Odds and Ends

by J J Cohen

I'm back from Maine. I wasn't gone long -- less than a week, just enough time to visit three sisters and celebrate mom and dad's 52nd wedding anniversary in their favorite chowder house. And eat doughnuts, pancakes, whoopee pies. And oh yes, hike in a nature preserve at an estuary to work off the accumulated adiposity. Great stuff, and a good way to be in a rested state of mind as term begins.

Here are a few things to share as I take a break from catching up on unanswered emails.

• Let history record that I once ordered 6 old fashioneds in a bar in York. I am hoping that I didn't drink them all myself, but that night is a blur.
• You can find an in process bibliography for medieval Anglo-Jewry here.
• I like the stone temporality of this comic.
• Unicorns need not fear the Red Bull so much as BEARS!
• Stephanie Trigg has two beautiful posts (one, two) on a subject that pulls at my heart. Our family dog Scooby died only six months ago and it still feels raw.
• You might enjoy this picture if you didn't see it on Facebook.
• Don't forget our GW MEMSI Objects CFP.
• Which of these queer theorists doesn't belong? My paper is due September 10, and stands at about 30% complete. The two weeks ahead = not fun. But then I get to go to Berlin.
• Despite my good intentions, I didn't run at all in Maine. Yesterday I arose at 5 AM, though, and did my circuit. The moon was nearly full, the wind was cool, the world seemed at ease with itself. Four straight hours of graduate exams later in the day took only some of that calm from me.

OK, enough procrastinating. Emails to answer, and then a nature walk with my daughter: our last day of freedom before school starts Monday.