I'm back baby!! And I'm ready to TILT.

Free Book(s) - I have a new job working for an independent rare book seller. I found it randomly on Craig's List. It's been a great job and I'm enjoying it. We just got a big collection of 5,000 books from some estate, and as a perk our boss is letting us pick three free books each. It's hard, but I picked my first one this week. It's a 1958 copy of Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. It's not especially valuable but it's illustrated, with some lovely color drawings of each character. I love it. (I took the pictures quickly myself, so forgive the poor quality.)

Finding Friends From Forever Ago - We're talking my best friend from 1st grade. My mom said we did everything together as kids, but we moved the next year and I haven't spoken to her since. But this past week she found me on Facebook. How crazy is that? I know social networking can get irritating, but it can be pretty damn cool too. It's early on but I am excited about reconnecting with her.

Discovering a CD you want exists the day before it's released - Virtually no waiting! I LOVE the song "Falling Slowly" from the movied Once. The movie was decent, but the soundtrack is one of my all-time favorites. I love the style and the voices of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. I swear I've searched for more by them before with no success. Then through Pandora I happened upon them. They've formed themselves into a group called The Swell Season, and they released a new CD, Strict Joy, Tuesday. I found this out Monday. So I only had to wait half a day to buy it. The CD is a little different than I was hoping, but it's still good.

Friendly encouragement - I wrote that last blog post mostly to explain my absence in Cyber-land. I wasn't really going for pity or sympathy. But I got it. All the comments I got were so sweet. And yes, I may be more dependent on comments than I should be, but don't feel like you have to comment on my blog. It's cool. Thanks again everyone.

Upcoming theatre fun! - Next Tuesday I am going to see White Christmas with my dad, and then Saturday the 14th I am meeting my BEDA buddy Becky in Des Moines to see Rent. Everyone knows how big a Broadway musical geek I am and I can't wait because I've never seen either show live. Woot!

That's it for this week folks. Thanks for playing.