shadows, obscure holiday tales, and a deadline

Today I find great comfort in the laws of physics. Despite my firm belief in God's mystical transcendence of the created universe, I take joy in the order and structure that generally characterizes it. The woods outside my window, for example. They are sparse and bare, the forest floor covered with a skin of snow, and the sunshine sends stripes of tree shadows at regular and defined angles to the ground.

This is what I love about bare winter days: The stillness, the stark beauty, and the structure. It's easier to notice the governing of nature's laws when most of nature is hibernating or dead.

Although evidence of life is scattered quite liberally over the snow. My balcony is covered with tufts of feathers from the other day's mating performances.

So, William Had a Headache Day was a bizarre and hilarious success. Gretchen has joined our troupe of crusaders who will dedicatedly celebrate this holiday for years to come. We held the momentous event at the Fiddler's Hearth, a wonderful Irish pub in downtown South Bend, where I discovered a new beer: Belhaven Scottish Ale, a rich caramel beverage with slight carbonation and a thick and bitter aftertaste. Mmm. (It is not, as I learned, a beer to be drunk quickly.)

Marianne and Gretchen have better tales of this on their blogs, but I will say that the strangeness escalated with the evening. The usually vivacious and chatty philosophy department duo who joined us were a little melancholy, although recitations of Wordsworth's more sexual poems cheered them with the awfulness of the poetry. A particularly undesirable acquaintance committed the unforgivable social faux-pas of asking Marianne to dinner in front of said philosophy duo who did not rush to her aid, while Gretchen and I, who would have, were busy chatting up a cute Canadian Irish dancer whom Gretchen accosted and dragged to our table because I refused to garner the nerve to speak to him myself, despite the fact that he had apparently been checking me out all night, and so were unaware of Marianne's plight. So there we were, a crazy tableau in a noisy Irish bar with live jigs in the background, gathering in honor of William Wordsworth and absolutely falling to pieces in the end. All in all, and particularly because of its Twilight Zone flavors, I think the holiday was a success.

On another note: I turned in my application to the Notre Dame Graduate School, a full twenty-three hours and fifty-six minutes before the deadline. For most of you that is probably a narrow squeak; for me that is a world record in timeliness and being prepared. Now begins the waiting, but at least I can sit it out without feeling guilty for avoiding working on it.

Today is domestic day; I have laundry and cleaning to do before work tonight. And now for more coffee.