She lives!

Oh, my goodness. I really haven't posted in a long time. Sorry. I had finals and then the holidays, and I'm realizing that the latter can be more hectic than the former when my whole family is home at the same time. It's not that it's bad or anything--it's actually quite hilarious and often farcical--but between everyone's totally different pre-Christmas agendas, the demands of our elaborate family holiday newsletter that went to press yesterday, and the insufficient transportation (the early bird gets the car), my cell phone has never blown up like this.

So before I came home to Chicago, I had a wonderful whole week of Brian visiting, during which we saw a Harold Pinter play, ate many delicious meals including one amazing one at The Red Cat in Chelsea, worked at after school, and also toiled together on two of the many pieces required for my masks and puppetry final. (Yes, I am in graduate school. Shut up.) Then he left and I was all alone, continuing the papier mache marathon, breaking only to dance it up at a weird artist collective party in Long Island City with the departing Dr. Science (sniffle). My finals finished on Monday night, after which I rushed home, packed horribly, and narrowly made it out of town just hours after the transit strike had begun.

And now I'm here, eating fudge and seeing movies ("Munich"...whoa), and getting last minute gifts for people and hanging with Abbey and Taylor and getting excited for Christmas. Oh, and my sister got my family tickets to be part of the studio audience ofWait Wait, Don't Tell Me the other night! For an NPR nerd like me, it was sooo exciting to see the faces behind the voices of Carl Kassel and Peter Sagal (Carl looks just like I pictured him, Peter does not, and both are bald), and the whole thing was hilarious. Naturally, I am now the proud owner of a large commemorative mug.

And that's about it. I love being home for winter break. I love that I have a winter break. Tomorrow's Christmas Eve and all the duties that are left are cooking and eating. Hooraaaaay!!

All things go, all things go.

Two reasons today was a great day:

1) I turned in a crapload of papers and projects and one of my classes is done (although no one really understands how much work I have left with mask making alone...); and
2) I won two out of three racquetball games with Andrew today! This might have been unprecedented. I also accidentally hit him in the temple with the ball and made his glasses fly off, but don't worry, he's fine. I think I was more freaked out than him at the incident.

Also, if you haven't listened to Sufjan Stevens before, I strongly urge you to check him out. Susie wrote about this too. He's started this 50 state project where he intends to make an album for each state, I believe. It seems like a mammoth task, but he's got two of them: Michigan and Illinois. I had to start with Illinois, of course. "Casimir Pulaski Day" has been in my head for three days. I was attracted to it because of it's title; it references a random holiday that is pretty much only observed in Chicago. But it also manages to be one of the prettiest and saddest songs ever, in a good way. It's one of those songs that makes you pretend you're listening to the soundtrack of the movie of your life. You do that too, right?

Snowy snow snow.

Hooray, my blog is back! It disappeared for a few days there and even though it didn't really delay a posting on my part, I still felt a little like my child had run away from home.

Annie and I are in the NYU library, side by side with our Macs, staring out at the snow in Washington Square Park. It's pleasant. You know what's funny? Looking at other people's iTunes over the wireless network. I just realized I could do that, and it feels just a little bit voyeuristic and therefore a little exciting. Who are you, "Ben," and why do you have so much ABBA? And my, "Claudia," that's an interesting Gym playlist. At what point in your workout do you usually listen to Coldplay?

Wow, I'm getting lots of work done.