SO. BORED. I'm reading this cranky wanker's book on academic archives. I still have another 125 pages or so to go to finish it. SO. BORED. And my head hurts.

Back in my 1960s history class, we had a resource book called Takin' it to the Streets: A Sixties Reader, that was pretty awesome. All kinds of primary source material for the civil rights, New Left, counterculture, Black Power, anti-war movements, you name it. It also included this article by Lucian Truscott IV from the Village Voice concerning the Stonewall riots. The thing that struck me, reading this article originally, was how free it felt. The tone is so...happy.

Remember this old meme?

Reply, I ask you five questions. You respond in your journal, copy this and all that jazz.

Five questions from bexplant:

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My sleeping patterns are becoming as jacked up as they were in undergrad/grad school. Then again, it kinda feels like I'm back on summer vacation. (If that were truly the case, I'd be in at least one internship and reading a lot more history books instead of half-a-dozen novels, about three of which are Albert Campion books.)

I should probably go do something useful now.

Let's hear it for the liberal arts education! Yes, the education that gives you the ability to BS your way beautifully through cocktail parties and confound your friends with an unexpected nod to Richard III in the course of conversation.

Now if only I could get invited to cocktail parties.

I think I broke my brain this weekend. It might be best that I go back to work tomorrow and see if I can't fix it.

I spent the morning helping to judge the local National History Day contest, my second year to do so. And--seriously, why the hell did I not know about this when I was in high school less than ten years ago? I would have loved doing this back then. Well, okay, it would have totally freaked me out and demoralized me, but then so did all the other extracurricular stuff I did that was judged, so what difference would it have made?

In any case, NHD rocks. It's awesome for the students to have a chance to be excited about history in a non-classroom environment and think about history in creative and different ways; and it's awesome for us professionals because--for me at least--it reminds me about why the hell I'm in this business in the first place. It keeps me stimulated, it's great to see high schoolers invested in history, and it gives me an opportunity to discuss concerns like what exactly a primary source is or how to present the information expected from the competition rules with other people, whether they're professional historians or not (the husband and wife who co-judged senior group documentaries with me today were not historians, but their children have been doing NHD for almost ten years now, they said). It's the meat of what we do, trying to get at the practical and theoretical heart of this stufff. And me, I dig conversations like that. If I actually end up with a PhD someday, I will only have myself to blame.

I'm seriously thinking about volunteering to judge at the state competition this year. It will probably be an utter madhouse and all that, but I really think this project is important and that I want to support it more. And, well, it's still nice to be on the other side of the fence but remember what it was like to be one of those students nervously waiting their turn (I don't know if that makes me a nicer judge or not--at least I can empathize).

I'm going to a conference a week from tomorrow, and this morning I had a nightmare that I hopped the flight, checked into the hotel, and then apparently promptly forgot why I'd come and just hung out with friends. Eventually I remembered I was supposed to be there for a conference and started panicking. It took me a few minutes after I woke up to remember that no, actually, I hadn't even left yet and I wouldn't be that stupid.

Last time I had a dream like that, I was about ready to start grad school and dreamt that I'd forgotten to go to the first week of classes. Siiiiigh.

I have to work a half-day tomorrow. Cleverly, I made it the afternoon so I can sleep in. (These days, I seem to live for sleeping in and little else. I need to get some more priorities, methinks.)

Two weeks. Two weeks before I move, and the cable company finally decides to give me Sci-Fi. What's up with that? At least when I lived at Knox they gave me the Sci-Fi Channel my sophomore year. (Though I only got Bravo for about a month there at some point. That annoyed me very much.) And of course, the night the Stargates premiere next month is also the day I'm driving across the plains to my new town. Hmph.

But at least I've also got AMC for the next couple weeks so I can watch Hustle tonight. And speaking of Hustle, I heard a song on the radio this morning that would make a perfect vid for this show. Sung by Paul McCartney in one of his dafter moods, a large majority of the lyrics consist of "We're so sorry, Uncle Albert, we're so sorry if we caused you pain. We're so sorry, Uncle Albert, but if anything should happen we shall give you a ring. We're so sorry, Uncle Albert, but we haven't done a bloody thing all day." It is sheer genius.

