Brief miscellanea

I have a foot-high stack of papers from my dissertation research that has been living on top of the filing cabinet in my room, partly because I haven't gone through to figure out whether/how I can fit it into the filing cabinet. This morning, I needed some of the materials from it (for Diss Chap 4), so I spent a bit of time poring through the contents. Ahh, the memories. Now I've got the "albatross" for that chapter back in hand, so I can use it as I work on revising that chapter for publication. I started nicknaming the stack of papers associated with a publication as an "albatross" some years back, as it's a stack that will travel around and hang heavily until that manuscript gets submitted.

There's another albatross in that pile, for the Manuscript of Doom II: The Sequel. That particular one is about four inches thick. I'm not going to carry it around just yet.

Someone (scrottie) sent me some beautiful V-day flowers. Turns out I'm still a girl who loves some nice flowers. Not as much as I like actual company instead, but it's still sweet and thoughtful.

My mother sent me some huckleberry licorice for my birthday. A poignant reminder of Washington. More than anything, I've enjoyed sharing the licorice with my labmates. Left to my own devices, I generally won't eat an entire bag of that sort of candy. And really, some things are best when shared.