i have 12 hours

12 hours before i need to hand in my division three. not to be a debbie downer, but it's going to suck. the product, not the act of handing it in. i shouldn't be writing this right now but i'm sick of deciphering jargon at the moment.

i've seen the sun rise almost every day this week. hopefully this will be the last time, at least for a little while. i drank a cup of coffee 2 hours ago and fell asleep 10 minutes later. why does that always happen??

jesslyn is coming home early!

our back porch is perfect these days. it's screened in, the trees are budding, the farms are ripe with sweet smelling manure, even when it's hot out the area is shaded and kept cooler, it has electric plugs for laptops that only work with chargers, the coffee table is out there for the time being, and it's the perfect spot to watch peter and ben act out cheesy novels. also a good area for social smoking, drinking, laughing, schmoozing and taking naps.

Chad Gad Ya

I'm too tired for a very well-written posting, but I thought I should make a quick update in light of the major last few days we've had here.

-Passover is in full swing. I went to a seder in CT at Aliza's house and it was awesome. Thank you so much. I am still thinking about the brisket.

- Peter's Div III was a resounding success. Almost like a Bar Mitzvah, Peter has passed another milestone on the road to manhood. Also lize a Bar Mitzvah, he did it along with family, friends and klezmer music. The Freylech Valley Orkestr is really really good. The whole show was fantastic. The after party was appropriately rambling and raucous. On a related note, we all met his sister, Lisa, and found her to be an excellent house guest. I love meeting people's family members and hearing about stories about my friends in their small-child incarnations.

- Pennsylvania primaries have come and gone, and it seems that Democrats in my home state want to drag this race out in the most annoying and self-damaging way possible. Way to go Pennsylvania! On the plus side, Obama won my home county, the county I went to high school in, Jim's home county, and the county he grew up in along with precisely 3 other counties state-wide. I think this proves that Jim and I leave a lasting positive legacy wherever we go.

- I finished my pint of ice cream.

san fran

okay so now i'm in san fran and this is going to be real quick because one shouldn't blog when they're in san francisco. okay i'm at this really cool hostel in downtown san fran, it has a movie theatre on the fourth floor! cool! anyways i'm staying here tonight and then probably with my friend Lori tomorrow and then i'm not sure. My ranching experience was interesting. i had mixed feelings about it. I did fall in love with a terrier named Buddy, and it broke my heart to leave him but then i remembered that i have a Benny at home (who is having surgery on friday?!) My friends from Maine are also in san fran and hopefully we will meet up at some point. also i'm spending way too much money! i stole stale crackers from the ranch and that's all i'm going to eat until i come home. also i'm real excited for the Leaf music and arts festival that i'm volunteering at/going to in north carolina, just east of asheville. i think it's going to be a lot of fun. okay anyways this is kind of scattered but i'm alive and doing well and missing everyone! i hope you guys are well.

Recap

The game yesterday was one of the best I've seen in a very long time. Kansas came back from down 9 with 2 minutes to play, hit a 3 with 2 seconds remaining, and won in overtime.

As I wrote about in my previous post, foul shooting and depth proved to be the difference. Kansas gave up a few too many turnovers, which allowed Memphis to built up a However, the Tigers' 1-5 shooting of free throws down the stretch killed them.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk

Today is the NCAA Division 1 National Championship Game! The Memphis Tigers, led by former UMass coach John Calipari and freshman stand-out Derrick Rose are playing against the Kansas Jayhawks.

I'm rooting for Kansas, who I originally picked to win the tournament. I prefer the Jayhawks style of play and maturity. I also think the Memphis's team is not really made of student athletes. They have a dismal graduation rate and a lot of players have ahd run-ins with the law, including their top big-man, Joey Dorsey, who was seen this summer 'making it rain' at a strip club.

Anyways, moralizing aside, Memphis's free-throw issues will be a serious hindrance and the Jayhawk's incredible depth (they played 12 people in their semi-final victory over North Carolina) will allow them to use fouling as a defensive technique to disrupt Memphis's fast-paced offense.

I'll provide post-game analysis tomorrow or later tonight.

Tip off is at 9:20.

future grilling

Searching for 'futuristic grilling' on google brings up this image:

House Update

Today was an historic occasion for the Purple House. Jim and I cleaned up the back porch and yard. We moved truly epic amounts of garbage. Now we don't look like the town dump but instead like a lovely country estate that's slightly run down but still quite charming.

It's getting very very close to grilling season. We plan to be having fires within the week.

Also, there has been some very serious hanging out and several house dinners (including Peter's excellent pasta sauce and James's equally excellent garlic bread).

Speaking of James, we have new housemate. His name is James, not to be confused with Jim. He is our second tallest resident, a world traveler, and is finishing up his undergraduate work on wind-energy. I can state with confidence that he is a fine addition to the house and to the proud lineage of coupola residents.

Also, I've been watching a lot sitcoms via streaming video on the internet. I am very fond of sitcoms. I think I would like to write for one some day. I don't think my current fiction is likely to get me any offers of that sort, unfortunately.

I would like to close this entry with an apology for slacking on my blog responsibilities. I hereby renew my promise to blog at regular intervals.

Yours,
Ben

Meeting Allison Bechdel

As she read from her memoir, publicly displaying the lascauxian creation myth of herself as a queer artist, she peered out at us from beneath her brow furrowed in uninhibited anxiety. It had made an irrevocable impression on me how she had defined her past into discrete panels of reflection. Her persona was more awkward than funny, her comic more tragic than funny. I could relate to the dry, absurdist tendencies of my own malformed humor.

There was a fastidious quality that permeated her voice as she recounted episodes of OCD that made up her artistic process. Apparently it involved posing and taking pictures of herself for every character she draws before embarking on creating the panel detailed in minutia. That’s thousands of pictures over the course of the entire graphic novel. Then there were a series of layers drawn by hand and on the computer, super imposed over one another and melded into a painstaking whole. It comes out to several hours per square inch. “There went a whole weekend” she would joke, flipping through sketches of the Victorian wallpaper endemic in her childhood home. I could so clearly imagine her silhouetted in a lonely house etching the images that her (justified) resentment had seared into her psyche. What is the difference between the compulsions that enhance our humanity and those that detract from it?

The familiarity of her fidgety and uneven breathing escalated during the q&a period when she as she squinched her face up into a lost expression as she told us she didn’t understand why she did what she did. She almost seemed to plead to the audience to validate her compulsion. Her openness was uneasy on both sides. She seemed pretty desperate about the manner.

How do the stories we tell shape who we are? How do they limit or expand the ways we can understand ourselves? The way we can relate and connect? How does making sense of the world and oneself in relation to it lend justification to our existence? Is there any such thing as credibly and authenticity when one tells one’s own story? How do we prove to ourselves that certain stories belong to us? Why do some people need to share?

--Chlirissa

my adventures in Portland

So i'm on day 2 now in Portland. I'm in love with Portland, everything is sooo green and beautful. Right now i'm at this really great library and they have tons of zines! Everything feels really good here and is working out really well. The hostel i'm staying in is really nice although i wish there were more people around. Last night i met up with a friend of a friend, Erin, and we went to this bar/restauranty place and we had beer and chocolate cake! Suprisingly they make a really nice combination. Erin works at a Cremation Center, she had lots of really great stories.
I'm not quite sure what my plans are for today, probably doing a lot of wandering and lots of picture taking. In the next couple of days i will be heading to Santa Rosa to work on a ranch. I'm really excited for that. whoa, gotta run! Miss you guys!