The Last Post of the Year!

Well, the last day of 2011. What a year it has been-- new friends, new adventures, a cross-country move. It's been a year of good things, a year of sad things, and a year of growth and learning. But here I am again, just as last year, in Staunton with Zan, looking forward to champagne, Auld Lang Syne, and a midnight kiss. We exchanged Christmas presents earlier today, and I now own a Hark a Vagrant shirt that reads "History is Very Serious," and Zan and I gave each other panda hats.

Also, here we go! My reading list from the past year. These are only books that I completed from cover to cover. There were many other things read though-- chapters, essays, articles, almost-but-not-quite-all of several books, lots of eighteenth-century court documents and orderbooks-- I mean, come on, I'm in grad school. I basically read for a living. So, while the list is just at 60 titles, I assure you I've read and read and read.

Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger; Cleopatra: A Life, Stacy Schiff; The Girl Who Played With Fire, Stieg Larsson; Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes; The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Stieg Larsson; Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, John Berendt; The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje;Arcadia, Tom Stoppard; Catherine, Called Birdy, Karen Cushman, Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Prachett, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, John Ford, ed. Martin Wiggins; The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins; Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronté; In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), Sarah Ruhl; The Real Thing, Tom Stoppard; Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins; Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins; The Winter's Tale, William Shakespeare; The Lady and the Unicorn, Tracy Chevalier; Heaven to Betsy, Maud Hart Lovelace; Mother Bombie, John Lyly; Inkheart, Cornelia Funke; Betsy's Wedding, Maud Hart Lovelace; The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, Catherynne M. Valente; The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho;Mucedorus, Anonymous (sometimes att. to Shakespeare); Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen; Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert; Ain't She Sweet?, Susan Elizabeth Phillips; Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin; Lady Margaret's Ghost: A Felicity Mystery, Elizabeth McDavid Jones; The Giver, Lois Lowry; Trifles, Susan Glaspell; A Number, Caryl Churchill; Traitor in Williamsburg: A Felicity Mystery, Elizabeth McDavid Jones; Shadow Spinner, Susan Fletcher; La Celestina, Fernando de Rojos; Peril at King's Creek: A Felicity Mystery, Elizabeth McDavid Jones; La Mirtilla, Isabella Andreini; Oedipus Rex, Sophocles (trans. Robert Fagles); The Knight of Olmedo, Lope de Vega; The School for Husbands, Molière; Secret History, Procopius (trans. Richard Atwood);Hamlet, William Shakespeare; The Lavish Lovers, Molière; A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Charlotte Charke, Charlotte Charke; Tartuffe, Molière; The Widow Ranter, Aphra Behn; Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett; Isadora: My Life, Isadora Duncan; Fences, August Wilson; Purge, Sofi Oksansen; The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, Jane Wagner; Interpreting the Theatrical Past: Essays in the Historiography of Performance, eds. Tom Postlewait and Bruce A. McConachie; Pyretown, John Belluso;The Illusion, Tony Kushner; Felicity's Surprise, Valerie Tripp; Garrick's Folly, J.M Stochholm; The Theatre of Illusion, Pierre Corneille; The Matchmaker of Perigord, Julia Stuart

Happy New Year, everyone!

Best Friends and Beignets

A couple of days ago my mom and I drove up to DC for a few days, primarily because I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon (just a usual check-up) but also because I couldn't visit the East Coast without seeing one of my very best friends!!!

Me and Kay in Disney World, Spring 2009

Kay and I have known each other since orientation week our freshman year of undergrad, but we didn't become best friends until the very last day of freshman year when we shared a pint of ice cream and watched Big Fish just before I moved out of the dorm. Since then, we've kind of been on the same wavelength. Our friend Mike sometimes forgets we aren't the same person and will tell a story to Kay and then assume that I know it, too. It doesn't quite work like that (but close).

Anyway, yesterday afternoon/evening, Kay and I got to see each other! We had some amazing Belgian hot chocolate at Le Pain Quotidien, then we had our usual cups of tea and catching up. Then we exchanged Christmas gifts! Kay gave me a GORGEOUS set of dishes with a blue flower pattern that just suits me so well!

A perfect Christmas present!

Then we went to pick up Brian (her husband, and also one of my friends) and then Mike (of the polar bear picture fame from the last post), and we all went to Dehli Dhabba Indian food restaurant for dinner. While there, we saw some questionable 'Bollywood' clips. Usually they play very traditional Bollywood movies, but yesterday they were... perhaps not quite so family friendly. I'm glad Kay, Brian, and Mike were there to back me up on what we saw, or else I might not believe it. But the food was wonderful, as usual, and we had a fantastic dinner with the four of us.

But perhaps the most consistently wonderful part of visiting DC now is that my parents place is just a short walk from a New Orleans-style restaurant that serves beignets and cafe au lait in the mornings. If I had this place a short walk from my apartment in Seattle a) I'd have no trouble getting out of bed in the mornings, and b) I'd be about thirty pounds heavier. It's amazing!