I passed my written exams. You wanna know anything about the historiography of class in America in the past three centuries, particularly as evidenced through domestic interiors? Or maybe about Jacksonian politics? Now I just have to BS my way through the orals next week and I am home free.

Friday I took my written exams. I don't want to think about them. Friday night I saw Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead at the local theatre. That was lovely, the actors were excellent, and I seem to be coming to some point where I can appreciate the acting without falling under its sway (as I did when I was very small) or simply being critical and distanced (as I've been the past few years). I keep wanting to dig out my copy of the play and see if I can't find the Player's large speech about actors and quote various bits of it somewhere, but that book is already packed up somewhere and I'm not sure I want to go digging.

Saturday nsempress and I went to the Renaissance festival and spent lots of money. Well, she spent loads more than I did as she got a full and lovely costume, but I did get new jewelry and a new shirt, and Jack Sparrow made a momentary appearance so that was lovely. And it stormed as we drove home and throughout the night. That was also lovely, as I've been fearing another dust bowl around here.

Tonight I finally got around to watching the rest of Regency House, and I have spent most of the day freaking out about my future or just being grumpy and a general emotional wreck, so yes, I'd really like tomorrow to come, thankyouverymuch. I have mentioned how much I dislike Sundays, haven't I?

I've barely slept at all in the past two days! Isn't insomnia wonderful?! It means that at any moment at all I am capable of bursting into tears, screaming bloody murder at who or whatever crosses me, or falling into hysterical giggles.

Not that that's normal or anything.

If I don't sleep tonight I really shall start to cry. And stamp my feet. And generally behave like a whiny little girl. I have my written exams on Friday. I don't have time to mess about with sleep dep.

Do I have to take my comps? Can I just fake it and said I did?

So in the past couple days I helped my mom rediscover the Internet (she'd put the phone cord in the wrong jack in her computer) and I called the uni's financial services department and demanded to know when the hell I'd deserved a late charge. They took it back and now owe *me* money.

I shall revel in my cleverness until I do something stupid again.

Feeling hair fall past my shoulders is weird and I should wear it straight more often.

I'm working a few hours a week in the archives at the Denver Province of the Redemptorists, a Catholic organization. It's quite fun--I've dusted off seventeenth-century books and have permission to create a humidification chamber to flatten some letters and other papers from the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. And my boss, who is quite boyish and innocent-looking, is also quite startingly funny. We were both admiring the tankard down in the archives, celebrating the 50th anniversary of a community or church or something run by the Redemptorists somewhere in the States, and my boss said, "At least it's not a bong."

Last week my undergrad awarded an honorary doctorate to Stephen Colbert, who also acted as commencement speaker for this year's graduating class.

I am so jealous.

Especially since I'm pretty sure I fell asleep during our commencement speaker's speech, and Colbert apparently used theatre analogies.

I definitely graduated the wrong year.

So a fellow student & I went to an archivist's conference yesterday in Pueblo. We spent the night before at her grandma's house in Colorado Springs. Her grandmother lives pretty much right at the base of Cheyenne Mountain. I just barely got a glimpse of the Will Rogers shrine up that mountain. Brilliant. One more goal in my life has now been fulfilled.

Not so brilliant is the fact that I've been sick for the past week (again) and we continually got stuck in Denver rush hour, both ways. Until we took the toll road. Beat that, Denver rush hour!

( And as for today's Doctor Who... )

Um, so I kinda graduated again today. (It sounds so accidental that way, doesn't it? "Ooops, fell into this black robe and silly hat, whoops, didn't mean to get into this procession, looks like I'm graduating.") Only I didn't really graduate today, because I still have to take my comps, and it's all a bit silly anyway since I've got a job.

Yeah, I've got a job now. I start--well, they want me ASAP, but I'm putting them off as long as I possibly can because I want to travel and, I dunno, rest for a while. Because I'm not ready to confront the real world and put to the real test the stuff I've been learning for the past few years, and I hate messing up. I really hate messing up. But I can do this, because I can flipping do anything.

