The Surprise: Laura and I are moving to San Francisco. She accepted an excellent job offer in SF; she leaves May 14th; and she starts work May 19th. And I’ll head that direction at the start of June. If her hopes in SF didn’t work out, we had planned on going to Boston - which I was very eager about, because I’d love nothing more than to live in the same city as my wonderful nephew George. None the less, I am excited about the move… ahh to once again inhabit a world where Craigslist is a staple of live, culture abounds, and public transportation exists.

Goodbye, Tornadoes! Hellllooo, Earthquakes!

The downside of moving to SF: it is the second most expensive city to live in the United States. In Stillwater, Oklahoma a person can rent a nice duple with a full kitchen, living room, 2 full bathrooms, and 3 bedrooms for around $650 a month. In San Francisco, a 400 to 500 square-foot studio apartment runs around $1,400 a month. Ridiculous. Most of the bathrooms at OSU are larger than our future apartment. On the other hand, if someone has 1.2 million dollars they need to spend, one block from Laura’s new office is a 567 sq-ft studio apartment for sale. We’re more than happy to occupy it if you buy it!

We have a lot of stuff to sell, throw away, and store, so we’re becoming adept at things-we-own triage. I can’t take my canvases with me, so tomorrow I’m going to do an oil painting on one of the larger ones. I’ll post pictures of its progress as the work develops. And I’ve started a photography project: with my Mamiya m645 medium-format camera, I’m going to take one black and white portrait of each of our close friends before we leave. Nothing fancy, nothing posed. They just look straight at the camera and click goes the shutter.

I never provided a list of the movies I watched during Spring Break. Here is everything I watched since Spring Break: 3:10 to Yuma, American Gangster, The Assassination of Jesse James, Bee Movie, Delicatessen, Ghost in the shell, Gone Baby Gone, La Vie En rose, Last King of Scottland, Lawrence of Arabia, 12 Angry Men, Marie Antoinette, Me You and Everyone We Know, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, Sword of the Beast,  Tarnation, The Secretary, Tokyo Godfathers, Yojimbo, You Kill Me, and Youth of the Best.

Is it an exclamation mark in Palantino Linotype 72pt or is it subtle porn? I may have discovered a new, disturbing industry. Either way, you’re never going to look at punctuation the same way again.

Over the last two years, college has continued to interfere with the consistency of my blog. The last several weeks I’ve had one major test, 3 major papers, 1 minor paper, 10 autobiographical writings to rewrite, and work. Of those, the test and the three papers were due this week. That doesn’t begin to count the number of books and articles I had to read for class discussions.

I am pleased to announce that it is all over with. Yes, my college career has come to a very nice close. I’ve got 2 bachelors and a 1 minor. Though there are three weeks of class left, of my four classes three don’t have finals (one doesn’t even meet again) and in the fourth class, I don’t need to take the final because I kick ass at neurobiological psychology.

So, until my trip to Israel mid-summer, consider me back to enjoying the second love of my life.

The next few posts will revolve around: the upcoming trip to Israel, a great big huge secret surprise, buffalo wings, a photography project, and the legalization of prostitution. Well… most of those anyways.