http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091206.html

Comet McNaught, the Great Comet of 2007, was the brightest comet of the last 40 years.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091205.html

Himalayan Skyscape

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091204.html

The Double Cluster

youresoabsurd

I don't usually wear seatbelts when I'm in the back seat in someone's vehicle.
I used to unbuckle it when driving.

Do you?

The odds are irresistible.

If you arn't constantly gambling with your life you're not

really

living.

youresoabsurd

Oh how it stings.

How about the theory that nothing is ever really forgotten?
The memory hovers in your head like a misplaced thing, or like a car stalled at the on-ramp as the traffic goes by.
Dreams (or even daydreams) are like that too, hiding in your memories before leaping out at you later that morning when you see a shoe or an ad for something random such as baby formula or a carton of Clementines.

These things I remember:

1.
Those nights when the air is so cold and clear you can smell a wood stove burning half a mile away.

3.
Listening to the bell tower chiming from my old apartment.

2.
Knowing the number of seconds it takes the street light to change from red to green at State St. and South University.

3.
Remembering the distinctive taste of Cafe Royale coffee.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091203.html

NGC 660 lies near the center of

youresoabsurd

These are all taken by: Jeff Pfeffer.
( From: http://jeffpfeffer.com/gallery/ )
I think that he is a friend of Lily Pan - who I've known from grade school.
I found his website through her.

I used to live in an apartment at 321 E. Liberty Street.
It was a nice place, owned by a retired teacher who would occasionally bake himself in the apartment with his eldest son when they had to fix the place up, and when we wern't around.
We housed one of our housemates in the furnished basement to make the rent cheaper.
This apartment was next to the Bead Gallery, which is the best bead store in the world, and I would go buy beads to make jewelry for people.
It was also only a few blocks from campus, and was located in the most beautiful area of town.

Every morning on my way to class, I passed by this alley:

This is the best painted alleyway in Ann Arbor.
It is beautiful, and Ann Arbor's regular street performers and beggars come here as their usual joint to do their thing.
Show their stuff.
Poke their struts.
(Remember when Shakey Jake died?)
This guy plays Michael Jackson on his stereo and dances in the shadows.
He comes here to practice once a week.
He is really really good at it.

After passing the alley on Liberty Street, I walk up to the Michigan theater, (also on Liberty Street) which is known for the selection in independent films and international films.
They also host the Ann Arbor Film Festival, which I went to my last year in Ann Arbor.
It is a magnificent theater that is very old-opera theater-like in style, with an organ-player hitting the keys before each film is played:

After passing this theater, Liberty street ends and there is a T-intersection between Liberty and State street.

At the feet of Liberty street is the State theater:

It is sort of run down and shows only a handful of the movies that have been discontinued at the larger theaters weeks before.
They also have really stale popcorn.
I usually dip into an alleyway behind this theater (located to the left of the couple in this picture: http://jeffpfeffer.com/uncategorized/midnight-stroll/ ) in order to get to my classes, a few of those classes being located in the Dow Laboratories of the Chemistry building.

The indoor atrium inside the Chemistry building.
There usually arn't any street performers located in this atrium.
Maybe this is a crazy graduate student:

Each biochemistry, organic chemistry, and biology course I took had a laboratory requirement.
Each laboratory class ate a fuckload of additional fees in "glassware insurance," and it was something I had to pay before taking the course.
A careful and mousey person like me never breaks glassware.
I never got to see that money again.
And so I used to steal a ton of glassware from here.

The campus also had a diag, and on the east of it stood these archways, which is always beautiful to walk through:


It also has a sign to the left of it, but authorities don't enforce it and bikers don't abide by it (in the most disrespectful way they can, with marker).

I don't actually know where he took this next picture.
It was taken from either:

1. North University Street in the Hill area.
If you keep heading west towards Nichols Arboretum, you come by a graveyard.
This could be a tree in the graveyard.

2. Washtenaw Avenue, towards Yipsilanti past Truth house Co-op (where I lived).
This could be a tree in one of the (frat?) estates on Washtenaw.

Probably the graveyard.

There are various bohemian-esque boutiques scattered around Ann Arbor, and this is one of them.
This one happens to be located on the opposite area of town from the picture above.
(Or rather, located more centrally, because it is downtown Ann Arbor.)

Main Street.

When I look at these pictures, I am hit with a wave of sadness and endearment all at the same time.
It's as if he looks into my memories to conjure up these images.
I try to memorize the minute details I am not sure I will see again.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091202.html

What creates the cosmic dust sculptures in the Rosette Nebula?

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091201.html

Wisps like this are all that remain visible of a Milky Way star.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091130.html

This was just one more breathtaking view from the International Space Station.

youresoabsurd

"A short story is a love affair;
a novel is a marriage.
A short story is a photograph;
a novel is a film.
A short story is a weekend guest;
a novel is a long-term boarder.
A story is a brick;
a novel is a brick wall.
A short story is a flower;
a novel is a job."

- Lorrie Moore

I know that I've been saying this for a long while now, but one day I will write a book and I will just print out my entire LiveJournal and old Xanga entries like a terrible cheap bastard and I might even staple it just at the corner.
Then I will have that giant packet of paper all disheveled in my arms, and bust in through the doors of the publisher/editor/whoever, wiping off all the fake sweat on my face as I hand it to them.
Of course, they will read the first page and rip it up, but that's not the point.
The point is that when the publisher rips it up, I will collapse to the floor sighing and smiling, my chains and burdens broken.

youresoabsurd

After years of half-assed (and most recently, quarter-assed) graphing, charting, and writing papers, I believe that I have finally produced my masterpiece for my boss - the eighth-assed series of data collection graphs.

This is the sort of work you fling down a well and run to another state to escape.