When it rains, it pours... er....

The plows passed through this morning, but because they don't appear to know how to deal with snow in Kansas, they didn't actually remove any snow... or even push it onto the verges on the sides of the road. On the hill leading up to campus today, we have a single lane. What makes it even better? A year or so ago, neighborhood nannies decided to have the city to install little barriers in the middle of all the intersections. You guessed it: There's almost no way to get around them right now.

But here's the kicker: It appears that a water main broke near campus. On the plus side, the massive river of water running down the hill is melting the snow-drifts caused by the crappy plowing. On the down side, tomorrow's high will remain around zero, and tonight we should reach -12°F before windchill factors. Add teen-aged Kansas drivers and hilarity ensues.

I had a real blast trying to get up the hill (on an alternate route) in my Saab - a car designed for winters. In fact, at some point I simply gave up and turned around, which was fun on a one-lane-wide road buried in snow. I learned how to drive in Minnesota, and you couldn't pick a better car for this stuff, and yet. Imagine 18-year-olds in rear-drive SUVs. Good times.

At least it's Friday, so we have a couple of days before the work week resumes. Perhaps by Monday, when students and teachers will be on campus, the hill will be ice-free. It'll require heroic measures, but it could happen!

Chris

Tags: weather-porn

The travel went pretty well, about as expected. Only when I got out of the subway did I go wrong: north instead of south, east instead of west, taking 45 minutes to go a half mile. Still, it's a pretty interesting area of Hollywood: Sunset Boulevard. city of dreams. Like that.

I got to the theatre well before opening time (8:45pm) and Jim came dashing out. "The knife is missing," he said. "We have to get a new knife! Want to come with?" Well of course.

He resisted my idea of popping into the liquor store (have you seen those toy aisles at liquor stores? scary.) and we walked (quickly) to ralphs. As it happens, Jim was in charge of that one particular prop... and the puppetry troup that used the theatre before the play absconded with it. So he was on a Quest.

And Ralphs had no toy knives.

So we got to his car and drove to Santa Monica Blvd and the Target. Underground parking ramps, tires squealing, hidden elevators... and Target had nothing that would suit. Time crunch: had to be back before the show started at 9:30! We actually made it back (empty-handed) by 9:15. Talk about a fast tour of Hollywood!

Anyway, Sasha was there as a result of Jim's invite. So while Jim prepped for his performance, Sasha and I conversed. He's funny. Not just funny-looking :).

And more laterwhn I return.

Have you ever said exactly the right thing at the right time?  I rarely do.  It's always an accident when it happens.

This morning, one of my sophomores came in early (as she often does).  She's a big-boned, square-jawed girl who loves Mary Queen of Scots and knitting.  She also is doing some local theater, so she was grousing to another student about the part they gave her in Alice in Wonderland.  She's cast as a flower.

She said, "I don't mind being a flower, really, but a flower is small and delicate.  Look at me."  She waved her hand at herself.

I said, "Maybe they chose you for your grace."

She lit up.

I wish I could script moments like that.

Tags: teaching
Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: "Awaken," Yes

Taylor Swift's video for "You Belong with Me" reminds me that I've been wondering if there's an entire region of the country designed differently from what I've known. Specifically, a land where high school boys and girls have bedroom windows facing each other, and they develop relationships through those windows, only to see those relationships blossom into romances.

I'm reminded of the first Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movie (2002) in which he and Mary Jane know all about each other's lives because they live right next to each other. Well, they don't really communicate with each other, but Peter hears all the arguments in Mary Jane's house, and knows exactly what's going on over there.

In The Girl Next Door (2004), a retiring porn star moves in next door to a geeky high school boy, and their relationship forms when he looks out his bedroom window and watches her undress, and then she catches him, and things go from there. He develops some coolth through being with her, and she softens to the idea of relationships.

In Paris Hilton's 2006 video for the song "Nothing in this World", she pretty much echoes The Girl Next Door, although she may not be a porn star.

Finally, there's Taylor Swift in last year's "You Belong with Me", turning around the story only to the point that she, the girl, is the geek, and the boy is cool one she's pining for.

