On being in love with the entire world and believing everything is going to be okay. This week is the one year anniversary of Eric's accident. General exams are two weeks from today. I'm turning 30 verrrrry soon. It all makes a girl feel a wee bit introspection-y. Just a wee bit.

This year, now that I think about it as a coherent whole, has just been completely absurd. It has seen the highest highs and the lowest lows, and I am, somehow, ending it happier than I've ever been in my life. I'm planning ridiculous amounts of travel for this summer to some pretty ridiculous places, and I'm incredibly excited about all of them. I'm already overcommitting to various projects and teaching jobs next year, and can't wait to jump whole-heartedly into the prospectus. I'm sleeping less than I have since I was about fourteen, and I really just don't give a shit. I would be perfectly happy, in fact, sleeping even less. My pseudo-punk band starting storyboarding our first music video tonight, for "Whiffle Whupass," and it is going to be just totally amazing.

It has been such a very hard year for so many reasons, but I think it's all made me more honest--and certainly more trusting and kind--with myself and the important people in my life. And, my god. How amazing is that. I just cannot overstate how much I love, love, love everything that I'm doing right now. It all feels so fucking right and balanced and true and important.

All that, and I just found a typo in my summary of "Bringing the State Back In" that makes "Skocpol wants" read "Skocpol pants." Just in case you were getting worried that I was neglecting Disturbing Generals News Items.  ¶ 9:02 PM

  theory and practice So, it finally happened. The Powers That Be have Officially Scheduled my Big Exam, for a little less than 3 weeks from now. It's a little scary and intimidating, but mostly amazingly exciting and invigorating, much like so many other things in my life right now. Today I am going to revisit my remaining reading list, which will need to be trimmed a little to stuff it into the rest of my available time, and really start consolidating my comparative notes. We're also setting up a theory retreat for the week before the exam at Casa de Shauna, which will involve cramming for theory as one is supposed to: with plenty of wine and food and free-flowing conversation about it. I have a lot of long days ahead of me, but I love this shit, and I'm relaxed and restored and happy and totally ready for it. I may start using this space to write up notes, and/or random generals-related thoughts beyond Disturbing Insights (although those will, of course, surely still also be in store), so be ye all forewarned.

Speaking of plenty of wine and food and free-flowing conversation, Big Shot Lawyer and I spent the weekend brewing up an insanely irresponsible quantity of beer: six (really seven) batches, to be exact. Some will probably turn out to be pretty damn good; others will almost certainly be very, very bad. Highlights include the "Beyond Boston Barleywine" and the "Drop the Ball Double IPA," which we made despite the hops crisis because I fucked up the would-be Belgian yeast starter and we were too lazy to start another one. Lowlights include the "Middle Child," which is a truly unholy bastard of a beer created from the second runnings of the barleywine mash. We also found time for a (quite) strong American amber, a foreign export-style stout that we'll split into two batches in secondary (one with raspberries and one with Jim Beam-soaked oak chips) and another bastard kitchen sink beer that has a little bit of everything and then some. And to think, some suckers around here spend their spare time huddled in windowless computer labs studying! What rubes. Life is too fabulous for such distractions.  ¶ 7:05 AM

  bus stop The video quality leaves a bit to be desired, but it's still pretty great. I love my brother so much. I also really fucking love this song.

  ¶ 5:46 AM

  some crazy shit So, I've recently come upon this big literature out there that points to a catastrophic volcanic explosion in Iceland in 1783-4 as a possible contributing factor in the French Revolution, and I'm totally fascinated by it. The eruption produced a big nasty stinky sulphurous cloud that hung out for quite some time over Europe and even lumbered over to North America, killing enormous numbers of livestock, sickening people, destroying crops, and even affecting El Nino--for YEARS. I came across the following passage on the subject of said nasty sulphurous cloud, written by our old friend Ben Franklin in 1784, and it's kind of amazing:

"The cause of this universal fog is not yet ascertained. Whether it was adventitious to this earth, and merely a smoke...or whether it was the vast quantity of smoke, long continuing to issue during the summer from Hecla in Iceland...is yet uncertain. It seems however worth the enquiry, whether other hard winters recorded in history were preceded by similar permanent and widely extended summer fogs. Because, if found to be so, men might from such fogs conjecture the probability of succeeding hard winter, and of the damage to be expected by the breaking up of frozen rivers in the spring; and take such measures as are possible and practicable to secure themselves and effects from the mischiefs that attended the last."

Ben Franklin: in addition to everything else, he turns out to be our first grand theorist of climate change. Who knew!  ¶ 10:31 AM

  a short conversation among colleagues Emily, to me, alarmed by my obnoxious, decidedly un-punk and persistent happy mood: "You're like a different person. It's a little scary, frankly. Where did Jen go? She didn't come back from Chicago!"

Shauna, jumping in: "We need to bottle this feeling and give it to warlords."  ¶ 1:42 PM

  April April April Just got back to BOS from a whirlwind few weeks of nonstop travel, conferences, spring break-iness, and general mojo-restoration. I'm about 10,000 miles closer to MVP on AK Air, happily exhausted, topped off with good beer and coffee, full of good research ideas and improvements, and deeply behind on my self-imposed generals prep schedule. I also have to somehow pull a full-length seminar paper out of my ass for my history class by this coming Monday, which concerns me more than a little bit. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, it's back to the breakneck four-book-a-day schedule I was managing to maintain there for a hot week or two. Tomorrow. Tonight, I need to just (finally) unpack, rehydrate, and settle back in to the groove.

The funding is rolling in for the summer, which is very exciting. I'm going to AK and to Russia, and I also have a (relatively!) smaller grant to go to New Orleans. Everything's coming up Milhouse!  ¶ 4:09 PM