oh spring...

there are a lot of things about d.c. that make me happy and sad at the same time.exhibit a:exhibit b:it's weird to think that these were part of my everyday life just a year ago. but at least there are buds on the trees here and all the snow has melt...

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bliss is an achievable state

I like the Beardsely boys for many reasons (one of them being that they have a dance floor in their basement and impeccably clean fingernails--something I have never managed to have). But tonight they really outdid themselves. I got to Melissa's Ice Cream Social Birthday Party a little late because I was dining with my lovely supper clubbers (Pagliai's Pizza really is the Best Pizza in Iowa City). I thought I was too full for icecream. But then I...

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i love this

so, so much"narwhal horn" by lesser gonzalez alvarez @import url(//beemp3.com/player/embed.css); Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez - Narwhal Horn Found at bee mp3 search eng...

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BOOKS TO LIVE BY: THE HISTORY OF LOVE

Outside there is green coming up from the ground and red buds unfurling from once bare branches. I am inside writing an essay about umbrellas and music and places I have been. It makes me glad to research things but more glad to remember things. Like New Oxford Street, a little east of Bloomsbury Square, where there is the bookstore that I went to one day because I was sad and everywhere there was fog and rain. I had no umbrella. I went into that...

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THINGS I LEARNED IN WISCONSIN

1. The guy at the Fennimore cheese house will gladly take a picture of you and your group in front of a giant mouse named Igor as long as you 1) wear the foam cheese hats 2) eat the sample of "cheese fudge" he likes 3) gush over the squeakiness of the cheese curd (very squeaky!) and 4) ask nicely. He will also give you free postcards!2. If something sparkly catches your eye in a town named Dickeyville, it is entirely good and proper to swerve off...

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mission(s) completed

1. House = cleaned (finally). It was one of those things that went on forever and I think I kind of wanted it that way so that everyday I had a small task to do to procrastinate the meat of the work I had/have to do (grant proposals, writing, grading, building things, trying to be a good friend and a well-rounded adult with actual goals--not as easy as I wanted it to be, it turns out).2. Dishes = washed (finally). This was a triumph. A real, solid triumph that I can wrap my arms around.3. Dinner = gourmet-fied and eaten with friends. Sometimes...

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IS THIS HEAVEN?

For those of you who haven't a) been to Iowa or b) seen the hit movie Field of Dreams, the answer is always, always, always, "YES!" [Said resoundingly and ideally punctuated with some form of fistpump.] Warren was skeptical. But that was before we went to "Southern Iowa's largest cheese factory" and watched a whole lot of cheese curd being ferried along things that resembled moving sidewalks, the kind at airports (and the kind I'd like to see flanking...

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A Night In Paris/Under The Sea/To Remember

Iowa is all about parties. Especially if they require party dresses from junior proms and so much Sinead O'Connor and Boyz II Men your heart will melt straight out of your chest and into the punch bowl. Suffice it to say, the first annual Nonfiction Prom was a raging success. Here's proof:Sensual slow dancing by the night's best prom-ers (and, incidentally, prom king and queen)The organizers. Annie: "Dreams DO come true! XOXOXOX!!!!"Dylan & me:...

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urban dictionary hating on narwhals

which i kind of love, in a twisted way. witness: club narwhal - A sensitive noob/child acting like a hypocrite. Originated from clubbed narwhal. [um, saddest ever?]Sometimes also used to say someone has no attention span. Often used in forums and chat rooms, on a troll or noob.Jane: Yure meen! i luv animels youre meen to them retard i want to kill you!Jean: You're a club narwhal! i was going to write about the nonfiction writer's prom (which was...

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blog lurkers, the meanest mom needs YOUR help!

I don't know if any of you are familiar with my sister's off the hook blog, The Meanest Mom, but you should be. I'm very in love with it, and not just because she's my sister. Friends, my sister's tale is a truly American one, a regular Horatio Alger. Read about how she got started here. From humble beginnings, as all truly American tales begin, her blog has been so well loved in its one year of existence that she is now up for a sweet award. So, take 2 seconds right now and VOTE FOR HER! (Scroll down and the voting thing will be there.) This is...

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sometimes you should blog about things that actually matter to you

Because sometimes, after you get workshopped, you walk into the night where it is very cold and cry. Not because the workshop was mean and nasty (in fact, it was quite the opposite, a success one could say) but because you just do. Maybe for relief or ambivalence or frustration or all of the above. You walk a little, cry, walk, cry. Then you get a phone call. You pull yourself together. You drive to the bar to meet everyone and everyone is drinking alcohol and eating hot nuts (yes, literally from a machine called "hot nuts") and because you don't...

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also

good internet-generation folks that they are, the radio people put my interview with caroline smith and the good night sleeps on their blog, which you can hear here. (they played a gorgeous, gorgeous in-studio with many a finger snaps and banjo pickin...

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2 degrees from awesome

This is how it happened: I bought a digital voice recorder. Then I went to do some interviews at the radio station. There was a girl there I had never met. We immediately hit it off, mostly because she was talking about the Oscars, namely: that she had just returned from them. "Yeah, my dad was nominated for some stuff he did on Benjamin Button." Real casual was the way she said that. "Uh. What?" I said. "Yeah, I don't know for like sound mixing...

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