Cafe Au Lait and Beignets

It also reinforces my desire to live somewhere in the South.... if not New Orleans, perhaps Savannah or Charleston, or somewhere in North Carolina, or hey, good old Virginia (this is, of course, assuming I don't just expatriate to the UK). It might not surprise you to know that one of my Christmas gifts was a subscription to Southern Living Magazine.

But tonight, my lovely sojourn to DC comes to a close, and it's off to see Zan in Staunton!!!

A Very Merry Picture Post!

Happy Boxing Day everyone! I hope you had a great Christmas! I had a pretty great time-- went to a Celtic Christmas Eucharist at St. Martin's Episcopal Church on Christmas Eve, watched Muppet Christmas Carol (as per tradition), and of course, on Christmas Day we couldn't miss the Doctor Who Christmas Special!!! But this post is for pictures! As promised, pictures from Mickey's Christmas party, plus a few extras!

The beautiful Cinderella Castle!

The beginning of the parade!

Above: Mickey and Minnie, Chip n' Dale in the parade

Blurry, but me and Zan at the Christmas party.

Getting ready to Conga with Woody, Jessie, and Bullseye!

Also, I have a picture to share from Williamsburg-- when Megan, Mike and I went on our walk the other day, we all took pictures in front of a random polar bear statue in a shop on DoG Street. In the one I'm in with Megan I look kind of terrible, but here's me and Mike!

(Look closely at the polar bear in the picture, and it WILL make you laugh.)

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Another Knickumknackums

Merry Christmas Knickumknackums, or the day before the day before Christmas! I am happily ensconced in Virginia, enjoying my time on the superior coast (just kidding, I'm sure the West Coast is great if you get to do more than read/write/go to class and see more than the inside of your apartment and your bus route). Our Christmas tree is up and my beautiful cat is sleeping under it and enjoying his catnip Christmas present. The weather is fantastic, unseasonably warm. We're about to head to dinner at a tavern in Colonial Williamsburg-- hooray for impending peanut soup! And maybe rabbit stew! Yum.

The last week has been joyful; I spent three days in Disney World with Zan and my parents. We went to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party where we had a dance party with Woody, Jessie, and Bullseye from the Toy Story movies, and got a gigantic chili-cheese dog, and Zan rode "It's a Small World" for the first time ever. Pictures are forthcoming, I promise (though we forgot to take a picture of the chili-cheese dog until after we had consumed it).

Then we returned to Williamsburg and within two hours my friend Mike had arrived on the train! Mike has a lovely new toy (which actually says on it "not a toy") called Shockball which you can read about on his blog, here. Zan, Mike, Megan, my mom and I all had dinner at La Tolteca, then we all (minus my mom) went for drinks at the Leafe with Megan and a couple of my friends from my masters program, Anna and Jeff. The next day we had lunch at the Cheese Shop and bought Christmas gifts in Merchant Square and took a walk down Duke of Gloucester Street and had custard at Retro's. Megan had a bit of passport drama with the post office not actually overnighting it from CA after she paid for it to be overnighted, but luckily it arrived in time for her to go on vacation with her family for Christmas (hooray!!!). Mike left today, and I spent the afternoon Christmas shopping with my mom and then reading Felicity's Surprise and ignoring the massive amounts of research/reading I need to do before the quarter starts again on January 3rd.

And tomorrow! Christmas Eve! Merry Christmas Knickumknackums everyone!

An Australian Parcel

A little bit delayed, but I would just like to thank my lovely friend Laura Elizabeth for a Christmas present from Australia! Laura and I became blog friends in the spring, and I am so thankful for her friendship. She is so smart and funny-- I absolutely love reading her blog and have had so much fun getting to know her over the past few months. This package certainly brightened up a week of writing final papers.

Please take note of the Australian Furry Friends and Koala Letter and Koala 'Egg'!

I do love Australia! Or, I bet I would, if I ever visited :).

Isn't it fantastic? Chocolates! Pineapples! Australia souvenirs! Thank you, Laura!!!

"Doctor Who" Mystery

Well, everyone, I'm pretty much officially done with the quarter. Yesterday my students had their final exam and I collected their final response papers. One girl gave me a hug and told me I was her favorite TA ever, which sort of makes it feel like it was all worthwhile. Then I got breakfast with Kris, got home, and crashed. My body just sort of decided it was time for a two hour nap and some trashy television (what IS up with the Disney Channel these days?).

