Willkommen!

The email dialogue with my soon-to-be-department-chair that followed my turning down my faculty housing offer in order to live with another new hire in the house of a faculty member that is going on leave all next year.  Yes, I turned down my own place but really, $650 for two-bedrooms seems so steep compared to sharing a three-bedroom place with a proper yard for $325.  Yes, yes, its crazy cheep rent.  But I think that's because there are marauding packs of alligators that wander the streets at all hours picking off household pets and young faculty.  I mean, I've heard.  Alligators and tornados.  And crushing poverty.  Anyway, the exchange:

THE CHAIR: Glad you made that choice Alix.  I was and am looking forward to seeing the true story of how two strangers picked to live in a house... work together and have their lives taped... to find out what happens when people stop being polite... and start getting real.

me: Hah.  That's exactly how I was thinking about it.  Now at least this Matt fellow HAS to be nice to me.

THE CHAIR: If you think the cameras will make Matt be nice to you you're obviously not an avid devotee of the show...

Ah, hilarious.  How awesome is my department chair?  He has a little white poodle named Hailie Jade after Eminem's daughter.

Also awesome?  That this Matt fellow is like Scrabble champion of the world or something.  He'll wander into the kitchen for a snack or something and I can point at him and shout: "Quick!  Five letter word ending in C with a triple word score in play on the third space!"

Fun!

Furtherly awesome?  Obama's speech tonight.  I got a little misty at the end.

And lastly awesome, mostly in a BEHOLD THE AWESOME POWER OF THE REPRODUCTION IMPERATIVE! kind of way:  There is a stack of 11 newborn diapers sitting on my desk here.  They're weirding me out a little bit (though I have been brainstorming fun craft projects for which they can be used - attach some cord and you've got a nice hanging plant basket, stick to together and stuff them and you have a cute little throw pillow...).  No, they are not for me or the dog or some cephalopod gestating in my belly.  They are on route to be delivered to Sarah and Robert from Matt and Ligaya (their baby, Malaya, ambitious squirt that she is has already moved on to infant).  Speaking of ambitious squirts, unless the horror show is going down right this instant, I believe that baby Eleanor had 29 minutes left to make her date with the cold, hard world.