it's eye gouging time!

if you're one of my oh-so-faithful readers, then you already know what the title of this post means. if you're new or maybe just a little slow, then let me enlighten you. yes, another dear friend bit the dust today and is now betrothed (i just like that word so much more than engaged). but really, they are a fabulous couple and i'm considering asking them to adopt me as soon as possible.

this just in....(i felt like using a broadcasting phrase other than "in other news", wow i'm clever and/or lame as hell) my week has been won-der-ful. it has been filled with smiling, loving my students/what i'm teaching my students, being a healthy little bugger, smiling, being content with my life while daydreaming about how it will be exponentially better quite soon, catching up with old friends, smiling, being evaluated and applauded by the director of my grad program, hanging out with my beautiful/kind/amazing sister, discovering new music and finally......GORGING myself on books. i have realized that i've gotten into the terrible habit of watching entirely too much television. so i have shaken myself from its glow, turned that damned thing off and re-embraced my true love. sunday night i read about 4.3 billion short stories by garcia marquez. it was like crack. (sidenote: insanely ecstatic over my students' appreciation of his writing.) tonight i went insane at barnes and noble. new additions include :

on the road - jack kerouac
the soul in love - various eastern poets
dress your family in corduroy and denim - david sedaris
a people's history of the united states - howard zinn
international women's stories - obviously various authors
from totems to hip-hop (poetry anthology) - again various
the satanic verses - salman rushdie

i could not be more excited about reading all of those (and am a bit embarrassed that i haven't read some of them before now) and feel quite like a child on christmas morning. now comes the hard part - picking which to read first. i know that i will save satanic verses for the summer so that i can truly devote myself to it.

now i must go ready myself for diagramming sentences/being observed by my department head tomorrow. quite possibly the biggest nerd in the world right now, and completely happy with it.