Friend of My LaserJet

Here is a picture of the most handsome dude in Montreal, possibly even the world, taken about thirty seconds ago:


LOOK AT THAT FACE
I wish I could just squeeze him right now! Oh wait, I can! BECAUSE HE LIVES WITH ME!!!

Today: sat down with Dr. Manish Sharma, my official RA (Ridiculously Awesome) boss for the coming year. I'm going to be working for him on his new academic project, which he told me all about today. This meeting involved, on my part, a lot of solemn head-nodding and saying things like, "Hmmm, yes, I see." But seriously, I understood most of what he was describing to me (I *think* that, very broadly speaking, he is planning on taking contemporary lit theory and philosophy and using it to reexamine Old English texts)... and even if it does seem a little beyond me at this point, he was just so darned enthusiastic about it all that I got caught up in it too, and now I feel really excited. Whoooo, Deleuze in the house! (apparently most of my grunt work will involve reading lots and lots of this guy). Manish has never had an RA before, and I've never been an RA before, but we both agreed to make it a learning adventure (because those are the best kind of adventures, after all!). He was all, "I just got a SSHRC so now I can hire an assistant!" and I was all, "Dude, I just got a SSHRC, too! Where's my monkey?"

I start in November. Very exciting.

So, in other news, the story I've been working lately (which has shouldered aside all the other work I should be doing right now) was originally supposed to be about ten pages long, but it has since swollen like a hammered thumb to an unwieldy thirty, and still going. I seem to have taken to heart Patrick McCabe's advice of "writing it all" on the first draft, without regard to the personal editing impulse. I'm worried that I have not only disregarded my personal editing impulse, but have actually squashed it altogether, for good! I'm also worried about how much it's going to cost me to photocopy this mess for everyone in my workshop. I seem to have a rapport with the dudes at the copy center though, since I'm in there jamming up their machines nearly every day, so maybe I can get a deal. Anyway, now I need to come up with a title. I am resentful of Alice Munro for already having a story called Friend of My Youth. That is such a good title and now my brain keeps thinking for a while and then saying, "I know! How about Friend of My Youth?" And I am all "Urrrgh that's already taken, remember?!" And my brain is all, "Oh yeah, my bad." Then, five minutes later, the same thing! Once in a while I get, "I know! How about Love of a Good Woman?" Which doesn't even bear any relevance to my story. Grrr, brain. Grrr, brilliant Alice Munro. Grrrr, lack of personal editing skills.

Yay, tycho!