Thanks for the happy comment, Kate...it's good to know someone still sees this. : )

This week Stacey's back in Indiana visiting her family (and mine, too, actually) while the school where she works is on spring break. Among other things, this means that Flannery (the young cat, for those who may not know) stays with me for a few days this week. She can be quite wild sometimes but also very affectionate, and she tends to be even more of both when it's just me without Stacey around (probably because I let her get away with more of her shenanigans). Right now I'm working on a paper exploring the correlation between the Romantic theory of art and psychedelic rock music (one of my favorite things to ever work on, but unfortunately just one paper out of many for my Culture of the 60s class this semester)...which means much of my evening is tied up with working on that. Flannery, poor thing, desires attention and hops up on my keyboard and blocks my screen sometimes. We did go outside and play for quite some time early yesterday evening, so it's not like I just ignore her while I'm home. She ended up rolling around in the dirt like a puppy and may be a bit grubby when Stacey gets back Friday night.

Anyway, before I become one of those people whose anecdotes primarily consist of animal stories and hints that mental stability is only around because of a pet, I'll move on to something else.

This is Holy Week. Lent has been rough this year because I've not only been very busy but also because self-control isn't exactly one of my stronger suits. This week especially just doesn't feel right: I have class on Maundy Thursday and will miss mass and all that accompanies it that night. I don't really have any vacation or personal time I can use to go to Good Friday services in the afternoon and God forbid this university make any allowances for that sort of thing. Of course, I'm the only one to cover phones on Friday afternoons, anyway, so it probably wouldn't have gone over well either way.

It's 9am and I'm craving Chinese food. I'll have to hold out until 5pm and grab some on the way home. The Cubs play tonight so I'm sure that'll be a nice distraction from the paper that's due tomorrow.

Lately I keep thinking quite a bit about a story I started a couple months ago knowing full well I wouldn't get back to it anytime soon. I guess that's what summer is for...I'm taking the summer off from school after I graduate in early May. It's a story about America and hair.

Go Cubs.