Around 5:00, before the mails had arrived, I went over to my friend Sarah's for dinner. Sarah is seriously some kind of gourmet chef; we had Scandinavian carmelized goat cheese and Cotswold cheese and sugarplums and spicy hard cider. We watched some Game of Thrones. Then her equally awesome husband came home and we had crisp beet salad with balsamic and pine nut goat cheese, pomegranate-molasses glazed game hen, mashed potatoes and maple-butter candied-nut Brussels sprouts. All homemade. Then some homemade cookies from her mom arrived in the mail, so we had Russian teacakes and fruitcake cookies and rum balls. Holy... it was amazing. So full, so happy, so relaxed.

I had promised the director of Illusions that I would run by karaoke night with him, his wife, and a few actors/designers, so after I left Sarah's I quickly stopped home, discovered a mystery, then headed to the U District for karaoke. I didn't sing, but the director and a few others did, and I met some really nice people. Nice to go to a bar-- I really don't remember the last time I was out until midnight (I'm lame, I know). Great night, overall.

So this mystery? A priority mail package had arrived. The return address was for a small town in Minnesota, a name I don't know. I opened it, and out fell this:


Yes, that's right. An 8x11 print of the TARDIS in Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night." I think I have managed to track it back to this Etsy store (thus explaining the return address and the name I don't know). But still, since now I don't even have the return address to go on, since it's an Etsy store-- who sent it to me? No note. Nothing but the TARDIS print.

Until someone 'fesses up, I'm just going to assume it was Doctor. If I'm gone for awhile, it means that I'm traveling the far reaches of time and space with a 900 year old Time Lord. But then again, you probably won't notice if I'm gone-- I'll just come back again at the same time that I left, and for everyone else, nothing strange will have happened at all :).

(But seriously, if you sent it, let me know so I can thank you!)

EDIT: Mystery solved!!! Thank you, Annie!!!!!!!!!

This tunnel... it has lights at the end!

Nearing the end of the quarter-- so close to being done with everything! I only have 27 papers left to grade before I can say I'm officially done, and they haven't even been turned in yet so it's not my fault that I haven't finished! I have, however, finished 3 mini-papers looking at a historical moment through three historiographical lenses (Marxist, Feminist, and New Historicist), a twenty page paper about Charlotte Charke, and I have finished grading forty-five Drama 101 final projects. Hooray!!!! I've also begun work as a dramaturg on a play called The Illusion by Tony Kushner, so I've just started the research for that, and met with the director. Apparently tomorrow night the cast and crew are going out to do some karaoke and since I've just joined the team I'm invited. Super fun!

To treat ourselves for all of our hard work, on Monday a couple of my friends/colleagues and I went to see The Muppets!!! Super cute movie, though not my favorite Muppet movie ever. It was so nice to go out and do something, though, especially after weeks of sitting on my couch reading/writing/grading. We also went out to dinner, where I got a cheeseburger and an alcoholic milkshake. The glory! A cheeseburger! And who knew that adding Bailey's and banana liquor to a milkshake could be so wonderful?

Only two more days 'til Disney World!!!

"What kind of a tree is that?"

This year, I got a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree and set it up on my table. It has no lights, and only one ornament, but it makes me happy. My concession to Christmas is not nearly so spectacular as the apartment building next door, but it does feel nice to come home to some kind of Christmas tree.

As Linus says, "I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It's not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love."

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

An apartment building near to my apartment building went a little crazy with the Christmas decorations and I love it! And apparently this happens every year! I just had to take some pictures of the Christmas spirit that I get to walk past on my way home from campus everyday.

(A close-up of the light-up biplane you can see on the roof in the full building pictures: Santa in a biplane!)

(This actually is a moveable piece: the lid of the present opens and closes to reveal the penguins!)

(Even the trees on the public pavement in front of the building are decorated with lights and ornaments!)

Pretty spectacular, huh?

Two Weeks

Two weeks from today everything will be done. I will have (God-willing) researched and written two twenty page papers, watched/graded fifty undergrad final projects and nearly as many undergrad response papers, and read one more historiography book. Trouble is, I really don't see how this is going to all get done in the next week and five days.

I have spent the past nine hours barely stirring from my computer in my attempt to write the first ten pages of my twenty-page Charlotte Charke paper (the ten pages which are due on Wednesday), and I managed to get about six and a half before realizing everything I'd written was pretty much shit/didn't introduce my main thesis early enough, and then I realized maybe I don't have a strong main thesis and I am SO FRUSTRATED. So I've started it again and have about 3 and a half usable pages. This paper is worse than my Aldus Manutius paper of three years ago and I broke my foot over that one.

I think, "I should take a break," but by that I mean I should go read fourteen more essays on theatre historiography which are due by Thursday. Or possibly I should research my topic for my paper due a week from Monday. Yeah RESEARCH it. Much less WRITE it. GAHHHHH.

Happy Tree

In the spirit of it finally being December, a time for advent calendars and Christmas carols, I bring you one of the funniest things I've seen: Happy Tree. Though I, personally, am thrilled to finally be able to celebrate the season, Happy Tree is unamused.

(Happy Tree found here; thanks to my friend Steven for sending this to me)