so while everybody and their cousin fred is traipsing off this week to san francisco (where I should be, if I hadn’t so badly budgeted cash that I couldn’t afford a plane ticket) for professional composition conferences and visits to friends and excellent restaurants and so on, I shall be cooling my heels right here in iowa. now, now, I’m not complaining—and I forbid you to feel the least bit sorry for me—the fact of the matter is that a span of days undisturbed in my lovely home with zero outside obligations and even few (but a couple, so not to despair entirely) friends left in town to offer distraction is precisely what the doctor ordered. and just how am I using these great glorious lakes of undisturbed time? glad you asked: working on my web site’s appendages, joining lovely new cybersphere communities, playing with pots and pans and my excellent new blue mixer in the kitchen, working on several collage boxes, getting class-teaching stuff squared away at a sane pace, and bringing my brain back into line on the diss: sifting through the beginnings of my AWESOME student data, gorgeous multimodal projects, and doing little manageable bits of writing that, over time, are accumulating into a larger whole. how excellent! couldn’t be better, now could it? see, told ya not to feel sorry for me. aaaaaahhhhhh.