the marathon blog post will have to wait a little longer, as life was waiting for me as soon as the race was over. but i’m headed to Minneapolis for five days of theatre conferencing later this week, which will actually be like a mini vacation. there will be networking and gladhanding and sitquietlyandlistening to be done during the day, but evenings stretch out ahead of me, empty, obligation-free in a enticing sort of way. free time to read/write/knit/explore a new city. i was actually thinking of looking up the local Obama office there and seeing if i could volunteer for few hours (in spite of the fact that the very thought of cold calling strangers makes my throat close up in an instant anxiety attack sort of way), MN being a swing state and all.

so for tonight’s post, i’ll just throw a few other free-association items out into the ether:

bad day? (i had one)
try the sad trombone.
it was good for a snicker at least, which i needed.

new subject, no transition:
i’ve become a regular listener to NPR’s Planet Money podcast. me, interested in econ? a sign of the apocalypse? or just an indication that i’m officially in my 30s? it gets bigger than that, actually. i think i’m going to enroll in some econ classes this winter/spring at the U where i work, since they let staff enroll at half-price tuition. (unfortunately, 50% of very expensive still equals very expensive).

on the topic of money, the economic crisis has finally come for me: my second job cut my hours back. people hear that times are going to be tough, so they stop buying expensive theatre tickets, so my company makes some dire (but probably accurate) projections and decides to up the minimum number of shows that the full-timers do. which means that there are less shows for us part-timers to pick up. i’m working 50% fewer shows in december this year than i did in december last year. this and having to make tuition payments just before the holidays: the upshot is that you’re all getting knitted socks for christmas. lumpy, itchy, wool socks.