back after a tiring weekend. i think there need to be more windows in our house, and that they all need better insulation. living in the drafty dark is compounding all of our other issues and making us moody.

we did get a lovely amount of sun on saturday morning, when the house, plus jenny, walked a few miles of the manayunk canal towpath. it's finally fall, in that particular east-coast way that involves bright blue skies and not-overwhelming briskness. i'm starting to learn that here, unlike in north dakota, clear skies after october do not necessarily mean arctic high-pressure systems and sub-zero temperatures. hurray!

on our walk we found an abandoned factory, the inside of which had been mostly destroyed by fire. beautiful architecture, though, and even better acoustics. i love ruins.

after a difficult afternoon (culminating in an unsatisfying nap), we headed to swarthmore for dinner chez rosbeccian (and albert, but we didn't see him) (who have a note on the kitchen wall containing contact info for something like "alyssameliaurel"). i met ross's parents. he is lucky enough to also have a mother named betsy. she is very little like my mother-named-betsy, except that they are both very nice. in any case, the food was fantastic.

sunday was church, crossword, grad school apps, dinner, Big Night. a good day, all told, and with an intriguing sermon about the importance of "giving from the place of your poverty." it is a pleasing idea that giving from the resources of which you're in shortest supply can maybe heal that impoverishment.

on a more disturbing note, my church is to be picketed by fred phelps's people. ugh. the brighter side of that news is that was incredibly impressed with the reaction of our congregation: there is, thank goodness, no sense that we owe these people some sort of deference, or that it might be important to dialogue with them, or that, in fact, our welcome to queer people can be at issue at all. so, friends and neighbors, if you are in the philly area, you should come to church with me on the 23rd. don't forget to wear your COW paraphernalia.

aaand...that's about it. as a bit of an afterthought, here is a story about the supreme court's writ of cert for guantanamo prisoners. let's hope they do the right thing.