Happiness Incarnate

As of 12:32am this morning there is one more Dambrink for the world to love! My brother's wife gave birth to a handsome boy and as a result I've been a little giddy all day. His name? Asher Alexander Dambrink. My brother and our dad both have the middle name Alexander, so it looks like we've got a tradition going. I asked Adam why he and Katie picked the name Asher and there isn't much to it except that they like how it sounds. Asher. One of the twelve tribes of Israel, Hebrew for "happy, blessed." I love this because their first child, a beautiful little girl, is named Jovie, like unto jovial and joy, and who could pass up another bundle of that?

The Mid-Ohio-Con

Because some things are meant to be shared.

Home is where your books are

My parents' house:

My apartment building:

The English building (yes, that's Dinty waiting for his ride):

Alden Library:

For Sentimental Reasons

I think I'm finally settled in Athens. It's been a month-long process, but right around 2:15pm today the thought occurred to me for the first time that even if I could go back to D.C. right now, I don't think I would. I was helping one of my students with a paper and, as we started to wrap things up, she said, "I don't think I've ever worked this hard on a paper. I kinda like it." And I felt for a moment that I was right where I ought to be.

Oh Athens, I admit I was skeptical at first. When I drove into town last month with Mom and Dad and the highway curved around campus so that all the town sprawled out to my right, replete with and surrounded by trees and trees and more trees, my body tensed up and a miserable feeling of claustrophobia set in. But then I met my roommate, who has Bob Dylan lyrics inked on her back in Courier and who shares her Diet Coke and who sits at the kitchen counter while I bake and we swap stories. And there's her dog Edgar, who cries like an overexcited child whenever we come home and sleeps on our laps belly-up while we watch movies. Yes and then there's the pizza at Avalanche and the drinks at Casa (what? they make a mean Shirley Temple!) and the custard at Perks and the sandwiches at Brennan's! Did you know that there's a groundhog who scrounges about beside the road at 682 and Richland all day and an odd old man who, it appears, rides the local bus for the company? And has anyone ever told you that whenever there's a persistent drizzle here it smells like Rijnsaterwoude in the green heart of Holland? So with a contented sigh I dedicate this one to you, Athens:

Further Evidence of Infatuation

Courtesy of a job suited to the skill level of the average chimpanzee and the seemingly countless hours of idle interweb surfing that it enables, I have been reading up on one of my favorite subjects, Jeremy Bentham. How can I not find him fascinating and hilarious when he writes stuff like this in his Last Will and Testament:

"My body I give to my dear friend Doctor Southwood Smith to be disposed of in manner hereinafter mentioned And I direct that as soon as it appears to any one that my life is at an end my executor or any other person by whom on the opening of this paper the contents thereof shall have been observed shall send an express with information of my decease to Doctor Southwood Smith requesting him to repair to the place where my body is lying and after ascertaining by appropriate experiment that no life remains it is my request that he will take my body under his charge and take the requisite and appropriate measures to the disposal and preservation of the several parts of my bodily frame in the manner expressed in the paper annexed to this my will and at the top of which I have written "Auto Icon" The skeleton he will cause to be put together in such manner as that the whole figure may be seated in a Chair usually occupied by me when living in the attitude in which I am sitting when engaged in thought in the course of time employed in writing I direct that the body thus prepared shall be transferred to my executor He will cause the skeleton to be clad in one of the suits of black occasionally worn by me . . . And for containing the whole apparatus he will cause to be prepared an appropriate box or case and will cause to be engraved in conspicuous characters on a plate to be affixed thereon and also on the labels on the glass cases in which the preparations of the soft parts of my body shall be contained as for eexample in the manner used in the case of wine decanters my name at length with the letters ob: followed by the day of my decease. If it should so happen that my previous friends and other Disciples should be disposed to meet together on some day or days of the year for the purpose of commemorating the Founder of the greatest happiness system of morals and legislation my executor will from time to time cause to be conveyed to the room in which they meet the said Box or case with the contents there to be stationed in such part of the room as to the assembled company shall seem meet..."

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