rather than try and knit together a coherent narrative of my odyssey (which was as much internal as external) i'm instead giving a brief summary of my trip, arbitrarly segmented into 24 hour periods.

Tuesday- work; drove to Chicago; congrats to the future Dr. Cleary; sister's floor surprisingly comfortable for sleeping.

Wednesday- drive to land of 10k lakes; met K-Boo at airport; Chinese dinner good, not great. tangerine beef turns out to be effete version of orange beef i was secretly longing for.

Thursday- as part of my holiday travels i was the point man for an investigation of alleged insanity/craziness in some of the senior board members of K-Boo Enterprises, LLC. my investigation during, before and after Thanksgiving dinner was thorough and meticulous, and despite ominous warnings beforehand my instruments registered insanity levels that were well within specs for the individuals in question. which is to say, Katina has some crazy relatives. but who doesn't?

also, it turned out that while i was sizing up the situation at least one of the inspectees did her own evaluation and i am pleased to tell you that i "seem like a nice boy" and that my facial features indicate that i "could be sharp". apparently my eyes are not too close together and my nose is tolerable which are signs of intelligence. the lady in question wanted to use some calipers to measure the bumps on my skull but i demurely refused.

it'll be a fortunate turn of events for me if i do, in fact, turn out to be sharp because while perusing the (extensive) bookshelves at die Haus Von Seestadt i hubristically borrowed Sport and Political Ideology, whose title, simplistic cover illustration and vaguely German color scheme entranced me. my proclaiming the book to be "dynamite" before opening it might have been somewhat premature on my part because as it turns out, this book is not, in fact, dynamite. at least, not in the way that i figured it would be. it's less interesting as a treatise on sport than it is interesting as a period piece about international (European) politics in the early 80's. which doesn't make it bad, it just makes it somewhat (significantly) less exciting than i had originally envisioned. the book has also served as a tangible reminder to me that most academic writing is probably academic in the worst most derogatory sense of that word. but despite early obstacles, my determination to soldier on remains unshaken. i am not sending this book back until i am done with it. this will probably require a herculean effort on my part over the next couple of days, so expect to hear more about Sport & Political Ideology as it may be the only thing i have to talk about.

Friday- pumpkin pie for breakfast; trip to White Bear Lake, no bears or lakes sighted; bagel at Starbucks adequate

Saturday- first grad school app in the (electronic) mail, restoring sense of forward progress to application process. finishing of personal statement and real output bode well for future.

Sunday- breakfast & the road to Chicago; Midway circling; TV. lucky for me i missed the Colts getting hosed/hosing themselves (if you want the ball more Edge maybe try putting it in the endzone more ) and the Pacers getting their heads handed to them (the East still looks like a fake Conference to me). also, una fiesta privada no nos permitió entrar in the Mexican restaurant of our choice so i had the biggest piece of pizza ever with the smallest styrofoam cup ever to match and talked about Tombstone. for those of you who are interested, it's "Eventus stultorum magister (est)" and NOT as is commonly believed "Iuventus stultorum magister."

Monday- had brunch/lunch at Ann Sather, which is on the whole noticeably Swedish except for the (Californian?) waiter named Gordon who considered it apropos to call me/my companions brother/bro/bruh at various points during the dining experience, which was not overtly sullied by his excessively familiar treatment of us. the rolls were unstoppably delicious. Monday also saw me stymied by the NY Times crossword for the umpteenth time and some extensive driving home.

upon returning home, it became evident to me based on repeated evidence before, during and after my trip that i am probably losing my hair. at least, hair is fleeing my head for parts unknown at a rate unprecedented in the history of my head. i am trying very hard not to think about this.