Hey Yeah! Just wanted to let you all know I'm graduating from UB at long last! It only took me four years, many tears, and the foresight to form a committee that wouldn't even really read my paper. Wise choice!

This past semester I've been working fulltime, so there were a lot of sleepless nights and ruined weekends, but hey, it's done now, so all I have to do it look back in wonder and wait for the formwork bitterness to pass. UB, you're done with me, at long last.

But this is also an announcement that my project is online and you should check it out. I'm actually really pleased with how it came out and I did indeed work hard on it, which feels good.

Anyways, the site is www.darevirginia.com

Dare, Viriginia is a hypertext history of missing and imaginary American women.

Please check it out and let me know what you think. Tell me if you think the navigation is confusing, or if the javascript resize makes the screen too small for you. I still gotta work that out.

And now, on to the student loans...

Okay, I know you've been crossing country skiing in the park because I see your tracks. Yes I do, I see them. You know who you are. I rilly rilly rilly want to go to Byrncliff so why don't you call me and we can all ski again! You know who you are! Help! My boyfriend is a bookworm who thinks cross country skiing is too much work! What a freak! I need you! Ski with me!

OK, so I can't NOT go in costume to my own party. So I'm recycling an old idea into a new costume...

I thought I would post my competing Before & After Party in the spirit of choice and a free-market economy. My house is small, I'm turning 30, I have cats, and I'm not bothering with a costume for the first Holly-ween in seriously 29 years (even at the tender age of 3 my mother dressed me up as Pancho Villa, complete with moustache and sombrero. But I just can't ask my evil twin Polly to come out for yet another monster bash.) So please come by and celebrate with me, before and after your wilder engagements!

October 29th
623 Parkside Ave.

I thought everyone whow knows Judy, my mom, would like to know that Wednesday night she had a hear attack and was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital in Erie. She's going to be okay. Only one of her arteries was clogged and they've already cleared it out, but she will have to stay in the hospital until Monday, and she will have to give up the salty snacks and creamy goodies that are her only joy. The last thing she ate before she started to have severe chest pains was a bowl of peanut butter ice cream covered with chocolate syrup, if that gives you any indication of her usual fare!

You could tell how much everyone loves my mom by the number of people who rushed to Erie at 11 at night to be with her. I came with my boyfriend from Buffalo, my cousin came from Hamburg, my sisters and my nephew were already with her, my niece came from Toronto, and my mom's brother and sister came from Bradford, PA. My mom heard the doctor say "she has a consortium in the waiting room," only she keeps saying consor-ti-um instead of consorshum which makes it sound so cute. I think the morphine helps too. She said a number of funny things while in intense pain, another testement to just how tough that old bird is. One of the orderlies in Bradford used to party at our house when my sisters were younger. My mom was the only one who recongnized him and said "Roger Ludwig, I'm doooomed." Then she told all of us, a la Monty Python, "but I don't want to go on the cart!!"

I can't tell you all how relieved we are that she is going to be okay. It's too terrible to see your Mommy all yellow and cold and contorted with pain on a hospital gurney. Please, everyone, quit smoking now, exercise, eat right, all that shit, so that the people who love you so much never have to worry like we have about our mom. I finally managed to quit smoking now a month, and I was so glad that I wasn't standing outside a hospital sucking a cigarette while my mom (ex, but one-time heavy, smoker) was inside having a heart attack. I know death isn't preventable, but preventable death is preventable, so like, shape up everyone, or ship out, as they say.

If anyone wants to pass a message on to my mom, send me an email, and I'll bring them to her on Sunday. I know she'd like to hear from you.