And dad bought me a laptop and mom's probably buying me a trip to Canada and my aunt is seriously paying for next month's rent with the check she gave me and my brother and nephew got me books--the second Aubrey/Maturin book and Gaiman's Brief Lives--which I checked out of the school library last year, left in a hotel in Vancouver (and had nothing to read on the plane home, oh woe), bought a replacement copy for the library, and never picked up a copy for myself. And this is very possibly my favorite set of the lot in the Sandman series, at least of the ones I've read. So wooooo.

And I can't believe I'm finished with school, possibly permanently, and I'm frigging exhausted, like, in a permanent state of running exhaustion, but the family isn't all leaving until Sunday which means I have to keep running back & forth across town and being my nice, well-behaved self for another 36 hours and Sunday, oh Sunday, I'm sleeping and playing and not thinking any more than I can help it. For the first time in very possibly 24 years.

I think I'll be total crap at it and end up doing something productive anyway.

It's just--I feel like I've lived and experienced more in the past month to six weeks than in the near-two years previous and that is a very weird feeling and I don't think I know who I am anymore. So I need some time. To figure that out again. Or at least get a better approximation than I have right now.

Oh, and I am ridiculously pleased with the quote that is on this icon, if not with the icon itself. Um. Yes. Bed now.

I was just in a wedding this weekend, and never have I felt so much like I was in the middle of some comedic film as when I was stuffing my friend and her twelve pounds of wedding dress into the back of a regular-sized four-door sedan in an emergency rush to the St. Louis Botanical Gardens because the party bus got a flat tire.

Seriously? That kinda encapsulates the weekend. Actually, that kinda encapsulates my life right now.

And I insist that I am a transportation jinx. Menace to cars and planes everywhere. I apologize deeply to everyone who ever has to travel with me.

I look forward to the day when my life settles down a wee bit & some semblance of sanity is restored. Er, not that I'm sure I've actually ever had sanity.

I mentioned in my records management class tonight that I had a blog and am now paranoid that they shall somehow find me. Compartmentalized lives suck and yet are somehow inevitable.

In totally unrelated news, OMG SARAH JANE THIS SATURDAY OMG SQUEEEEEEEEEE.

I have a secret belief that Mason off of Dead Like Me is who Fitz Kreiner would have been had he remained in London in 1963 instead of wandering off with the Doctor. This is probably a very stupid secret belief, and not so secret anymore, but I still cherish it in my heart of hearts and plan to write elaborate crossovers about it. (Thankfully, I probably never will.)

And I shall just end on this line from an article by Wally Seccombe about the gradual privileging of the male breadwinning wage amongst the English working class in the nineteenth century, because American historians never get away with writing shit like this:

"The point is not that all working-class husbands were uncaring bastards who exploited these advantages to the hilt."

Um, I got thinky about gender and daddy issues in Life on Mars. Over here. But the only gender background I have comes from historians and a single philosophy course. troyswann, where arrreeee yyyyyoooouuuu? (I know, I know, graaaaaaaading. But it's LoM! And gender! I need you to think for me!)

And my thought-experiment exhibit design for my museums methodologies course just started to get awesome today. (We have to come up with the entire design for the exhibit without actually doing it, which is why I'm calling it a thought experiment.) Finally it all started to come together, from the label texts to the floorplan to, "oh, hey, that's where I can put the interactive theatre bit when I get to that assignment."

See, this exhibit is on public political culture of the antebellum era in America. And I know, I know, you're groaning already, but this stuff is awesome. It's the 1830s, people! It's the 1840 election campaign, possibly the awesomest election campaign ever! Tippecanoe and Tyler too and hard cider and Whig women and log cabins! (I have to admit it; I probably would have been a Whig.) It's Jacksonian democracy at its finest (even if personally Jackson's a bit of a dick) and I've got flipping campaign songs for people to listen to in sound booths! Huzzah.

1837 is remaining my favoritest year of the nineteenth century. I think I'm a little bit weird. And I need to go make dinner now.

