My brother Ian wants to move to Hawaii and live in a sailboat. He also enjoys poker.
Me: Bad news–all gambling is illegal in Hawaii.
Ian: Illegal gambling isn’t!
Category: Family
I only found out by way of Jon and Amanda that my second cousin Dawn blogs. Her writing is frank, observant, self-deprecating and frequently caustic. It’s also really, really funny:
“Does this say something about my friend group?
I lost my virginity in room 116 of the Economy Inn in Danville, KY. Centre College students called it the pink hotel, in reference to the color of the neon lights decorating its roof. Oh, and immediately after the completion of the act my loving then-boyfriend (also a virgin) looked at me and said, ‘You know, that was alright, but I’m definitely glad I didn’t wait to get married.’
After taking Heather’s virginity, her boyfriend said, ‘Well, you had to pay for your dinner somehow.’
An anonymous friend lost her virginity to her 31-year-old manager at the Honey-Baked Ham store.
Katherine lost her virginity to a boy nick-named ‘Soup Can’. She cried the whole time.
My personal consolation is that the Pink Hotel has since been bull-dozed to the ground.”
She and I went to Centre together, and we were always friendly, but also a few degrees of network-separation apart. If you read this, Dawn, I’d like to state that I officially regret not hanging out with you more.
Late announcements of acceptance
Caitlan has the opportunity to prove my Oxford predictions right, and Sumana is entering the prestigious Fog Creek Software Management Training Program. I put a lot of effort into finding and cultivating friendships with extraordinary people, and then I’m still surprised when they do such extraordinary things! Not that I found Caitlan, I suppose; I just watched her find herself.
I will probably post about presents later
For the first time, I can say that I’ve posted a year’s worth of Anacrusis without skipping a single day. It would have been much sooner but for the two days I missed before last year’s Worst Christmas Ever.
Christmas was much better this year, but we all missed Joe.
Adkins Anglophilia
My sister is home safe from England, and my mother–budding NewsBruiser hacker–is using the import feature to document her own trip from last July.
Ian has been and gone, leaving giggles and makeouts in his wake. Thank you very, very much to Deb Core, Sumana Harihareswara, Joan Wood, Sharon Calhoun, Lisa Brown, Scott Stauble, Kyle Neumann, Angel Brooks, Ken Moore, Monica Willett, Sean Hoban, and especially Maria, whose idea this was in the first place. You guys are the champions of friendship!
HEY BALLERS. There will exist, this week, an unprecedented Wednesday Night Basketball because that’s when Ian will be here. There will be games and pizza. There will be shouting. Tuesday Night Basketball will not happen, because we will need the evening to fortify the apartment against you barbarians, but if Scott and Yale and Kilz0r are available we should try to do the thing with the stuff, that night. Right?
PS If you have pledged money toward the Bring Ian Home Fund and want to give it to us so you get to sign the card, the next few days would be ideal for that–we’ll be handing it over Wednesday night. (If you have already paid but can’t be there, we will forge your signature.) Thanks very, very much to everyone who has helped with this!
I associate exclusively with overachievers
- As my mother reports, my sister will be interviewed for an appointment to continue studying at Oxford. My predictions are on target so far! Yay Caitlan!
- I have been thinking lately of what a little expletive I was from, oh, about ages nine through nineteen; my hyper, piping self-absorption stands in sharp contrast to Sumana’s high school martyr complex, but I still identify strongly with the behavior she describes. I wish my motivation had been as progressive as hers, and I wish I regularly could come up with the kind of beautiful phrasing she uses at the end of the column. (But read the whole thing first, dammit.)