Last night I had a dream that I was already in Burkina and was not happy. It was hot, sticky, lonely, hard, boring, and frustrating. In my dream, I thought to myself, Gob style, "I've made a terrible mistake." In exactly two weeks, I'm going to be on a plane bound for Paris and then on to Burkina, and all I can think is, "La la la, I'm INSANE ( Read more... )

This weekend, I met a man who, in addition to being a tenured professor at Duke, is running for governor of North Carolina as a libertarian. On the one hand, he was my sister's adviser and she has a lot of respect for him; on the other hand, libertarians are the dumbest of the dumb. The cognitive dissonance! It burns! Amy's mother-in-law, who ( Read more... )

This weekend, my sister Amy and brother-in-law Jason are getting their Ph.D.s. (They went to Duke, so I'll be sure to run the other way if I see any lacrosse players.) She'll be the first of three daughters to get her Ph.D.--hers in political science, Susy's in biochemistry, and mine will be in psychology once I get my lazy ass into grad school ( Read more... )

Hot damn! Having Markus "guest write" was like adding a drop of blood to a tank full of sharks, lions, and electric eels. If you liked that, head on over to our Peace Corps blog and let him know you dig him. Hopefully, I'll be contributing more to that when I actually have something to say besides (in the immortal words of Jesse Spano), "I'm so ( Read more... )

My dad had a heart attack yesterday, but, thankfully, he's all right. He's at a conference in D.C. along with his brother. My mom told me about it when I stopped by the house before tutoring. Listening to her tell me all the details, I was struck by how calm she was and knew that she'd been her usual competent, restrained self when Dad first ( Read more... )

Every morning for the past month, I've felt like a rotten kid getting a lump of coal in her stocking on Christmas: "Good morning! I'll be your fresh mosquito bite for the day!" And yet Markus is always bite free, the bastard. Scratching and yawning, I head for the bathroom, where I get to admire the smorgasbord of tan lines I've accumulated ( Read more... )

This weekend was pure decadence. Splitting a pitcher of Dead Guy Ale with Markus, talking about everything from our coulda/woulda/shoulda hookups to the gay guy at the next table pawing at his beard. Celebrating Earth Day by taking a walk--dodging aggressive Hummers pulling into gas stations along the way--to window shop at the sex shop down the ( Read more... )

I woke up this morning to a kick ass thunderstorm and stepped outside to see that another tree has fallen into the pool. Poor Boomhauer.

Mah na mah na.

Yesterday, Markus came home upset because he'd screwed something up at work. I told him about the time my sister single-handedly made Al Gore look like an idiot. She used to work for him, sending form letters to people who wrote to him about the environment. One time, she sent a letter to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan congratulating him on the ( Read more... )

Come help me eat my Easter candy. Markus thinks it'll go to waste, and I can't let him be right ( Read more... )