how do you have 423 friends on Yelp? I didn't even know that 423 people were ON Yelp. Instead I just creepily stared at him and then ran away. Mixin'! Also some people hated on GSLIS and library science in general and I almost pulled the "Oh, is YOUR program the number one in the country? It's not? That must be so different from my experience, then!" But then I didn't. Suckers, I totally thought it and then blogged it though.

Pip loves me now. He hasn't bitten me in over a week. He is nuzzling at my feet RIGHT AS I TYPE.

I love to videochat, so if you have those capabilities, get on that!

I missed a wedding back in Maine this weekend that apparently had a catapult that shot pinatas. I have sacrificed a lot to come here.

Back in the 1950s, people studied aerial photos as a hobby! I learned this from my job, which this week involves a lot of looking at aerial photos. Here's a fun self-test to see if you would be a good aerial photograph spy (which I imagine is what these were for--straight-up espionage). What is this? Be specific in your answer.


Stumped? Why, it's your neighborhood, silly! See how different things look from the air?

I am an elegant prose stylist. I need to figure out how to put up MP3s so I can blog about the Chambana music scene...get ready!

so Chi that they thought I was bashful

How was YOUR Labor Day weekend? Mine was great. Any weekend that brings the news of another precious, blessed, necessary baby is good by me! Hooray, abstinence-only education!

I will blog about my classes at another time. Possibly never, because my classes are kind of boring, especially if you personally do not want to be a librarian. Suffice it to say that I have had them all, and they will definitely teach me important library-oriented skills. Peer-to-peer education, however, is even more valuable--why, just the other night, my pal Sherri came over and told me how to properly take a book off the shelf. (Poke those on either sides back, then slide it out from the middle of the spine. DON'T pull it from the top. Martha knows.)

I went to another great dinner party on Saturday night. Can I just say that I have found my people? Not that you readers aren't my people, and I love you all dearly, but how many of you have read not only Eight Cousins, but also Rose in Bloom, and are not afraid to talk about it? Mom, you don't count, because you share half my DNA.

Woo, just took a long time-out to talk to Jefe on the phone. We were discussing, among other things, my DAY TRIP to Chicago yesterday. I had a really good time, but I have major reservations about Chicago, I think. For one thing, I went to go see a movie here:

It was super cool, but it was like two blocks from a strip mall. And this was in the heart of Chicago. I also went here:


And it was a wonderful Mexican neighborhood, but hardly the hipster haven that I was led to believe it to be. Basically, while the Midwest has its undeniable charms, I think I miss the East Coast. Love you, LP out!

After the Sweetcorn Festival, it's all gonna be downhill

Whew, I haven't even had a minute to blog. You KNOW that means I'm busy. OK, maybe I have had some downtime, but I spent it blubbering over Michelle Obama and the hot teens of Friday Night Lights (so hot! so many feelings!).

It was an action-packed weekend in the Middle West--the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit system could barely keep up with my zigzags of these other, finer twin cities. It was like a Family Circus cartoon up in this joint. Friday I spent in library school orientation, which got me very excited about the various library schoolings I can undertake. I then went to the gym. A word on the gyms here: the "less fancy" gym has a WATER SLIDE. The new, fancy one, which opened last Thursday, cost $57 million and is ridiculous. Basically you are massaged during the entire time you are working out.

After my luxury workout, I went to a party hosted by the Graduate Student Union, which--as it turns out--I am not a member of. Sorry dudes, thanks for the free beer. Saturday was a whirlwhind of activity, a highlight of which was the Sweetcorn Festival--oh that sweet, sweet corn--especially watching the Lady Bugs perform (please please click you will not be sorry. Highly recommend the song about sandwiches. Also they are all sisters!!). I met some more really nice folks, 4/5 of whom were married (told you so). Another highlight was a delightful dinner party I went to hosted by some English Department folks. A lowlight? The two hours I spent getting from the former to the latter.

Lots more archiving, too--I even solved my first reference query. Who's got two thumbs and located Prof. Elmer Roberts' history of plant pathologies? This lady. I'm not gonna lie--cutting the snark here--it was fuckin great. Today I had my first class, Reference. I loved it. Ask me anything, and I swear I can tell you the answer. Go!

Slow ride, take it easy

I am bone tired right now. That's right, my very BONES are tired. Today was my first day as a graduate assistant in the University of Illinois Archives. You know how on most first days you kind of sit around and stay out of people's way, but still attempt to appear busy, whereas you actually have nothing at all to do and feel super awkward?

This was not one of those first days.

