The Simplest Song For A Corpse To Sing
Now Playing: The Sir Douglas Quintet--"Catch the Man on the Rise"
There's nothing that's made me look forward to death so much as going to work sick.

The days are actually starting to look like autumn--leaves visibly turning and everything.

I've started reading Sheridan Le Fanu's Uncle Silas (1864) again for an ad hoc internet "book club." Without giving anything away for any readers, Madame de la Rougiere is one of the coolest characters in British literature, certainly the "Gothic" variety.

I got a packet from the University of South Florida library school in the mail--a friend of my dad's says it's supposed to be really good, so that's a definite possibility. I'll be scheduling my GRE this weekend, something I should have scrimped for a long time ago.

Last night, against my better judgment (because I was still somewhat ill, you see), I went to a show at the "Half-Ass," a student "music hall", featuring Chris Bathgate and Matt Jones. It was pretty close to home, so I didn't have to make much of an effort. There's not much I can really say--it was awesome, but I didn't feel well enough to stick around for Fred Thomas' set. Nice and intimate, with most people sitting on the floor. I re-met (meeting someone after a long time without remembering for absolutely certain who they were) Erin, a urban planning classmate of Brandon's (who was wearing a stunning outfit on which I forgot to compliment her and which briefly made me wish I was female so I could bring off something like that), and Matt concurs that I look vaguely like Lincoln assassination conspirator David Herold. I drank much grape juice.

I have a new housemate, a guy named Alex. We hardly see each other. He rises at about four-thirty in the morning and goes straight to his room after returning, usually around seven in the evening. I don't know what he does or what his deal is, mainly because he knows one word and one phrase in English--"Hello" and "I speak no English." I know five words or phrases in Russian, but they're not going to be much use, especially since one of them isn't "I speak no Russian."* It'll be interesting to see how this vaguely sitcommy situation pans out.

If you're approached by a guy who looks like Scott Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots, walk away.

*I actually know about twenty others, including (but not limited to) zemstvo, apparatchik, oprichnina, starets, soyuz, and vremya, but I strongly suspect they won't be of much use.