Tom & Alissa

We spent the weekend in Albany with my Mom and brother. Tom hasn’t been there much since Christmas, because of his working schedule, so it was delightful to hang out with them. Tom cooked mussels in white wine sauce for dinner; we lazed around by the pool; we watched Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole; and in general, we did very little and enjoyed it (especially the weather).

Unfortunately for me, I contracted a nasty cold late last week and by Saturday I was quite sick. I was a bit better when we got home on Sunday, but yesterday I woke up and the right side of my head was swollen, mostly from sinuses, so I stayed home.

Which is, of course, bizarre, because this is my last week as a full-time employee of anyone, at least for a long time! We’ll spend this (long) weekend with my grandparents on the Jersey Shore, and then on Tuesday I’ll be starting at IAM. I’ll be doing about two days a week at NYU and three at IAM until the end of October (plus my duties at Comment, plus two classes, plus editing The Curator, plus a couple movie reviews for Christianity Today), when the NYU job will end and I will hopefully be able to breathe again. I am looking forward to it, but with a small bit of apprehension. Really, though, how can I complain? I’ll be spending most of my time on things I love, at long last. And hopefully soon Tom will have work again, so I’ll probably have a bit more time to myself anyhow. It’s much easier for either of us to be working a lot if we both are.

In other news, it’s beautiful in New York today - warmish but not hot, and sunny - and I am so excited for beautiful fall to arrive. Not just for the weather, either - for the movies! Most of the year’s best movies come out in the fall (for Oscar consideration) and there’s a number of great ones this fall. We just got invited to an advance screening of Burn Before Reading (the Coen brothers’ comedy), and there’s many more in the works. Cue popcorn season!