I think I've spotted (experienced?) a new trend: the blast from the past. In less than three weeks, I've received emails from three old friends with whom I'd completely fallen out of touch, but who all spontaneously decided it was time to reconnect. And, lest you think that maybe they'd gotten the idea from each other, think again: one was from high school, one from college, and one from grad school. None of them have ever met. One found me through a mutual friend on Facebook, another Googled me and popped up this much-ignored blog, and the third noticed my name while rifling through his email contacts list.
I'm not going to pretend I know why everyone is looking for me all of a sudden - the last time I got an urge to reconnect, it was a day or two after 9/11, a pretty straightforward motivator - but I'm quite flattered by the attention, and I have genuinely missed the faces coming out of the woodwork. So if any other long-lost friends are out there, here I am! At the current rate, I'll be expecting your email sometime in the next week or ten days :-)
On a totally unrelated note, I just came back from a fantastic weekend of skiing in Tahoe: lots of powder, lots of ski buddies, and lots of chances to prove that my (relatively) new skis are positively awesome at floating through powder and keeping me from falling, despite some pretty good attempts. Even better, the floaty powder action kept me firmly focused on skiing, and therefore mercifully distracted from my thesis - or, more precisely, my lack of data with which to write the rest of said thesis. Sigh. Back to the lizard lamp tomorrow.