spring break is here! it is such a relief to not have to worry about all kinds of deadlines and things for a week. the thing that is sort of bumming is that it is only a week. i don't know if we are going to get to go anywhere or do anything much. amber is going to get work done on her sleeve tomorrow. i'm pretty excited for her. shes getting an image from her own artwork on her arm and i think its going to be really fantastic and expressive. i need to probably go in and have them check out my ears as well. my left one looks pretty much like its healed normally, but the right one is still a little swollen around the piercing. i wanted to move up a size like a month ago, but i feel like ill be lucky if i don't have to go down a size in my right ear in order for it to heal properly. i guess i simply need to be very patient. anyhow also this week we are going to go over and hang out with jason and jenn and see their new place. theyve got a house down around the german village. and i think we are gonna try and go to yellow springs on whatever nice, sunny day there is to do some hiking. we don't have a lot of money so we might have to make some food to bring and skip the dinner and drinks at the tavern there. we spent maybe a bit too much last friday going out with the print dept at st. james in the italian village nearby here. we both had quite a few la fin du mondes, and everyone was a little drunk and laughing and howling about and such things. so i suppose it was worth it to have a pretty good time like that- i know i certainly needed it after this past quarter, it being as hard as it was, and with me pulling consecutive all nighters, literally not sleeping for three days in a row working on prints like a madman, only pausing to go work a shift at logans, then coming back to do more, then to that 10 hour critique where i tried to talk about my work in a state of confusion and exhaustion, along with a few others. let's not even get into the grad level art history class and all of the paper writing and attempts at studying, and the battles with one of the holography teachers over my freedoms in art making. also poor amber with her math class and her geology / meteorology scientific class and her only art class being that holography class. when i think about it all, i feel that much more relieved! ah. its good to be done with all of that, and i know that i'm ready to start something new soon, i just wish we had two weeks of resting and recentering before, but i will take what i can get, i'll take it as it comes.

spent all night last night watching the live feed of the house of rep. debating on the health care bill and voting on it. thankfully they passed it and going to the doctor will become something of a right and not just a privilege reserved for only all of the tidy white fence white collar 9 to 5 to the grave- ers, while the rest of us went years without even getting checkups or neglecting getting care for things that are wrong. too bad they couldn't get the public option but maybe sometime later, this is definitely a move in the right direction.

and so after a spot of reading some jack kerouac this morning and a nice extra long shower, and all of this after some nice well deserved sleeping in, i'm ready to go make a nice early afternoon breakfast with amber and listen to some nice music while the birds chirp out on the wet roofs outside of our windows. we're going to make the most of our time off this week.