"I Need For You To Be Reasonable"

My folks came up earlier today to bring me some stuff for next weekend. Just clothes, really, so that I have something nice to wear to the gathering on Friday night of all the stuffy historians. We're a rather musty bunch, really, and I wonder just how exciting a gathering of historians with nothing to discuss but small talk will go. Probably be lots of people talking about their research. Or politics. God, I hope I don't have to discuss politics. It's bad enough that so many of my friends are actually interested in politics. I can tolerate that, because we also discuss other, more interesting things. But these people whom I have little to nothing in common with aside from the fact that we're all halfway interested in the same broad, general subject (i.e., history)...I really don't want to have to talk politics with them. Or shop, for that matter. I mean, 90% of them are Americanists, not Europeanists. And the Europeanists are usually as dry, dull, and boring as the Americanists, except that they can be dry and dull and boring about so much more history than the Americanists.

Maybe I'll get lucky and there'll be an open bar.

All that being said, I am sorta looking forward to this conference. I enjoy presenting papers, oddly enough (especially given how bad I used to get stage fright when I was in high school). It's also good training for teaching, and a nice way to get my name out there (last year, I had professional historians I didn't even know asking for a copy of the paper I'd written...that's rather heartwarming, really). That sort of thing also looks good on your vita.

So yeah, mom and dad came up and brought me some new clothes. Rather nice ones, too. Then dad raided my CD collection. I think half of my classic rock CDs are now in his possession, and the only reason he didn't take some of the others was that Clif has them back at home, and Clif is currently in no place to be able to use or even have access to his CD collection.

In other news, I'm trying to battle my sense of depression and frustration in a traditional way--by impulse shopping. I bought an anime DVD I'd been wanting last night, and I bought a CD this afternoon before work (Soul Coughing's greatest hits...nifty set). So far, it hasn't worked as well as I'd hoped. Ah well--maybe I'll cheer up when Beth shows up later.

~chaos cricket

Song of the Moment: Radiohead, "2 + 2 =5"