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(Firstly, apologies for the sketchy commenting interface lately. I'm switching to Disqus, and it takes a day or two to settle down and play nicely.)
Did anyone notice that this is the fourth blog post on consecutive days? This may not be all that substantive a post, but I think it calls for a squirrel dance.
(More later today, perhaps something for Cogitation Tuesday. It is only 5am, after all.)
is currently on break while Equivag spends some time working on his tan in the desert.
Why not visit his temporary new blog in the interim? It won't be any more fascinating, but you can laugh at him sweating.
... The Banal Chew is a year old today!
I'm leaving the Arizona desert in a few hours. It's been a great visit. Tucson will always be a special place to me.
Homer's annual Holiday Party last night was good fun. I met a number of swell guys, including a few Southwestern bloggers. What a treat.
Cobban, Homer, Brian, Sandy, Frank, Jim (l to r)
Frank and Cobban horsing around. (Frank actually picked me all the way up for a different photo. He must be a strong man, considering how much food I've eaten this trip and how little exercise I've gotten to boot.)
Decorating cookies was also a great time. Many of us got über-creative. I didn't know I had it in me. I wonder if others did.
Next up is a couple more days with friends in Palm Springs and then it's back to Sydney. I am looking forward to seeing Mark, Zane, Roger and the kitties again.
I've started a new feature on The Banal Chew. 
It's a daily (or so) gabcast called "Critter Matters."
Look in the left-hand panel to find it, but first dig out the No-Doz.
By now, saying that I have been fairly inconsistent with the routine of my blog posting would be annoyingly apparent, kind of like my use of alliteration at times. As I sit down to quickly compose a post, I feel like I have too little time to say all that I'd like to. I will touch on a few things though. And in a way, I suppose that leaving a little up to the imagination isn't such a bad thing in reality.
It was a busier week than usual for me. Seems I was on the go just about all the time. It brought me to realize that when life finally presents me with the opportunity to work away from home, the shock will be fairly challenging at first. No doubt I'll fall into some kind of routine, but I wonder how long it will take.
Between working, compiling and posting academic job applications, taking care of Ralph (happily!) for Dean & Brad, a guest conducting gig, and all kinds of errands, I hardly had time for coffee. When Sandy can't have his coffee, it ain't pretty. But I survived.
Guest conducting gig. Sounds so glamorous. Actually I filled in for the director of the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Choir for their weekly rehearsal. It felt great finally to be doing music again, especially as I am going through the process of applying for conducting and teaching jobs. The group are preparing for a World AIDS Day concert, on which they will perform works by Morten Lauridsen and John Tavener, two very fine choral composers. The choir will also sing another work, this one written by a contemporary Australian composer as a gift to the choir. It should be a great program. If you're in Sydney, here are more details.
To answer Patsy's question in a previous comment, Zirkus! (Sleaze Ball 2007) was good fun. There were three dance floors. There was the mammoth, main floor in the Hordern Pavilion with international DJs playing some very sensational music. The shows were amazing, too. What's not to love about 15 or so entertainers on stage and stationed on tall columns around the dance floor twirling flaming nunchuks to awesome music? Another floor was in The Dome. The music has a harder edge and the crowd tends more to the leather and fetish side. What a hoot. The third dance area, The Forum, was my least favorite, primarily because it was so crowded you honestly couldn't find a place to perch or dance that wasn't nut to butt. I suppose it would be better if I were more into the 80s remixes. But I'm not. Anyway, folks were having fun, and that's what matters.
In addition, there was the costume competition outside in the massive courtyard. With a theme of a 1930s Berlin circus, you can imagine how outrageously some people were dressed. When I first entered the area after arriving, I walked past a crowd of merry 20-somethings standing and talking. The guy closest to me, an attractive man dressed only in harlequin tights did a standing splits as I drew near, lifting his foot all the way above his head so that I could pass. I laughed and did my Jane Russell, "Honey, you'll hurt yourself" as I walked by him. (O come on, he'd never heard it before!) Anyway, then I thought to myself, "And this is part of what makes living in Sydney so much fun."
On Sunday, Mark came back from Wollongong, where he'd been visiting with his siblings who had gathered from all over to celebrate their mother's 60th birthday with a surprise party. She, on the other hand, had informed them only recently that her boss had already booked the two of them for a long weekend at a 5-star resort in Phuket. But that's another story.
Yesterday, Mark and I finished off a beautiful long weekend by taking advantage of the incredible weather and took Roger over to Clovelly Beach for lunch and some ocean air. (Zane is on school holidays and has flown up to Townsville to hang out with both his paternal cousins and maternal grandmother for 10 days.)
It was another one of those this-is-what-makes-living-here-fun moments.
A shock to your senses, I know.
I'm experimenting with a new design.
Please feel free to share the love.
(Ah, you say, the rites of passage for blog novitiates. Mmm hmm.)
