We EST-ers have a little under an hour left of November. I just read the first 31 chapters of Tess of the D'Urbervilles and now I am in bed, drinking an Anchor Steam Christmas Ale and trying to mentally prepare myself for December.

First of all, it is really important that I don't fail out of grad school this semester. By 'fail' I mean 'receive any A minuses.' I think. I think that's what I mean. Anyway, though, I'll strike you a deal: if you don't ask me in the next two weeks how my program is going (please don't), I won't tell you. Fair is fair.

As if completing the semester weren't enough, our South Philly house fell through! The inspector found a few things that need to be fixed immediately, but the ladies who own the house refused to fix them or bring the price down. Now we are scrambling to find a new place! We are looking at a few properties on Thursday. I will be channeling Annette Bening- "I will sell this find a house today."

IN ADDITION, I'll be spending the entirety of next Monday in court for that mugging trial. What a pain in the badonkadonk.

All that being said, I am in good spirits. I am excited about the papers I am writing, excited to decorate our new mystery house (ha), excited for Christmas break, and excited for my trip to Denver! I also had a really wonderful Thanksgiving in the Poconos. It is so peaceful and happy in my parents' home in the mountains, and my whole family was there, and I saw some of my oldest and dearest friends. To top it all off, Max came back to Philadelphia earlier than I did and he cleaned the apartment so I would have a nice space to do my work when I got home. Thanksgiving got a little silly. Tea cozies were worn, Scotch was consumed, we started up a little ragtime band.







I, for one, had no alcohol on Turkey day proper... you'd never know it from the photos.

...Thomas Beckett?

One of the perks of my current life path: when it's a November Saturday and you don't particularly feel like getting out of bed, you can watch the movies of the books you're reading well into the late-afternoon and still be contributing positively to your life.

Jack: Cecily and Gwendolen are perfectly certain to be extremely great friends. I'll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister.
Algernon: Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first.

I am getting so excited for the holidays! I want to get a tree again but it feels kind of pointless, we pretty much need to be packed by Christmas. I guess I could get one right after Thanksgiving and have a holiday get-together at some point in early December. Anyway I have been trying to find a picture of our Christmas tree from last year but all I can find is this:



Other things I love about the holidays:

Snow!




Baking!




Making Presents!

Today I spent four hours in court, and by spent I mean wasted because they never got to my case and I need to go back in December. Oh and then I got in a fight with one of those people who stand on the corner and solicit strangers for money to end global warming, or save the gay baby whales, or something. Does every city have these or is it a Philadelphia thing? Those guys are THE WORST.

Oh SEPTA is back, thank goodness. We are free once again to criticize their service and forget how much we need them.

Play me out, Violent Femmes. This is the first result for this song. Those signs are all SEPTA signs. COINCIDENCE?



Losing my mind. Fo sho.

Oh, also, MTC was Steve Zissou for Halloween.

OH BLOG. You have been neglected. I'm sorry!
Let me make it up to you by telling you some things about my life.



SEPTA is on strike, which means they're "getting there" even less than usual. This is kind of a pain in the badonkadonk as I take the subway to Temple five days a week. Temple has been running a shuttle every half an hour or so but it fills up really quickly so taking it generally means a lot of waiting. I've been waking up really early to get on the shuttle, spending the day on campus, and walking home. It has been working OK but it means that Max and I have fallen into the most absurd schedule.

It's hard for me to get up early if I don't go to sleep at a reasonable hour but he works from four until midnight and I don't get home until around four so if I am asleep by the time he gets home, we never see each other awake. We've worked out that the best way for us to spend time with each other and get enough sleep is as follows: I sleep from about eight or nine (pm) until midnight, at which point I wake up and hang out and watch TV with him for a few hours. Then we sleep until about six, eat breakfast and hang out for a little bit and then Max goes back to sleep for awhile and I go to school. I know, I know. Whatever.



This news is considerably more exciting, which is that I am a homeowner now! Or, I will be soon. Kind of. My parents bought a house in South Philly and Max and I will be paying them... well... rent, I guess, but it feels bigger. My name is on the papers at least! Closing isn't until November 30th and then we move in December 29th/30th (I will be juggling moving and the MLA conference!) We are a little nervous about moving to South Philly but I think it will be worth it. Goodbye, two room & bathroom apartment! Hello, three bedrooms, one and a half bath, kitchen, living room, garden & finished basement!

I just read back over this and realized how many exclamation points there are. OH WELL! I am having a pretty awesome day.

Oh, also, I like that people still look at puppy to puppy even though I haven't updated it in forevah.