I don't know what's going on, but it seems the last few weeks have wrought a lot of change in various aspects of my life. The Phonographerz (Baby Cee, Supa Dave, Cozmos, Killa Kut, myself) are currently on hiatus for various reasons - there's no beef between any of us or anything like that, we've just all got differing priorities for now and personal dramas have popped up for a couple of us. Maybe it's just spring. I've finished my last bit of wetlab work, as far as I can tell. Which means I actually have to crack the whip on myself and get the writing done. But the last little bit is always the hardest part. At least that's what I keep telling myself. And of course, just as I'm coming into the home stretch of my graduate career (which has been nearly a quarter of my life to date) I meet an interesting young lady. I've never been good at the whole dating thing (all of my friends will attest to that; Debbi called me the "eternal bachelor") but I'm trying. It's really easy for me to be friends with people - I'm generally laid back and outgoing - but my brain gets all knotted up when I'm around pretty girls, which is basically why I don't date much. The funny story about the first date is a reprisal of an event that happened around this time last year. I was to go pick up said young lady at her apartment to go get drinks. I had been out playing a bit of soccer, and came home to shower and change. I couldn't have been in my apartment more than 45 minutes. As I got into my car to go, I noticed a funny smell. Yes, the cat had struck again. I had no time to find any water to flush out the air intake vents, so I had to drive with the windows open to minimize the smell. The weather was good, but I had my momentary panic attack - I was about to pick up a date in a car that smelled of cat urine. Luckily, she found it humorous and was a pretty good sport. Anyway, yesterday was the 130th running of the Kentucky Derby and also my birthday. So I did what any other sane, alcoholic graduate student would do and invited a pile of people over to watch the derby and drink mint juleps. Some of the girls were great sports and wore hats to which they had attached ribbons and flowers. I wore my fedora. I was looking for some suspenders, but didn't get around to getting any. I had the odds written up on a sheet of butcher paper over the TV, and was updating them occasionally as it got closer to the time of the race. No betting was going on, it was mostly just for bragging rights. I personally was hoping Read The Footnotes would win because hell, that's a geeky name. I picked Smarty Jones and Lion Heart to place and show respectively (the top three ended up being Smarty Jones, Lion Heart, and Imperialism - Read The Footnotes came in 6th or 7th). Anyway, just before the horses were about to run, everyone gathered around the television to watch. I got a decent seat on my drum throne. The horses were being led into the gates one by one, giving us our last look at the odds. My cell phone rang, and it was my sister wishing me a happy birthday. I got off the phone quickly and updated two of the horses' odds, having seen them on the TV during the short conversation. Of course, my smart-ass friend Dan said "Who was that, your bookie?" Pretty good ricochet, Dan. My brother called as well; I still need to call him back. My sister got me some weird Italian cake thing. It was good. I served it up on a crappy record as the platter. It was hard to cut, though, because it was about 14 or 15 inches tall. All the powdered sugar in the image at the top is from the cake. We went through over 3 liters of bourbon and a ridiculous quantity of foliage (we cleaned out two stores of mint). I ended up doing dishes in batches all day. My friend Jen (who is one of the ones graduating) decided to play DJ. She brought me some albums I didn't have, which was great. She has no DJ skills _per se_, but was a fine selector, rocking all the 80's hits. However, she is clearly no librarian. Anyway, it was a fine party, and a good time. I hope your weeks have been as good. Now I just gotta focus on writing...