the glue that holds the peace together

well, it's done. i'm officially registered -- advised and registered -- for my first nyu graduate class: "intro to the city." "the city" of course would be new york, for any of you just tuning in from a dark cave somewhere at the bottom of a swamp in another corner of the galaxy. we're in new york now so new york is the Only city, and as long as i'm working on accepting that i figure i can learn as much about the Only city as possible.

i'm finally listening to a song by the postal service, after hearing so much about them, and i like. i also keep listening to that one song i happened to download by the white stripes and it makes me wonder whether i'd like that album of theirs that everyone else saw made shrines for like years ago. any thoughts?

classes start september 7. you eagle eyes will recognize that september 7 is not, repeat not, labor day, and a wave of nostalgia will knock you off your keyboard. aw. swat starts labor day, always has, and more than once i began the semester with a marge murphy class. my wacky history prof marge would march in and, without bothering to remove her cowboy hat, would begin a lecture about how ridiculous it was that a liberal arts college could so blatantly ignore the importance of labor day and as her form of protest there would be no class. she'd grin, "they can make you come in today, but they can't make me teach."

once in that situation, she turned on the clinton/lewinsky tapes and for the whole period we listened, sharing the nation's fascination and disgust, to linda tripp pretending to console a disconsolate monica while noshing on corn chips.

i should do something on labor day to celebrate. it was marge who encouraged me to pursue my ridiculous special major, and if it weren't for that self-designed curriculum i wouldn't be here right now about to start a self-designed MA program. our relationship endured some ups and downs as is common, for whatever reason, of my relationships with my most influential teachers. but when she found me at graduation, none of it matters. she gave me a big hug and said, "you did it your way."