scattershot 10: at the edges

Beneath the thick, almost suffocating layer of major life stuff going on right now, my brain still finds plenty of time to be preoccupied by the lighter, airier, smaller stuff. Stuff like this:

1. Why is 30 Rock, and particularly Liz Lemon, so appealing to me? Identification is the obvious answer, and yes, the character is roughly my age, but that's about it. E! suggested that it's the closest thing we have to Arrested Development, which is an excellent point. Both casts are vast and talented, and the writing for both combines the zany with the observant with the utterly unexpected. I like 30 R a little bit more, which is only a comment on just how much I love it, like Tracy Jordan and cornbread.
2. It is beyond me why people who are trying to sell their house would include intricate descriptions of precisely how the berried vines intertwine with the leaves on the bedroom wallpaper (not just that they intertwine, though that would also be offputting). Seriously. I refuse to look at the house on principle. 
3. Am I a bad person for thinking that the Obama gaffe on Leno isn't all that big of a deal and in fact reveals him as refreshingly imperfect? Maybe he'll be a little more forgiving when Biden next opens his mouth. God, I love Joe Biden.
4. I am fairly certain that JM and his mad math skills are at least partially responsible for the dissolution of at least two NCAA pools (and if they have not been dissolved, then we have merely been left off the invitation list). It is true that his statistical approach takes all the fun out of it, especially that year he won the entire pool by the second or third round.
5. My communication rhetoric colleagues here at Illinois are awesome. Each and every one of them, for all their brilliant and beautiful ways. 
6. Yesterday I got my first taste of what it's like to lead a meeting. I have never chaired any committee before (apart from dissertation committees), but I am chairing my first one for the American Society for the History of Rhetoric. And I think I might like it. It asks me to cultivate a certain remove and to focus on gathering input and developing actions. It's also a committee dealing with issues I care about--publication opportunities for people in my field--and so that makes a big difference in my orientation to the work we are doing and the solutions we are seeking.  
7. One of my facebook friends mentioned something along these lines in her status update: facebook is getting a little tiring. And I don't mean the new layout--don't really care about that. I'm not saying I'll be giving it up, but it does make me a little more fond of this blog space.
8. All this mapping of properties in State College has reminded me of how that place utterly wrecked my sense of N/S/E/W direction.
9. Selling our house in Urbana has heightened the appeal of renting, at least for a little while.
10. When or if we do buy, we are going to be super picky. I already feel a little sorry for our real estate agent.