fox

so, tuesday, the conversation with LGB and le boy turned to what would be a good name for a band. i forget what the turn of phrase was that started that topic, but whatever it was, it would have been an excellent name for a band. i mentioned that datlowen thinks his brother's band's first album should be called self-titled debut. le boy mentioned that he knows of a band that released an album called album by the same name. i pointed to rem's eponymous. (LGB was mostly walking in the same direction, because he lives across the street from me.)

le boy then said that as far as he was concerned, he still thought the best band name was one he and his last roommate came up with: viennese wookiee. and he tipped back his head and gave (a surprisingly good, actually) impression of chewbacca.

LGB and i both laughed, and i asked what was viennese about that. le boy, evidently not having heard the whole question, looked at me like i had two heads and said "from vienna." no, i said, what about that sound makes viennese a good description of it. "well, the fact that you're grinning suggests to me that it's a successful name for a band. it's funny, dammit!" but it would be funnier if it were relevant. the sound you made -- "that's a wookiee sound." i know it's a wookiee sound; i'm saying, also make it viennese. "how do you suggest i do that?" i don't know -- do it with an umlaut.

le boy actually attempted to do a wookiee imitation with an umlaut (that is, with rounded lips; the difference between the sound we spell ee in english and the sound the french spell u). it wasn't bad.

later, i sent an e-mail to say it had occurred to me that another way to make the "viennese" part of the name accurate would be to have the wookiees perform all their music exclusively in 3/4 time (and incidentally wishing le boy luck on finals).

i have just received the following: I'm very impressed by anybody who can spell "wookiee" correctly. good luck to you as well - <<grin>>

there's something very sadly ironic about this. at the moment, though, i'm too tired to articulate it. time for me to sleep. you may all chuckle at me tomorrow.

came in to class a couple minutes late yesterday, as is his habit, and crossed the room to sit near me.

and then didn't say a word.

> you owe me money? seriously, from when? I hope it's
> been accruing interest. let me know when you're free,
> sometime this weekend perhaps, and I'll catch up on it.

when: i seem to recall your lending me a card when i had copies to make before my typology presentation last semester.
interest: not when the delay in repayment is the fault of the lender. sorry. ;-)
this weekend: i'll be hitting the road around 3:00 on friday to head up to washington for curling, and i'll probably be up there through sunday; how's tomorrow evening?

the current sinking feeling is due almost entirely to a growing suspicion that the child doesn't understand what we (as linguists) might call the "deep structure" of the invitation, let's go get a beer.

the above is the subject line of an e-mail from le boy. it sits in my mailbox waiting for me to open it. i have not yet done so; my instinct was to fall on it like a starving animal, but i suppressed it. i've been thinking about various things it might say:

"sorry i haven't responded before now -- i've been waiting to hear back from my psychic advisor."

"the thing is, not only am i underage, but i'm also mormon, so i can't go out with you and i certainly can't drink beer."

"i completely tanked on the last morph assignment; think we can work together on the one she's handing out on thursday?"

"um ... what?"

(all this, of course, being in case it doesn't say "oh my god, i blew it, didn't i.")

am currently at work. will do some work for a while and let it mellow. after three weeks, what's a couple more hours? right? (though a good friend has already weighed in with "stop wondering what it says and open the damned thing!")

wow, long couple of weeks to be gone. i've read all the lj posts i can get to from here, but apparently the friends-view won't allow me to look longer ago than 300 entries. [shrug] it appears that, on balance, most folks' solstice-equivalent and new year's celebrations were on the positive side, for which i'm glad. (and for those that were nothing of the sort, i'm sorry.) my own christmas was lovely; new year's was also smashing, apart from the raging sinus infection i'd managed to acquire on about the 30th. feh.

met darthhellokitty and kingchiron, who gave me a yellow stuffed hurt-comfort plot bunny that had been tended (one ear had wee stitches and a bandage) by a 'dr. foxx.' rock on. we met for lunch at 1:30 and schmoozed (schmoze?) until 5:00, when i realized oh my goodness i should get to my friends' to start helping fix dinner.

delighted to see cesperanza here -- welcome to the jungle, dude. and i'm vaguely bummed to have missed the elf challenge, but i don't speak tolkein well enough to write characters i do know in the elvish paradigm, so i wouldn't have been able to play anyhow. i'll have to get over there and read it some time, though. :-)

curling: friday, played excellent well. my whole team was missing, so i had two subs and we played as a three. technically, i should have skipped, and the subs should have thrown three rocks each, but one of the subs is quite a good skip and i'm just not ready for that kind of responsibility, so he skipped and i viced and the other guy (brand new this fall) threw lead. we did very well. saturday, drove up to new jersey for the same friendly-sort-of-thing i did in philadelphia last month, and played like veritable crap. something just wasn't coming together. i'll need to work on this.

intended to stay up in dc saturday night, catch TTT with some friends sunday afternoon and then curl sunday evening, but felt like utter shit so i drove home to sleep in my own bed the sooner instead. paid the rent on my way to my apartment, and a good thing, too, because sunday i barely left my bed, much less the building. woke up at 11 am after twelve hours of sleep, took two advil and two advil cold & sinus, and went back to bed for another seven hours. oy. (plus, it turned out they canceled curling on sunday. so i made the right choice.)

today, sinus infection continues to clear up, thanks to mmmdrugs; retrieved mail, which included prezzies and cards and also a jacket i'd mistakenly left in florida; discovered that car, which suffered nasty flat tire on friday (due to running over a pothole in which one could have planted a tree; would have dodged it, but this would have caused collision with traffic coming the other direction), needs not only a new tire but a whole new wheel. ugh. ordered wheel. winced.

am now about to make some dinner, and either watch a little FOTR-dvd action, or read a bit and go to bed. last few days without family obligations but before semester begins again = v. nice.

oh! and update on le boy: he seems not to have gotten the earlier fox-isn't-a-fraidy-cat-let's-get-a-beer e-mail. over the break, i got [paraphrase] "i still have your book; i can either give it back to you spring semester, or if you can't wait, i can send it right away, in which case i'll need to know where to send it. (clever way to get addresses, eh? i'm so artful.) hope you're well, [signed]." [/paraphrase] i cursed and spat and consulted with my friend and her fiance, and ultimately (between having been access-less and travelling and then contemplating, it had been about a week) responded with "i'm sure spring semester is fine -- give me a call and we'll arrange a drop-off. i'm at [number]. (now who's being artful?) happy new year, [signed]." within twelve hours, i'd gotten back "you're so artful. [signed]." so i'm doing my best not to wait for the phone to ring. ;-)

"don't i owe you money? we ought to go get a beer some time."

can i get a judge's ruling on that? acceptable, or just too trite for words?