Rock and Roll, It's... Tuesday.

Because Tuesdays are when everyone on the Rhodes goes to the Turf and when LGBTSoc has its weekly drinks, it tends to be my night on the town every week. (And this is the perk of being a graduate student and being able to wake up at 10 or 11 on a Wednesday morning. Or 1 in the afternoon.)

But yesterday night was jazz and cocktails, one of the biggest draws on the MCR's calendar. They hire a jazz band, make sexy cocktails that nobody has heard of since the Wilson administration, and generally make it a classy affair. Clearly, this takes precedence. I showed up and reluctantly decided on an El Diablo (it was tequila-based, which is a bright, bright red flag, but it was one of the only cocktails that didn't have something weirdly savory like basil or sea salt), but then dodged that bullet when I changed my mind and ducked out for a few minutes with Brian and Chase to go over and see the incoming scholars at the Turf.

I met one of them. Check!

For the rest of the time, I caught up with everyone - like, everyone - who I hadn't seen since I got back to Oxford. I sat with Brian and Chase and talked about how-we-met narratives and Middle Eastern anthropology and Sarah Palin. I saw Leana and got to hear about her trauma rounds in South Africa, which sounded sufficiently traumatic. As we were being jostled around in the stairwell, Taylor and I talked about the difference between having to be in the middle of nowhere and choosing to be in the middle of nowhere. And I gave a lot of man-hugs and overzealous embraces and it was great.

But then the Turf closed, and I remembered that Debs was coming back to visit before going to York for her PhD, so I popped back to jazz and cocktails to see her before it ended. The band was just finishing at that point, and the cocktail bar had closed, so it turns out that I got all glammed up in my jazz and cocktails attire (copious midnight blue and black and silver! minimal buttoning and rolled-up sleeves! ankle boots!) to go across the street to a pub and drink cider all night, then roll upstairs at 2am to watch the presidential debate. But by every objective metric, the night was a success. (My metrics include: it was like a This is Your Life of my favorite people, I inherited a bunch of peaches from the cocktail bar, and I learned a little bit about tax policy. Not bad for a Tuesday.

Because Disney, Like Cockroaches, Will Survive

As the global economy collapses and everything generally goes crazy, I'm doing a project on the ideological underpinnings of Hannah Montana. I think it's too kind to even say that this is like Nero fiddling while Rome burns, because I'm just watching somebody fiddle. And by 'fiddle,' I guess I mean 'possibly just lip-sync and gyrate energetically.'

The Graduation List

I'd like to stay at Oxford for another two years after this to do a DPhil, I think, but it's still quite possible that I'll bomb my thesis and they'll show me the door to the real world in June. With that in mind, I've been thinking about stuff I want to do this year while I can still chalk things up to Getting an Education and Not Just a Degree.

- impulsively visit Greece
- learn to read tarot cards
- meet fifty fascinating people
- successfully cultivate a warm, womblike living space
- publish
- get a solid grasp of all the theorists I've faked knowing for years
- learn to do cryptic crosswords
- do something political that feels like it makes a difference. Bonus if it's militantly political and involves placards, rallies, or the possibility of arrest.
- finally see Ani DiFranco in concert, in a yet-to-be-determined city
- read at least two books a month that have absolutely nothing to do with my degree
- learn about and/or drink a lot of pretentious wines
- write my thesis

I feel obligated to put that last one on there.

Nostalgia, Much?

I can't believe I forgot to delete this.

To Italy, With Love

In my early, early days of blogging - like, about five years ago, using Xanga before I was even on Blogger - I backpacked across Italy for eight weeks as a researcher-writer for Let's Go. It was pretty much the best job ever for a scrappy, bright-eyed nineteen year old who'd never left the country. I got to see a ton of tiny towns along the way, but the tradeoff was that I missed Milan, Florence, Turin, and other big cities that weren't on my route.

This weekend, I had a retreat outside of Milan, in Stresa, at the hotel where most of A Farewell to Arms is set. (And now I have to read A Farewell to Arms, but whatever.) We got a bit of free time, but mostly we stuck around the hotel and learned stuff. This was fine, as it was a totally sweet, totally five star hotel, and everyone at the retreat was lovely.
So we got to spend a grand total of two hours in Stresa. My mission for the weekend was to hunt down gelato - straciatella or bacio, preferably - to relive my summer of eating gelato, oh, twice a day, sometimes instead of meals. I went hiking up through Stresa with a couple of the other people on the retreat, then ducked away as we reentered the city center to find gelato. (It was probably better that I did it alone. I was kind of a man possessed.) Anyway, I found it, and I got a scoop of each and I devoured it along the shore of Lake Maggiore and I was basically totally and completely content with my life and the universe and my existence at that moment. And that, for only two Euros.
So this was Lake Maggiore. Totally beautiful.
And this was Isola Bella, where we had dinner on Friday.
I like this guy. Way to drink at noon, sir.
I spent most of the working portion of the weekend in this villa. We got the room on the terrace, which was great until we were attacked by a single bee who drove us all inside. We're a pretty rugged bunch.
The chandelier in my room, which was pretty much never on because I was a) out, b) enjoying my bathtub, or c) watching post-VP debate updates.
Sigh. I think I need to go back to Italy at some point.

"That is Friggin' Hot!"

Also, I've been all morose for the past couple of days about everyone leaving, but the incoming grad students are actually pretty awesome. Proof? Yesterday, this guy who lives across the courtyard from me invited me over for raspberry echinachea tea and we hung out, and then I went to President's Drinks (albeit in my pajamas and drinking a screwdriver, because I'm sick and I think orange juice is still supposed to help when it's combined with one part vodka) and spent about an hour talking with this girl about Flava of Love, the Hills, Hogan Knows Best, and the Girls Next Door. Like, not just reality TV, but the dregs of reality TV. I told her this in a moment of frankness (too frank? too soon?), but she reminds me of Anna Farris. And that is magical.

Empty Threats

If my bank in the UK and my bank in the US can't figure out which of them lost $150 in that inexplicably botched wire transfer in July (both are currently blaming Wachovia, because hey, why not?), I'm closing out my accounts on Monday. And being $8000 richer, I plan to spend it on iTunes downloads, because Jay Brannan, Dar Williams, and Jenny Lewis all have new(ish) CDs I want. I cracked and bought the Jay Brannan one today, but I will buy it twice, because you can do that when you have $8000 dollars. And just to be a bitch, I might tell everyone I did it because of the financial crisis and spark a bunch of bank runs and a generalized sense of panic. You deserve it, jerks.