WYFP is our community's Saturday evening gathering to talk about our problems, empathize with one another, and share advice, pootie pictures, favorite adult beverages, and anything else that we think might help. Everyone and all sorts of troubles are welcome. May we find peace and healing here. Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?
It's the holidays, and that could mean either that hardly anyone has an FP this week, or it could mean that there are lots and lots of FPs this week. As for me, I'm doing fairly well. Follow me below the fold and I'll explain, and provide a little more information on how this WYFP? thing works.
My best friend in all the world came out from Las Vegas to spend Christmas with me. Despite fog that would have put Sherlock Holmes's London to shame, he managed to get in last Friday--and we just barely had time to make it to the theater before the curtain rose on a very nice revival of Philip Barry's 1939 play The Philadelphia Story. That was the start of a lovely weekend in Chicago, at the end of which I converted my friend to hockey as we took in a Blackhawks game at the United Center--and got to see the Hawks win their third in a row in a tight game.
It was a little snowy and a lot windy on the way home, but we made it, and kept Christmas at my place. We had to get up at the ungodly hour of 4:30 the next morning to get him back to the airport for his flight home, but we managed to avoid most of the morning rush, though there was quite a lot of congestion at the airport (we weren't the only ones trying to beat the morning rush by any means).
I'm on vacation until next Wednesday, when I have to report back to work, and it's been simply heavenly lounging around the house and not doing an awful lot. Reading some novels, working a puzzle, watching stuff on my TiVo or on DVD, and fiddling around online. That's actually my biggest FP this week, since I should be banging out the last few pages of a long-overdue paper. But I just don't have the stick-it-to-itiveness to do that. This full-time job and part-time graduate school schtick is really beginning to get to me after six years. I find it's really very refreshing to have nothing more urgent to do than pick which movie to watch, or catch up on a little light reading--and that on my own schedule, rather than some instructor's.
I'm not sure where that will go. Maybe I need to look into the possibility of taking a semester off and catching my breath, or maybe I just need to suck it up and buckle down and get this Ph.D. finished so then I can sit back and rest on my laurels for a bit.
Anyhoo, here's how we play our little game. WYFP? is hosted by a different Kossack each week. Repeat posting is not only allowed, it's encouraged, though we do try to spread things out so that nobody has to carry too much of the load. The current schedule as of today looks like this:
December 29 musing85
January 5 bwren
January 12 One bite at a time
January 19 CJB
January 26 sobermom
February 2 deepfish
February 9 blue jersey mom
February 23 blueyedace2
As you can see, we're getting a little thin after next month. So step right up and volunteer and you can host your very own edition of WYFP? Just drop a comment here and let me know your preferred date, or drop an e-mail with the same information to the address in my profile, and I'll put you on the schedule. In case two or more people request the same date, the first one to make the request will get it, and I'll try to accommodate alternate dates for the other(s).
Should you find you need or want to switch dates with someone else on the schedule, that's fine. Go ahead and work it out between yourselves, and then let me know when it's finalized so I can revise the schedule. If for any reason you can't make your regularly scheduled slot, drop me a line and I'll either fill in myself or see if I can't find someone to take it. There's no set time for WYFP?, but most regulars start to get a little twitchy if it hasn't shown up on the recent diaries list by about 7:30 p.m. Central on Saturday night.
So, what's on all y'all's minds tonight?