a couple of things on my birthday eve...

i actually had something worthwhile in my student mailbox at the law school today. it was a memo from professors delgado and stefancic (who teach my race, racism, and american law seminar) responding to my paper proposal. i want to write about what we can learn from the hurricane katrina disaster in terms of how america views race and poverty. delgado and stefancic had this to say:

"you have a great topic. write with publication in mind."

publication! brilliant! because that's been my plan all along, but i hadn't voiced this to my professors. i'm so excited about this idea and i've been thinking about it a lot lately. i have tons of things i keep writing down to talk about with delgado and stefancic to flesh out my proposal. i just hope that i can manage to turn this into a relevant and interesting 25 pages, and not bite off more than i can chew.

and the other thing, i just got a phone call from a dear dear dear friend of mine, whom i'll just call "cold medicine kid" to preserve his anonymity. this is a friend who has become one of my absolute favorite people on the planet in the past few months--i can't even imagine my life without him. he's managed to catch the cold i had this week, and so he decided to treat his illness with three bourbons and three doses of cold medicine. and needless to say, he was a little bit out of it. he pretty much yelled at me (not in a mean way, in an i'm-kinda-drunk-and-i'm-so-excited-about-everything-i'm-saying!!! way) the whole phone conversation. and he did this thing that he does when he's had a few drinks, namely, he had a mad case of the i-love-yous and told me that he thinks i'm fabulous and brilliant and all kinds of nice things that are so so kind (but totally symptomatic of the bourbon-and-cold-meds cocktail), but it's my birthday, so i'm going to believe everything he said, so good for me!

(omigod. lara flynn boyle is on conan o'brien right now. she's a terrible interview. TERRIBLE! but i love conan for being able to make fun of it anyway. and for being conan o'brien. for being tall and irish and red-haired and self-deprecating and quick-witted and hilarious. good times!)

so what do i have in store to celebrate my 29th? i'll tell you: butterflies, notre dame football, and drinks with friends. it's basically my idea of a perfect day!