But Call Me Betsy

I forgot that I've had all of these extra pictures floating around from the season of jolliness. And, since we've had one winter snow storm after another, it seems fine to go ahead and pretend it's still a holiday. I think all of these pics were taken after dark, so they have a shadowy feel to them. Here are twin Santas doing slightly different calisthenics: A smiling snowperson. Oh, I took this picture for Danny in Penn State. He loves all things Nittany Lion-y. Again with the twin Santas. This Santa makes me feel icky inside. And this one is quite glorious. If you click on this picture, you'll see a family of snowpeople. I guess this is clever? Seems like a lot is going on. The prettiest snowman ever. Speaking of pretty, I watched some of the Robert Redford/Barbra Streisand classic, The Way We Were last night, including the montage of them doing whimsical things together, such as run into the surf (except because she's her own person, she only runs for like a se...

Had this art history seminar on Tuesday and it reminded me how there are just tons of things--whole genres of relatively common knowledge--that I don't know. For example, oh, the entirety of world history. I even had an excellent high school world history teacher, Mr. O'Donnell. He used to give lectures dressed in the appropriate costume of whatever the topic was. And yet, the only thing I remember from world history is that someone named Hannibal invaded another country on the back of an elephant. I don't know when this was, or who he was, or why he was on an elephant, or if he "won." So, in class, as the teacher was asking things like, And what are the names of the three main Greek columns? No clue. (Answer: Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian). At one time, I think I knew this fact. But it has gone away from my brain, as has many very elementary things like the names of all the planets. I swear, I can't remember them all. This lack occurred to me as I was sitting ...

That's because my writing class started last night and so I didn't get home in time to see the very beginning and to put my laptop near the TV and so then I kind of lost interest. I listened to it from the other room, but it was all the same stuff..."Here for the right reasons...I'm so nervous...I'm not here to make friends, I'm here to fall in love...I think I might be falling for him...My boobs are falling out of my top..." Etc. Tonight, I have my first pro-seminar at Penn and I discovered yesterday that I bought the wrong book. Well, technically, I bought the right book for half of the class--I didn't realize it was two volumes, and so only purchased volume II. Should I even be allowed to take grad classes? But the books are giant and heavy and expensive, and so I don't really want to buy Volume I. Instead, I went to the Fisher Fine Arts Library to try to copy it. They have it on reserve, and you can go ahead photocopy each page, which is then a...

Even though Dan's not in it. I also have tons of photos from the trip to Florida---including a long series that Luke took when he and Dan went to the Clearwater Rescue Marina Aquarium Extravaganza, but I'm too lazy to post them. Here are just a few highlights.Or a lot. These are all in backwards order. I'll add captions later...

We took Luke to Disney World this weekend. Well, first, we took him on a plane to my parent's house in Dunedin, Florida, and then we also went to the Magic Kingdom. Since I spent most of my girlhood in the Sunshine State, I've been to Disney parks more than maybe the average person. I was shocked this time around as an adult to discover that pretty much nothing has changed in the 20 or so years since I've gone. Like, you know that Haunted House ride in Frontiervilleland? The voice over narration is the same, as is the part where the walls go up and you see how the person in the portrait died (like the woman with the parasol, where it's gradually revealed that she's standing on a tight rope just above the open mouth of an alligator). And at the end, the same voice tells you that you will be taking a ghost home with you. I suppose that it would be way too expensive to update the rides (and I think they did add the Johnny Depp character to Pirates of the Caribbean), bu...

Because I think Dan's a natural. Here are the highlights/low lights of last night's Bachelor , acted out in real time. Go here to view it for yourself. As usual, Dan steals the show.

Missed the beginning b/c we were eating some crazy burrito tortilla deal. Brad is man enough to wear a pink shirt. If he ends up not liking this girl he's on a one on one date with, she gets sent home. How is it that no one else is at this amusement park? This girl needs to stand on her own two feet, she says. Brad says she sounds like she's preparing for the worse. she says that she wants to confess things about her family and she can't stop gesturing. Is she trying to make Brad cry? Did your dad love you? Can I call you Ass? he says. Absolutely! says Ass-ley.Brad wnats to have so many more conversations like this later, just not with her. Oh, but he gave her the rose anyway. The ride to the top of the Ferris Wheel and CBS gets an nice upskirt shot of Assley. I WISH I had the same size of earings that this girl with the birthday has. She is wearing bicycle wheels on her head. Many, many of these women are blonds and look exactly the same. This one blond says she's go...

