Falling in love again

Holy crap, it's been almost a month..again. I have some excuses; I had the flu (or something); I went to my sister's wedding in Chicago; etc.

Our title this time comes from some old song we used to listen to in the car. My dad was big on swing and big band; I think the version we used to listen to was by Linda Ronstadt. You know how it goes: "Falling in love again; what am I to do? ...never wanted to; I can't help it."

Lately, I've been falling back in love. Like, for example, with Dar Williams' first commercially released album, The Honesty Room. I listened to it a lot last week, and though I can hear how she's grown in a lot of ways since then, those songs are so well-written and well-done. Like "The Great Unknown," this anti-nuclear song that could feel outdated, but doesn't, and the way she calls love "a storm in a shadowbox." Anyway, I recommend it.

I forgot, too, how much I love the Pioneer Valley, where I went to college. I went there with my friend Amy this Sunday, who's never been there, and I got to see everything again, and realize how beautiful it is, and how much happened to me there.

I start class again after Labor Day, and I've got a lot to do before then. I'm going to start a new job (we'll be delving into the world of academic reference this time!), and I've got to move out of my lovely summer sublet. This summer, I've been working - that's it - but I always feel so busy. It makes me wonder how the people I know with other responsibilities - like children, for example - get anything done whatsoever, or have any measure of peace. Perhaps they watch fewer expurgated Sex & the City reruns on TBS. Whatever. As long as I finish both the books I started recently (The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai; Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides), I'll be golden. Of course, I did buy two used ones at the Book Mill - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and a book of Phillis Wheatley's poems. There should be another law of thermodynamics about the proportion of books bought to books read (and books checked out for months from BPL).