Egad! It's been a while...

Sorry for the radio silence, peeps. I got kinda busy there for a few days. By way of apology I'm going to post a photo of Bluto in all his furry, seed-munching glory. I love how my moblie phone and hairbrush completely dwarf him in this pic. Heehee.



In the news:

• On Wednesday the Pirate came over for dinner. I fixed a nice meal, NOT because of VD, but because a, I hadn't done it in a while; b, he gave a very successful presentation at the office on Monday and I wanted to recognize that (a grand poombah slapped him on the back afterword and said, "That was bloody good, Pirate, bloody good indeed!); c, I had just bought the new Jamie Oliver cookbook (yes, I adore him. sue me.); and d, he was scheduled to leave for India on Friday and I knew we wouldn't see each other for a few weeks. It was a lovely evening, as are all evenings with my Pirate.
• Since the Pirate wasn't going into the office on Friday (he was packing and leaving for India), I told him that if he wanted he could come over thursday evening and stay the night and have one last shag before setting off for the subcontinent. He had a lot to do before he left and said he probably wouldn't have time. "No worries," said I. Then on Thursday I'm sitting and listening to a paper about indexing marginalia on all British-produced manuscripts from 1375-1509 when i get a text: "See you in an hour." Guess who couldn't get on a plane without his farewell shag? I had already agreed to go to the boatclub Valentine dinner, so I phoned the hostess and asked if I could drag the P along. "No worries," she said. So we went and had fajitas with the boat club, and then had our farewell shag. So thursday was good.
  
• Then I was at a 2-day conference on Medieval studies on Fri and Sat. I didn't give a paper, but I hosted a couple sessions, and had a really good time. It was a small conference and everyone was very chummy. On Friday I got a free meal at an Italian restaurant out of the deal, so even better.
• Sunday (and this is the good bit), I cycled down the boathouse with R, who also has a buggered back, and we took the double scull out for a light paddle. R and I move really well together, and we get along well as friends, so she is my favourite co-paddler. We did 6 k (which sounds like nothing but is huge progress for both of us), and had a really nice time. And guess what? No back pain! So I'm going to beging slowly reintegrating myself back into the club when work and time permit. Whee!
• Sunday afternoon (and Friday morning) I spent making huge strides in my research, as Flatmate B is teaching me how to write software programs in Basic that I can use to do computer-aided linguistic analysis of medieval texts. We've written a couple programs together, and I'm getting more comfortable with some of the concepts. After I get the hang of this it will increase the quality and scale of my research by orders of magnitude. For the first time in months I feel really really good about my work and where it's going. (And yes, Sal, after I get the hang of Basic I am going to move on to Python. We're already hitting the limits of what Basic can do.)

And that's just all the diary-type, day-to-day schlock of what's been going on for the past few days. I've also had some really stimulating discussions about religion and world affairs that I'm eager to write about, but I don't have time at this moment.

The Pirate is now in India, spending 2 weeks living in 5-star hotels and playing cricket. Lucky bastard. So I'm back to being lonely and blathering on about the P to anyone who will listen, but I must confess I'm getting loads done now that I have my weekends back.

So that's what's going on. Given the current state of the world, expect some more political diatribes in the near future.