Every bloody time. Every single bloody semester, before it starts, I think, "Oh, it'll be fine...no problem...I've had busier schedules..." And then the first day the classes and course work and meetings and to-do lists just pile on and pile on and pile on...and of course, I have still managed to find oodles of hours to goof off in today because it was still only the first day and I still only had two classes and one of 'em's not meeting again till next Tuesday and I'm not even gonna fricking think about graduation requirements today.

Stupid paranoid brain.

I wanna write fic. Like, seriously wanna write something. Only my brain's shot to hell and the only word that's coming to me is 'hegemony.'

I don't think so.

I also really want alcohol and to watch Withnail and I. That might have to wait till another day. Godsdammit.

Thing 1: Got grades today. Grades were excellent. I feel a need to gloat but no one to gloat to without feeling guilty. Curses.

Thing 2: Saw King Kong today. OMG, so looooong. But Kyle Chandler was pretty. Hell, what's-his-face was pretty. The older I am, the shallower I get. But since I'll be senile by the time I'm 25, there's nothing wrong with that, is there?

Thing 3: My love of Nick and Nora Charles continues unabated. Especially when Nick goes and makes me think he's the American version of Albert Campion in After the Thin Man. Yaaaaaay. (Also, 1930s costumes. Men still knew how to dress back then.) If they ever try to remake these movies with actors other than William Powell and Myrna Loy I will get very annoyed.

Thing 4: Mom and I have made fudge, and tomorrow we shall make bread, and the day after that pumpkin pie. I think this is the most I've gotten into the holiday spirit in years.

Thing 5: My ability to stop swearing when in the company of my parents has finally deserted me. Then again, I had every right to yell "fuck" and "bastard" when that person cut me off when I was trying to turn today. And mom still didn't hear me, so all is well. Riiiiight.

Thing 6: I have no right to be this exhausted, since practically all I've been doing the past few days is sleep in and nap. Blast.

( Okay, so I actually really liked that ep of Numb3rs tonight... )

LAST WEEKEND OF GRADING QUIZZES. And if any students attempt to do their Scantron sheets in pen for the final, I WILL KEEEL THEM. I actually mildly told students off last night for idiocy like that, and I have never told students off in my short, short life as a TA. (Seriously. No excuse. I don't care what school you went to before you came to college, you have been filling-in-the-bubbles since you were old enough to hold a pencil. Pencil.)

Have regained some faith in my writing abilities. Typed up revisions to both my papers while listening to REM's "It's the End of the World" over and over again. Have not had enough alcohol in the past two days. Oh, end of semester, why don't you come sooner?

Oh, and WHY AM I FLYING HOME? Craaaaaaap.

Writing is shite. And you know what? I like the historical present. So there.

Paper revisions suck. And I am contrary.

It finally snowed. And it's so cold your nose hairs freeze. (It's not TMI, it's a valid way to gauge the temperature.) And I like the snow, and I like the cold, and I like the moon bright and shiny up in the sky, but I damned well need to run errands tomorrow so the roads had better not be slippery. And I'm going to a bloody department party and am seriously debating getting the Funky Llama wine. Only I have a review session at the same time, which means leaving the party early, driving to campus, and not acting in any unprofessional way with however many students may show up tomorrow evening.

And I still hate paper revisions.

Seriously want to put the Spooks DVDs from the public library on hold. But what's the point if I'm going to be leaving in a week and a half? Grrr.

IF YOU ARE A GRADUATE STUDENT IN HISTORY, YOU SHOULD KNOW BY NOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ITS AND IT'S.

Especially if you're going to bloody well turn in a first draft to be read by your professor and your peers.

Grrrr.

The most shallow reaction possible to Atlantis, "Epiphany":
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Also, House last night:
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Have gone and seen lots of movies of late--well, lots for me. Harry Potter, and Pride & Prejudice, and Rent. Enjoyed them all. Continue to want to ditch it all and go into musical theatre. Never mind.

Have one of three presentations done for the next week and a half. People seemed to enjoy my presentation today. But then, I used the white board and pronounced fun Nahuatl words. Did not talk about human sacrifice, however. Sadly.