Sometimes I forget that most cats aren’t pushing twenty pounds, and then I see a normal-sized cat at someone else’s house or living amongst the cleaning products at a deli and I’m reminded that our cat is really a monster cat. You might think when I tell you that he’s 19.5 pounds that this is due to him being really fat, but he’s really just an enormously scaled-up version of a regular domestic cat. When he stands up on his hind legs he’s taller than most toddlers, and stretched to his full length he’s more than long enough to span our entire queen sized bed. I’m not sure how he got to be this big. I’ve seen photos from his kitten days and he was pretty average (meaning tiny) in those days, but maybe he’s secretly been ingesting steroids or kitty growth hormone when Chris and I are out during the day. Because he’s no longer really a domestic cat at all, but something more along the lines of a small lion, minus the mane.

The seminar I’m auditing for the rest of the semester has now started, which means my Mondays and Wednesdays go until 8pm. This makes three philosophy courses I’m taking, one that I’m TAing, plus two computer science classes and the thesis.

Last semester I had a seminar on Tuesdays that went till 8:30 and I still had to make it back to Brooklyn after that, so this isn’t quite so bad - but it’s still not that much fun getting home so late and only then getting started on my work for the following day. On the other hand, there are only six weeks left in the semester. Which means I really ought to go order my cap and gown.

For the couple of weeks I’ve been spending my time at home going back and forth between the extra bedroom that has gradually become my office and the couch in the living room - I work on The Thesis for an hour or so, then knit a few inches of something, then read a paper, then knit a few inches of something, and so on. I’m well into my third scarf and getting really tired of epistemology, but I suppose I can last the few weeks I have left. After all, I’ve got a couple of programs to write and databases to design when things get dull. And I always seem able to find the time to kick Chris’s ass at SSX3.

Since I started knitting over winter break, I’ve been keeping an eye on eBay for inexpensive supplies - needles, yarn, fabric for knitting bags, that sort of thing. I’ve only bought a couple of skeins of yarn so far, but it’s the big collections that really fascinate me. You often find these big lots containing dozens of pairs of needles still in their kitschy original packaging from fifty years ago. Sometimes people are selling their own collections, but usually you can tell that they’ve inherited a bunch of stuff from a grandma or aunt or something - especially the color of the needles is described in painstaking detail, but there’s no mention of the size.

Anyway, yesterday I finished another draft of my thesis and another scarf. Now I’m back to hitting up eBay for more cheap yarn.

I went with Al and George to see Wolfsheim at Webster Hall last night, and while it’s true that vodka and tonic have a way of making things better, we were surprised at how great they were live. Synthpop concerts tend to be iffy at best, especially the vocals, but Peter Heppner’s got an impressive voice. There was a lot of stuff I didn’t recognize, since I’ve heard the newer stuff at clubs but haven’t bought an album since Spectators. They played all of my favorite older songs, though, and everything I didn’t know was good as well. And of course it was good to get out and see everyone who (like me) has more or less abandoned the scene but still comes out for concerts.

Dear Ms. Story:

Congratulations! I am delighted to join Dean Matthew Santirocco in saluting you on being named a University Honors Scholar. By this designation, we salute our top-ranking baccalaureate candidates who have emerged as exceptional scholars in an undergraduate community representing the most talented men and women ever to attend New York University.

As an Honors Scholar, you will receive an individually inscribed Founders Day Cerfiticate in recognition of your academic achievements and a distinctive gold tassel adorned with the New York University Honors Scholar emblem in cloisonné. Gold tassels, which are to be worn in place of the standard tassel at your Commencement Exercises, will be mailed to your local address on record with the University Registrar.

I look forward very much to our Commencement Exercises to be held in Washington Square Park on the morning of Thursday, May 13, when our entire University community will gather to salute the extraordinary Class of 2004. All the best!

Sincerely,

John Sexton

I may have an infected kitty scratch just under one of my toenails, and I may have another several pages of The Thesis of Doom still to write, and I may have killed time for an hour and a half after my last class today only to find out that the seminar I was waiting for is on Wednesday and not today at all, but I’m still in a good mood I came home to find a new television and a box of yarn waiting for my love. The TV was something Chris ordered last week, since the old one decided to die of some sort of wasting television disease almost a year ago. We’ve been watching it since despite its total unwatchability. The yarn I got for almost nothing on eBay and I can’t say anything else about it because someone who reads my site is getting a present made out of it.

I’m still exhausted from my non-break and from the first day back, but I’m now pretty much accustomed to the idea that I’m going to be consistently exhausted from now until graduation. Which so far away, now.

I’m starting to keep an eye out for work (both freelance and non) after graduation. If you or someone you know needs a web developer or technical writer starting in late May or early June, email me and I’ll shoot you a resume.

Normally this is when I look back on the past week and feel disgusted at how shamefully I wasted my spring break (except for freshman year, when I didn’t mind so much because I had mono). This year, though, I feel like I’ve gotten a reasonable amount of work done for what’s really supposed to be a vacation - I have a bunch of reading to finish up tomorrow and a stack of quizzes to grade, but on the other hand I’ve already done a bunch of other reading, and tackled the biggest portion of the longest philosophy paper I’ve ever written. I got new furniture and apartmenty things at IKEA and finished my first scarf, and I feel I’ve really honed my zombie-killing skills.

I’ve never really felt the need to go somewhere hot and humid and filled with sweaty, drunken college kids over spring break. After all, I could just go to a club in midtown for that.

The big things left for this semester are a couple of programs for a Java class, the rest of a project for a database class, one paper and one final each for my two philosophy classes, and revision of the dreaded thesis. I’ve got about eight weeks for all of that (four for the thesis). I think I can manage it, and as long as I don’t flub anything too awfully, I’ll be wearing an ugly purple gown in a couple of months and that will be that.

My big accomplishment for the day (apart from figuring out that I’ve only got about five pages of the dreaded thesis left to draft) was finishing my first knitted scarf, which I started in January but then haven’t really touched since I moved. I used two skeins of Lion Brand Wool-Ease chunky in boysenberry, which is much prettier than you’d guess by the photo on the site. Even though the yarn is part acrylic, the wool in the blend makes it incredibly warm and soft. Just in time for spring, I guess.