Tick tick tick tick
There are now six days and about 11 hours to go before parenthood. I'd like to say we're excited, and we are. We are also:
Scared.
Bored.
Tired of waiting.
Now lest you all out there in blog-world (what all three, four of you?) think me whiney, let me tell you that we are trying to make the best of it. Ann and I have embarked on a killer Scrabble(tm)-fest, wherein I have bested my benchmark of 300 points more often than not, although I've only broken 400 once. That was not the game in which I got the eight-letter "jettison" on a triple word score on my first turn. Ask me how badly the rest of that game went. If you do, I will tell you all of the words you can make with three A"s, two I's, an O and a blank tile (as far as I can tell, "aioli" is the best of them).
Also, we have been trying to eat out more often. On Sunday we realized we may not get to go to Addie's, our favorite slightly overprised restaurant in the area--so we went and had yummy yummy yummy food. Tonight, we opted for the Cheesecake Factory when our Thai options seemed too far away from our current shopping locale.
While Chez Claycomb often has some exciting options, we're expecting to dine there a lot in the next several months, so we're stepping out while it's just our four feet and not four feet and a double stroller.
Comments
whenever i'm stuck with one of those scrabble draws, i go "AAIIEEEIIIOOOUUAAEEE! and sometimes Y."
i suggest that you two turn your focus from scrabble, and *invent* a game over the next few days. if i know anyone who is capable of that, it's the claycombs. you could use the profits (imagine all that milton-bradley cash!) to get the twins trust-funded.
and then, use the leftover funds to open a chain of chez claycombs.
Posted by: dave | October 24, 2003 2:03 PM
Just wanted to say hi, as a recent reader to your page (so maybe you have more than 4). I've just started my Ph.D. in drama at UT-Austin. I do American feminist history and historiography. It's good to hear a prof in my field's voice. :)
Posted by: jenny | October 24, 2003 9:03 PM
Wow! People I don’t know checking out the page. Now the stakes are really high!
Anyway, Jenny, I have a very close friend at UT finishing up her PhD in English. Her name’s Sue Mendelsohn and she is now running the graduate student writing center, which, if I’m not mistaken, was recently handed over to her by a theatre PhD student.
And of course, I assume you’re working with both Stacy Wolf (who used to teach here at GW) and Jill Dolan (whom we all idolize to a certain degree).
Anyway, I hope you keep reading and find something more than self-indulgence in here. Now that I know I have the occasionally reader who isn’t a close friend or a student, maybe I’ll actually step up the level a bit. Probably not though.
Posted by: Ryan | October 24, 2003 10:16 PM
Yep, I am taking classes with both Stacy and Jill this semester. Don't worry about stepping up the quality... you have to concentrate on putting that into your work. Everyone should have a space to ramble. :) It's interesting that you're writing about The Vagina Monologues... I wrote my Masters Thesis on the play and the V-Day movement. I'm not sure you can say that the college campaign adds back in diversity... Ensler tries to keep it contained to college undergrads (18-22), and having only students in college participating does affect the sort of scope of class/education differences the play would seem to call for. In the end I do think The Vagina Monologues is solely autobiographical, the best way to see it is a play all about Eve Ensler and her perception of non-western, non-white, non-celebrity women. I actually applied and was accepted to University of Maryland, but I didn't get the acceptance letter until months after I accepted my spot at UT. The journal I'm on the editorial staff of published an article by someone named Ben Fisler (?) from there though.
Posted by: Jenny | October 26, 2003 10:38 PM
I actually make much the same point about Ensler in the chapter on Oral History performance (the first half of which appeared in this Spring's Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism).
As for where you are, UMCP's fine, but Austin's a great place to be. We do have some pretty smart cookies up here, and as far as I can tell, Ben Fisler's one of them.
I look forward to your feedback as I continue to post stuff--I'm going to try to work through the rest of the conclusion up here, so any feedback will be nice.
Posted by: Ryan | October 26, 2003 10:46 PM