None of my bedroom windows ever faced any other bedroom, let alone that of the gorgeous girl next door. So I'm wondering, is there an entire segment of the country in which relationships develop because boys and girls watch each other through their bedroom windows, or is it only in Hollywoodland?

Tags: music, sociology

• 18:21 @ragnarwalton you're welcome! Thank you for the lush oranges! #
• 18:23 @ragnarwalton Will and Yvonne came by. They'll try again tomorrow. #

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I watch way too many complete seasons of television shows.  It's an addiction.  Name the usual suspects, and I've seen them.  All of Buffy.  All of Angel.  Firefly, twice.  Torchwood.  Smallville.  Dark Angle.  Moonlight.  True Blood. . .  Well, the list goes on and on.  Almost all of the shows have a romantic subplot.  In many of the cases, the romance is what holds the show together.  Was there any real reason to watch Roswell other than to see if Liz and Max would get together?  Even the marginal fantasy show, Veronica Mars, was just as much about Veronica and Logan as it was about the mysteries she solved.

So, I realized there's an entire category of discussion about genre television that I've never heard discussed:  in all of the television series in science fiction/fantasy/horror, who was the best couple?  Which two characters generated the most heat?  Who did you care about the most that their relationship would work?  Who was the most believable at the emotional level?

I know my vote tonight, after watching the first five episodes of the second season.  Without a doubt, the couple I think is the most convincing and whose story I care the most about is Chuck Bartowski and Agent Sarah Walker from the show, Chuck.

Long live the king and queen!

Besides, I have to love a show that keeps Adam Balwin in front of the camera.

You're welcome to promote your own nominations.

Tags: television
Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: "In My Place," Cold Play

And now we can rest easy, knowing that pretty much everyone associated with a certain magazine has said something extremely silly on the Internet this week.

Thank God tomorrow is Friday.

Former Phelps County resident Lowell Doric Aughenbaugh, 47, was apprehended Sunday in Rolla and charged with making a terroristic threat.
D. Andrew Davis, a detective with the Phelps County Sheriff’s Department, described Aughenbaugh as a survivalist. Law enforcement agencies gathered a cache of almost 100 firearms, some of which had been converted to automatic; 300,000 rounds of ammunition, and a number of bomb-making items that the suspect had allegedly stashed around Phelps County when he lived there.



Aughenbaugh, eh? Aaaaw-en-baw. I'm not racist or anything, but just look at 'im, with the beady blue eyes of a born felon!



Goddmaned unassimilable Celts. (I hear the President might be related to this guy!) They just come here to this country to grub for potatoes and police officer jobs, then turn terrorist because they hate our freedoms and light sweaters. I say ship 'em all back and for the love of God stop naming airports O'Hare! You'll give these people crazy ideas.


Aaaaaw-en-bbaaaaaaaawww. *shudders*

Going to a play tonight in Hollywood. This entails a journey.

Take the Orange County 60 to the Long Beach Veterans Hospital ($1.50, about 70 mins.)
Take any of a number of Long Beach Transit buses into downtown long beach ($1.10, about 30 mins.)
Take the Metro Blue Line into downtown Los Angeles ($1.25, about an hour.)
Take the Red Line subway into Hollywood ($1.25, about ten minutes.)

Cake and pie.

OH, the play, you ask? "7 Deadly Sins." Should be a fun way to celebrate the slow decline into Lent!


http://www.berubians.com/content/view/84/80/

---

Not gonna have my flash in "Running With the Pack." Too short for her needs. Ah well. It's the only news I've had for a couple weeks now on anything, so that's good anyway. Though I think I have a pretty good story for Warrior Wisewomen 3; we'll see how that goes.

For 2010:

We will accept novel/collection queries during these months:
January
February
June
July
November
December

We won't accept novel/collection queries during these months:
March
April
May
August
September
October

We need those months between submission periods to produce and market the current projects.

Remember, query first and if your book sounds like something that will work for us, then we'll ask for sample chapters. Also remember that just because we don't think the book will work for us that we don't think it's an exceptional idea.

Hadley Rille Books

Tags: 2010, collection, novel, queries, schedule