eight things, mostly non-sequitur

Hi everyone--thank you for your emails, comments, and calls. We're all fine. A little shaken up still--it's just so unreal!--and I can't believe a major artery into the city has been cut, literally.

(They said it was like a wave, it went up and then down and then crack, it broke and the whole thing fell.)

My secret hope, immediately, was that this would spawn a neighborhood/green transit/centers of commerce model like you lucky Portlanders, New Yorkers, and Europeans have: buses and trains, bike paths and walkways with lots of mixed development and street-level retail spaces (with low rents so that those of us whose dream is to have a shop in one of those some day could actually do that). No more freeway! Neighborhood-centered commerce! More e-commuting! 35-hour workweeks! Community gardens in the passage where the road used to be! Bike paths!

Maybe I breathed in too many fumes.
Someone tagged me to write eight things about myself. I already did this, but I'll do it again, this time as an exercise in brevity (some of you know what I'm talking about!)

1/ I'm nervous about writing the dissertation I'll have to do in Nottingham. There are a few reasons for this: first, I want it to be really good (of course) and original, not only in content but in form. Second, I've never written something that's 300 pages before. Um. 300. 3. 0. 0. Third, my other degrees used a lot of analysis but not a lot of original research. So I'll have to learn how to do that well right away.

2/ That said, I'm immensely glad to be heading back to school. I love it.

3/ I love the song "Penny Lane."

4/ My life doesn't seem unusual to me, but it seems to be so to other people. This year I've really become aware of that. Is that just how it is?

5/ Conversation about nothing (small talk) makes me really uncomfortable.
6/ I don't give compliments unless I mean them, which has caused some difficulty in my relations with other young women. It's not a purposeful attitude; it just makes me feel really uncomfortable to do so. Inauthentic.

7/ As a rule I swear very little (except with a couple of friends). There just weren't any better words last night (although there were a choice few worse ones), so sorry about that.

8/ I have a taste for The Office (yes, I saw the British one; yes, I loved it. But then I found the True Path...and it is the American version. Ha! I think what does it for me is the very, very Americanness of it. And the way the characters develop--which, to be fair, is because U.S. television permits that by never ending. It was a powerful anti-homesickness antidote while I was in France).

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I want to thank all of the people who are sending things for One in Ten. It's unbelievably generous and touching. And thanks also to all you people who have emailed since I've stopped accepting things--wish I had enough brain power to manage an auction as big as your care. xo.

See you soon.