It's really good for you. Most health care professionals recommend drinking tons of it every day. I get on these kicks where I am dedicated to drinking water--just determined to down 2-3 quarts a day (give or take...). Because water is good for your system, good for your skin, good for your pancreas. But the thing is, I like to have more than 30 minutes pass without having to pee or without thinking I might have to pee or without knowing that even though I don't currently need to, I will soon. That's what lots of water does to you; it becomes a preoccupation and a constant interruption from an otherwise moderately productive day. Went to Zumba class last night for the first time in month's. The teacher--I'm sure I've described her here before--but she is very, very thin and muscular, and small. She doesn't look healthy, only because it would be hard to tell, if you didn't know any better, whether she is a crack addict or a super fitness nu t (or both). ...

This morning, I started reading Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, which I bought for a mere $2 at the Princeton Library (they have the best on-going book sale. Also got The Falls by JCO , coincidentally. And Joyce teaches in Princeton and lives down the street from Dan. Do you think she would mind if I just happened by her place? She has a story called "My Madman" about an academic who gets threatened in the elevator by an wiry, unhinged graduate student. I bet it's based on something she has experienced). Anyway, I already love this book. Maybe I am predisposed to love it because on the cover, it states, "Winner of the Pulitzer Prize," but I do think it's well-written. Have only read part of the first chapter, but I like it already. You should read it. Had that super transparent insecurity dream last night where I'm in a play but don't know any of the lines and haven't rehearsed. I think, in this one, I wasn't actually going onstage, ...

I know that she's been around forever, but I seldom read poetry. I don't even read it in The New Yorker . I don't understand poetry. It seems too hard. I feel dumb when I read it. But then I listened to some of This American Life's holiday podcasts and they had Sharon Olds on to read some of her work. There is a reason she's able to make a living as a poet. Here are some of them for you: "Take the I Out" "I Go Back to May 1937" "My Son the Man" This is the one she read on This American Life that I loved so much. It's called "The Race." I forgot to mention that Lisa Marie and I went to see an open mike night last week. It was set up so that anyone could sign up to tell a story, though it had to be on the subject of holiday spirit, and to stay within a 5 minute time period. Each speaker was then judged by a point system. I wanted to see what it's like in case I ever want to do something like that. We saw five of th...

I missed the first few minutes--Dan has filled me in. Apparently, Brad has commitment issues because his dad abandoned him once...for eight weeks. Hmm...Does that count? Try not meeting your dad until you're 23. We're also getting to meet all of the freakish women desperate for husbands. Emily is the cutest so far. One girl is a vampire and she even has the sharp teeth. For real. A few are divorced and exploiting their children on TV. A few other have dead people in their lives--dads, husbands, cats. One girl works at a mauseleum and hopes she can bury Brad in it. She actually said that. Uh-oh. Emily might be a Christian. She believes her husband died in a plane crash so that she can meet the bachelor. A few things about Brad. He likes to work out. He likes to walk around with his shirt off. The two things may be related. He also has a giant tattoo on his back--I think it's the letter "P?" Not sure. He has a slightly Southern accent, even though he's from Balt...

I keep forgetting to post the pictures that I have been taking of Christmas cheer. A lot of the windows are still Christmas-y, so I will try to get a few more in this week. But first, here are some woodpeckers I saw at Dan's mom's house. And this is the gingerbread man that Luke made and gave to me for Christmas. I ate all of it. We also bought stockings to hang. The funniest thing was that I put an orange in Luke's stocking and he was totally tickled by it. My mom always had Santa leave an orange. I guess I thought everyone did that. And here he is holding a pipe and gesticulating about something or other. Snow men, glitter backdrop, and Christmas trees. Detail. This is hard to see. I guess you should click on it to see the larger version. The snowman looks like he's been up all night drinking and just woke up in a planter the next morning. An elaborate Christmas carol scene, better than Macy's. With detail. Oh, yeah, I wondered where they stored these bodies durin...