And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes,
Him will I follow through the storm;
And at his hearth-fire keep me warm;
Nor hell nor heaven shall that soul surprise,
Who loves the rain,
And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes.
-Frances Shaw
Also, I just uploaded a video of myself playing the banjo, but unless your connection is faster than mine you won't be able to watch it. 
Anyway, other than that things are going pretty well. The Future Ms. Ascanius is living an hour and a half away from me this year, so we get to spend our weekends together. After a year apart that feels like heaven. Classes are going pretty well. I'm taking Sales and Estates, which are boring, Corporations, which I think will be useful, but the prof. and I don't see eye to eye, and Land Transactions and Finance, which is great. It's what I think I want to do when I finish up here, since I'm pretty sure I don't want to be a lawyer. It's a really practical, down to earth class about how to get shit done in the world of real estate. The professor is this tiny, giddy little Jewish guy who looks like he could be one of my uncles. He keeps making little references that only I get, since I'm the only Jew in the class. For example, "here's the standing on one foot version of the rule against perpetuities."
Anyway, so that's all good. I've recently started walking to school. It's 1.7 miles either way on a pretty steep grade, and I think I could really use the exercise. Also, it's a really pretty walk. I'll try to remember my camera next time. It's foliage season and everything is starting to light up red.
Well, my best to you all.
And some of my new little cabin:
So, I've been getting ready to write a really long entry recounting the details of the trip, but I was getting bored just thinking about it so I can't imagine it'd be particularly interesting to read. Instead, some highlights:
So, after the trip out to Portland, a couple of days in Portland, and then a relatively lightning trip back East in my fiance's car. Not a whole lot of interesting stories to tell, but a lot of road. Don't drive a Honda Element through Utah. It picks up the gusts of wind like it had a sail.
I read "We Wish to Inform You That in the Morning We Will Be Killed With Our Families" on the train. It's a pretty amazing book. I'm not usually a genocide junkie, but I read it because of the recent allegations that France was involved in the genocide. I wanted a little more background. The book does a fantastic job humanizing the genocide, and giving a broad picture of the whole mess without getting bogged down in statistics.
On the ride home I listened to "The Time Traveler's Wife," on the recommendation of the lovely Oubliette, "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" by David Sedaris, "Rant" by Chuck Palenhuik (or however you spell it, and "Frankenstein." I really like imagining Mary Shelley tiptoeing around Lord Byron and Percy Shelley pretending she didn't have a thing on the two great poets, all the while writing a novel that would last as long as any of their poetry.
"The Time Traveler's Wife" is a very beautiful love story. I'm not usually the kind to go in for beautiful love stories, but this one was interesting. The characters where good, and the confused chronology lit both the general narrative and the love affair in an unusual way. Worth the read.
"Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" was pretty great. David Sedaris is so funny and tragic, and its pretty great to hear him read his own stuff.
"Rant" is engrossing. I didn't read "Fight Club," but I saw the movie, and it seems Palanhuik seems to think social revolution kind of grows out of the ground, and the plot development seemed a little arbitrary on account, not to mention a healthy dose of bullshit metaphysics, but it was pretty good anyway.
Well, that's kind of all I've got for the moment, but I hope you're all doing well.
Also, the mice in my new cabin seem to have a strange and disturbing predilection to crawling behind the uncovered outlets and then dying, and then going unnoticed until they putrefy. I've had the smell of rotten mouse trapped in my head like a bad song for days. 
Hope you're all doing well.
