small but meaningful mercies

1. It has stopped raining, and the sun is brilliant.

2. My candidacy for the Brazil program is still up in the air; it seems that the panel needed more time to decide which of the finalists to send, and the email indicating as much somehow did not get sent. So I'm not not going, as I suspected when the notification deadline came and went and there was no word. Now I have to wait until January 10th to find out if I am going. I went back and reread the synopses of all the other finalists' proposed projects, and I think mine is probably the most unusual, if not necessarily the most interesting to a mass audience.

So, we'll see.

3. ArchitectX is offering me shelter for the first half of the month, and Princess for the second. Both have HEAT in their flats, which is a delightful change after the place I just moved out of, and AX has a stunning library that threatens to eat me alive. So the whole homeless thing is not quite so dreadful, and instead of having to find a new apartment, I can focus on getting my stuff in order before heading to Detroit. Blessings abound.

4. Alfred Molina is playing the villian in the next Spider-Man movie, and it looks like he shed the Diego pounds for the role. Right on.