Twenty minutes after I got to work, I was thrust into the very mix of archiving. That's right, friends--I PROCESSED TODAY. Meaning I put things in alphabetical order and took out paper clips. And accrued countless horrible paper cuts (true story--my "safety orientation" was just the archivists telling me to how avoid paper cuts. Dangerous, dangerous stuff.) What was I processing, you might ask? Why, the papers of Nancy O'Brien, the Education and Social Sciences Librarian, who served on such exciting committees as the Committee on Committees!! (Swear. In 1983.)

So, it was a good first day, albeit grueling. I like archivists. They are both smart and nice (today my boss randomly held forth on an arcane section of copyright law).

When I got home, roommate Heather and I took a delightful trip to Target. It's weird not going to urban Targets anymore, which as we all know are the epitome of no fun, and are constantly sold out of like, soap. Suburban Targets are a whole new world (don't you DARE close your eyes). A better world, to be specific.

If I can self-critique my blogging style, I would say that I am overly reliant on parentheses.

Library School Orientation tomorrow. And then the Urbana Sweetcorn festival! Not only is Foghat performing, but "[t]he main course [will be] hot, steaming ears of sweetcorn!" Not a side dish. They don't fuck around in Urbana.

This blog's original title was Hot, Steaming Ears of Sweetcorn.

I was livin in a devil town

Ok, so my love for Champaign cooled briefly this weekend when I went and saw Brideshead Revisited and three people walked out of the theater after the dude-on-dude kiss scene (Diana's comment--"Even after Brokeback??"). Also I have been to FOUR bike stores, including a skeevy hipster bike labyrinth (tm Jeff), and have nary one bike to my name. I know I am short, but come on, aren't there children my size?

But the weather continues to delight, and I've now seen the largest thing ever on earth (the Meijer superstore by the mall, if you are curious), so I can't really complain. And I ate some delicious sushi. Win some/lose some, is what I've heard.

My GA orientation began today. I learned many interesting (read: not actually interesting) facts about the library. Except I can check out a PSP! For real. A shitload of people are married here...it's intense.

I checked a book out of the Urbana Free Library today and the girl behind the counter recognized my name because she made our packets. It's not a big town, as it turns out. I mean, neither of the towns are big.

Gah, I miss New York.

Pro-Paign

As my first 24 hours in Sparkling Wine Town draw to a close, I will reflect upon them in the time-honored tradition of the numbered list:

1. There is a corn field on campus. Seriously. It is one block from the library. It's called the Morrow Plots and people are apparently super into it. I freaked out when I walked by (silently).

2. My house is adorable. I love it, and my room is great. My roommates, Matt and Heather, are totally charming. However, I inadvertently moved to the suburbs. I'm talking lawn sprinklers, garage sales, kids on Big Wheels, everything. Luckily I'm very happy about this. And I can walk to the grocery store! Seriously, the neighborhood is really nice.

3. Pip also lives here

He's still trying to decide whether he likes me or not, I think.

4. I saw a bunny rabbit today on my way to Big Lots.

5. The bus system rules!

6. The postal system blows!

In conclusion, I have decided that I am definitely pro-Paign (when will the puns end? not before the corn references do). I miss you all but hope to make friends here someday...

Pre-Paign

Right now I am not in Paign, or in pain for that matter, unless you count watching the Red Sox give up a 10-run lead in 2 innings to the fucking Rangers, which definitely smarts a little.

I am totally blogging, though. Jumping the gun?

In restful P-Vegas; I just returned from a 24-hour jaunt to Boston, where I enjoyed a fab group dinner at Bertucci's (high school flashback!) and where eight of us discovered the true bond between a lady and her Maine Coon cat:

"I turned the lights out and got in bed and then I felt McGonnigle climb on my bed and go to sleep between my legs and I thought for a first night in a strange place, that was pretty cool."

Also a few people gave me tips about living in the Midwest. Liz, you were totally right about that whole White Zin thing. Everyone loves that shit (well, this one girl's mom did). I'm shipping a case ahead; I figure I'll dole bottles out like party favors and the town will fall to its knees. Ooh maybe I can throw them out from my bike like in a parade (thought--minibottles less hazardous??)

All in all, it was a lovely trip--I feel like I've been bidding farewell to New England. New York is too sad to write about right now.

Question: Did I or did I not go see Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2 (TWO!!) by myself at 1:15 on a Tuesday? Just like a pedophile. It's ok 'cause me and America F. are totally spirit sisters. I bet the pants would fit me, too, even though I don't ever wear pants. I would probs make an exception.

Flight leaves for the corn/libes school Thursday morning. I'm gonna blog it all, folks.

EDIT: It's 10:26 and my father just told me not to "forget" to go to bed.