“Most forms of rage, after all, are only sloppy cloaks for grief.”

–Steve Almond

First, let’s have the good news. When you haven’t seen your friend for a whole year, there’s a lot to catch up on. You know, great haircut! You’re looking thin/fat/indifferent/one foot in the grave, etc.

Last time you saw me, I was trying desperately to finish my Master’s degree and my thesis. Good news: I am now officially a librarian, as of August 2004 (area of specialization: Britney Spears). It felt so weird to graduate and not post pictures here. My daughter walked across the stage with me and I did not wear a dopey gown and mortarboard hat. Can you think of a less flattering look? Maybe if you added thongs and tube socks to the ensemble. It was my first time walking at graduation…I didn’t for any of my other degrees or high school.

The bad news is that I self-destructed on my thesis. I got about 4/5ths of the way there and then melted down on the data analysis. It’s okay, though. The research got finished, but not by me. Apparently I got author credit, but I haven’t seen it. That gave me lots of time to think about other stuff, which I will get to in a minute.

My companion has faithfully remained with me for a year-and-a-half now. I even tried to send him away at one point, but he didn’t want to go. I think my exact words were, “Save yourself!” I met him on the very first day of graduate school in 2002, and I thought, “Man, that dude has a chip on his shoulder.” He was just experiencing first-day jitters like me, as it turned out.

I have been temping and doing short-term contract work with my newfound mad skillz. There is no way in hell I am getting a library job in this town, even if I wanted to. The market here is so psychotically competitive I think you have to give Jesus a blowjob or something to make it happen. Well, I over-exaggerate as usual. Some of my library school friends have done well for themselves. My companion is still trying to break into the public libraries here, a year later. His diligence is astounding. I can say what he cannot: the public library hiring system in King County is BROKEN. He gets called for every interview, because he rated so highly in the hiring pool, but they have it set up so he competes against five other people, many of whom are often internal applicants.

My companion moved in with me last November and we got an apartment together that’s big enough for everyone in January. My daughter has her own room, unlike when I lived by myself, with glow-stars on the ceiling. She cleaned it this morning without me asking and I gave her a prize out of my super-secret good behavior stash.

But that’s not all…

Strudel was born in March. These pictures are from late April, and were taken by Daniel in his office while he was working my new, raised from the dead blog. I promise I will put up newer ones soon, when I get my film finished. And there is a digital camera in the works, which is like three years overdue.

Strudel is awesome and adored by me, her father, and her sister. She is a sweet, mellow baby, a lot like her sister, except her sister slept through the night at three weeks, which is totally unheard of, so I know I was lucky. And now I have another child to exploit on the Internets! Pwned!

I asked my companion last night if I could post a picture of her. First he said, “Exploit away!” and then he said, “Oh, wait, I don’t know you have a weblog.” He has become excellent at making me laugh with the things that used to make me cry.

Speaking of crying…I almost cried this morning when I saw all of your emails in my box. Thank you for telling me that you were thinking of me. I have missed my internet acquaintances. Things turned out really well in some ways, and shockingly unpleasant and different in others. Just like life. I will reply to all of you soon, but not today because it is finally sunny!

Many of you have asked about commenting on my blog. Obviously, they are closed for now. Daniel tells me that my blog attracts a sick amount of comment spam. Fuckers. I may just put up an image of my email address, or have a login…I dunno. More soon.

And thank you thank you Shauny who hosted me for 3 years, from 2001 until I made this leap. Man, I have a lot of people to thank!