E-cards for the rest of us.

Just in time for her birthday, Alice has discovered the antidote for all the puppies, kittens, and baby monkeys dancing on top of cakes that you see on the saccharine e-cards that seem to be the standard. Yes, Someecards has ecards for the rest of us: ecards for when you care enough to hit send.

Alice's birthday celebration.

Tonight we celebrated Alice's birthday with a small gathering at Leopold's. Actually, I drove down from Pinckney and met her for dinner first, and I drove us both over after. I had my first meal at Argerio's, which was so decidedly mediocre, I almost wish it had remained a pleasant thought. Alice's bruschette more closely resembled english muffin pizzas than any bruschetta I'd seen before. Ah, well. Ann Arbor.

If I didn't have plans to meet Jess for a martini at Cafe Felix tomorrow, I'd probably meet up with Alice and the crew again for a real birthday dinner (since tomorrow is the real day). But this is the first time I'll ever meet Jess to visit, so I'm excited and don't want to try to reschedule, which inevitably turns into "Let's meet for a coffee sometime" in the lives of grad students, it seems. At least this one, anyway. My failure to meet Jenay and Katie despite a handful of emails back and forth is a fine case in point. We're just too damned busy.

This whole blogging thing feels a bit unnatural. It's one thing if it's a really specific thing, like a food blog or a political blog or a travel blog. But just an everyday chat about being a graduate student blog? We'll see how it goes.

Rain on the lake.

I'd been waiting for the rain all day, watching the gray sky for signs of droplets. It's always a relief when it finally comes. Often I can see it first as interruptions of the placid surface of the water on the lake before I see it in the air, or hear it landing on the flat planes of roof, soil, and gravel.

It is a relief also to have a few days of quiet and rest. The schedule of graduate school, even the modified one I've been pursuing this semester to slow down and take a step back to try to see the forest, is rather overwhelming most of the time. I'm teaching this semester, and it's time-consuming and very demanding. The commute to Detroit on Fridays to continue my internship at AFG is also somewhat taxing. But everything I'm doing is exciting and fills me with a sense of possibility . . .

Welcome . . .

Dear friend, thank you for stopping by. I'd love it if you'd say hello -- please don't be shy. And if you haven't the time to read, feel free to skip over the bla-bla and just browse the posts with pictures. :)