So this weekend is the big Halloween Party. It's Reese's party, really, his thing, but this summer the boys moved into a smaller place, so this year the shin dig is happening at my place. And we've invited somewhere between 80 and 100 people. Eek! I'm both excited and a little daunted. It reminds me of those parties we used to throw back in Cleveland. Although the heyday of Belmar saw some of the best parties, I'm pretty sure the number of guests never quite reached the size of those events at Ford. Which was good; I think it made our parties better. I was lying in bed the other night, starting to get a tad nervous about the sheer ambition of our party, remembering some of the less positive happenings in Cleveland (the homeless guy who tried to talk his way in, the losers from the party upstairs who drew on the walls and squirted hand cream (we hoped it was hand cream) all over AWB's bed). I know asshole types come in all ages, but I'm hoping most of us have out grown that phase. Or, at the very least, that there's a critical mass of responsible types so that peer pressure keeps behavior within reasonable bounds.

I'm also back to stressing out about school and research. I have a paper due Nov. 13, then two conference submission deadlines, bam! bam! Nov. 15 and 20. And between now and then I'll be in Boston for a week (yay! I get to see April!). Last week I was singing my advisor's praises, because I was freaking out about the impending conference deadlines, and I just felt like my current little project wasn't coming together into something interesting and worth submitting, and she said not to worry and suggested I read a few other articles and ponder some things for a week while she was out of town then we'd regroup and reassess. Well, the regrouping included her suggesting I miraculously come up with an abstract based on implementing three variations of a method that I allegedly took a class in last year but actually don't understand at all. Sigh. She's actually a very good advisor. And I know that if I don't get my shit together in 3 weeks it won't be the end of the world. I've actually been incredibly lucky lately with publications. But it's all been tangential things. Things I'm interested in, but not directly related to my dissertation. And I'm starting to feel like I haven't made any real noticeable progress on that in a while, and it's time to kick my ass into gear...now, to just figure out a way to become smarter between now and November...