And so away to Stevenage, and staid till a showre was over, and so rode easily to Welling, where we supped well, and had two beds in the room and so lay single, and still remember it that of all the nights that ever I slept in my life I never did pass a night […]
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Amanda
Overheard on the campus bus: Student talking to friend on cell phone about party the previous night: "You puked?" [slight pause] "You puked on her?" [more conversation, and then:] "So what are your plans for tonight?" I so don’t regret my socially reclusive, non-party-hearty-ing college years anymore…
Jesus H. Christ on a raft. "The Bush vision is quite radical. He essentially is dreaming of a world where there is no employer-provided insurance," said Uwe Reinhardt, a health economist at Princeton University. "You buy your own insurance, but you pay the first $2,000 to $4,000 per year out of your own pocket." (Via […]
Just caught the first cold of the season. Too congested and run-down to write about anything profound tonight. So I’m posting obscure sixteenth-century poetry instead. I like this one especially for its rhythms. Bethsabe’s Song Hot sun, cool fire, tempered with sweet air,Black shade, fair nurse, shadow my white hair;Shine sun; burn, fire; breathe, air, […]
About a year ago, back at ye olde blog, I wrote a post about olfactory memory that I well-intentionedly meant to follow up on, making it the beginning of a sequence of mini-essays on the five senses, but then didn’t. I haven’t completely abandoned the idea, but I couldn’t think of anything clever to write […]
Definition of blogospheric small-world-after-all weirdness: discovering the blog of an ex with whom one had a traumatic breakup during one’s younger and more drama-prone years. Oy. Definition of blog-facilitated reassurance: looking at said ex’s blog and thinking "Thank god. We really did both grow into different people, and I really did get over her ages […]
Today’s Sunday Opera Matinee on the radio is Bizet’s Carmen (this recording, I think) and, as I type this, I’m listening to Tatiana Troyanos singing the Habanera aria. She sings it less sultrily and more reflectively than other Carmens I’ve heard, almost (at least at first) as if the aria were half soliloquy. But her […]
Virginia is the furthest south I’ve ever lived — except for Santa Monica, which I don’t count because I think of California as west more than anything else. So far it hasn’t been that much of a culture shock, but every so often I think "Hey, I really am living in the south." What prompts […]
Periodically I wrestle with the question of whether my interest in all things aesthetic really means I’m just withdrawing from the world. It’s a serious question, because when I was younger, books and writing were my primary means of escape: when life got too difficult I’d pull a protective cloak of words over myself. So […]
You know what? Cheerfulness, contentment, and a work life that includes a lot of full and interesting days are all very good things. But these are not optimal conditions for blogging. If I were still back in the midwest, keeping irregular sleeping hours, stressing out about teaching, and fretting about my future, I’d probably be […]