I’d tell you that the site’s got a new IP, but if you’re reading this post then your browser has already noticed, so it doesn’t really matter one way or the other. What else is different? Nothing much at all, theoretically.

I met Neal Stephenson at a signing he did tonight for his new book Quicksilver, which I’ve purchased but not yet read. It’s hefty (think more Cryptonomicon than Snow Crash) and was sold at a discount at B&N, so I suppose one can’t really go wrong. Stephenson skipped the usual twenty minutes of reading from his latest book and went more or less straight to the question and answer bit, which was just as well as far as I’m concerned, since I haven’t read the book yet anyway, and his answers tended to be on the long (and interesting) side.

I believe my bout with the Black Death may be coming to an end, but I don’t want to tempt fate, so I won’t start rejoicing in my recently reacquired two-nostril breathing (yet). Yesterday afternoon, during the few hours in which I wasn’t totally loopy from NyQuil, I started the paper that’s likely to become my senior thesis. If it does, I think I’ll post it somewhere when it’s finished this spring - it’s on an area of aesthetics that I think many of you might find interesting.

As for the continuing Grad School Drama - I’ve been comparing PhD programs and studying for the GRE (which seems an awful lot like the SAT, only now I’ve gone to college), but I’m more or less sure that I’d like to take a year between graduation and running off to the next big thing. What I’d like to do with that year is another question, but I have a definite sense that I’d like a break. Taking three semesters off to work after my freshman year turned out to be a great idea, and I felt when I came back that I had a much greater sense of perspective than I’d had during my first year, and I enjoyed the whole experience a lot more. When I do apply to graduate schools, I am of course considering my own dear NYU - and it’s not even because we theoretically have the best philosophy department in the country.

It turns out that even nodding off at intervals of approximately ten minutes isn’t enough to spoil Memento. Sure, it’s a little stranger, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. And lying in bed doped up on NyQuil is absolutely the perfect time to listen to PHC: blurry vision doesn’t make much of a difference when it comes to radio shows, and good old Garrison tells the best stories ever.

Yesterday afternoon, when I felt the telltale tonsil swelling and lymph node tenderness that have come to signal the onset of one of my occasional bouts with the Black Death, I headed to the Health Center to see what, exactly, was up. I was told that I didn’t have strep, which was a relief, but that there wasn’t anything wrong with me at all - which was less of a relief, especially in light of the fact that my fever hasn’t gone below 100 degrees today, nor have I been able to keep down anything more complicated than a couple of Saltines. I’m guessing whatever I have falls somewhere between a bad cold and a case of meningitis, but it does seem clear that the Health Center may have been mistaken in their assessment - they probably thought I was looking for an offically documented illness worthy of a note to get me out of writing a paper or going to class. Sadly, I managed to attend all of my classes this week (although I did have to bail on my plans for tonight), but at least I have the weekend to write papers and grade quizzes from the comfort of my bed. I look forward to a time when I can once again breathe through both nostrils and enjoy food that is neither white nor Original flavored.

I promise to return you to your regularly scheduled Caoine just as soon as I’m feeling a little more human: I’m aware that someone else’s health woes don’t constitute the most thrilling of weblog topics, but it’s really amazing how much attention one pays to things like breathing, once they become difficult or impossible to do.

Mmmm, chilly weather at last. The friendly weather man told me that it was 48 degrees Farenheit in Central Park when I woke up this morning, with the high temperature of today just barely touching sixty. This is the time of year for which I am willing to suffer through New York summers. Of course, since I left my windows open when I went to sleep last night and woke up with a chill, this also means that I’ve got my first cold of the season. But it’s a price I’m more than willing to pay for being able to sleep with blankets again.

I don’t know how many of you grew up listening to A Prairie Home Companion on NPR, but my brother and I certainly did. Mind you, this is totally nerdy stuff: I’m fully aware that listening to radio stories about Lake Wobegon is not the hippest way to spend one’s Saturday night. But that’s beside the point - it’s absolutely fantastic stuff, and was an enormous part of my childhood.

But so the point of bringing all that up: the host of PHC is a guy named Garrison Keillor, who as it turns out did a reading at the Union Square B&N this evening. (He’s got no small amount of writing talent, in addition to the whole radio show thing.) It’s an extremely peculiar experience, meeting someone with whom you’re familiar only from the radio: I knew who Garrison was when he entered the room, but the real recognition didn’t take place until he began talking. Once I got over the surreal sensation of hearing the voice with which I am so familiar coming out of this human I don’t really know at all, the reading itself was great. He chose selections from his new novel Love Me, which I would most heartily recommend. As for PHC, they’ll be broadcasting from New York for a few weeks in December, but I hear it’s fiendishly difficult to get tickets. I suppose there’s no harm in trying.