Apparently I once made Joe laugh by saying that Richard Powers was like Scientific American plus a Bach CD. I do not remember this at all. Oh, where are you, pedantic/brillant Richard Powers book? I gave alot away when I moved to Baltimore; this time I'm going to box all my books up ahead of time so I don't get overwhelmed and suddenly overgenerous with my belongings.

What a beautiful afternoon. Spring Fair is going on, with its funnel cakes, beergarden and moonbounce. I'm keeping my distance. Ran a long, glacially-paced, cathartic run this afternoon, then talked to my Dad, who is visiting Baltimore tomorrow. I'm going to need to clean the refrigerator tonight and make sure I have enough towels.

Update--no clean guest towels at all, so I need to get quarters for the washing machine. Bank is closed; could go to the ATM and then to Chocolatea. They've been stingy with change in the past, so I may need to do a One World/Chocolatea quarter-begging combo. Logistics!

I had a woman nearly knock me over yesterday in the Ambassador elevator. I'm on my way to class, waiting to get out on the ground level, the door opens and she charges right into me. This seems to happen all the time; folks are shocked, SHOCKED to encounter another human being in the elevator. They get all wide-eyed and flustered. Maybe I’m standing in the wrong place? Another compelling reason to take the stairs.

Wendy kindly asked me if I wanted to come over and watch a fish movie with them tonight. "What kind of fish movie?" I said. "Something Dave got at work," she said. I was delighted by the possibilities for an almost ecstatic boredom while watching a sustainable fishing documentary, but I made the hard decision to stay home and Write. So that's what I'm going to do, starting....now. Or now.

I have had it up to here with writing student recommendations. The worst is one I remember spending a good portion of a Christmas break afternoon on, matching rec letter with a dozen envelopes, program details and such, and then hearing nothing from the student until a semester later when I ran into her at the library. "Oh I decided not to do that," she said. I'm all for changing one's mind, but grrrrr.

On the other hand I've really been happy to mentor some wonderful former students and help them find their way. It's the wholr recommendation letter shenanigans that gets to me. Maybe because I still have to painfully ask for them myself.

Whatever happened to the letter of introduction as a social tool? What if you carried around a laminated letter from the most powerful person who liked you?

“Sharp pain stop, dull pain keep going,” the yoga instructor said. But he didn’t speak to the bothdullandsharp pain that appears twenty-four hours later when you try to type, or lift your arm above your shoulder. In a fit of New Year’s enthusiasm I bought an unlimited monthly yoga pass. I’m getting stronger, slowly. Still haven’t learned which instructors are better and which are the ones to avoid.
Yesterday’s instructor talked like an angry flamboyant Yoda. Lots of inverted syntax and growling. At one point, when the room was about 100 degrees and we were in warrior pose, he said, “no buzz like the yoga buzz, there is. The only greater buzz is loooove.” (The way he said love didn’t sound like he was thinking agape.) But he did play the Beatles and not all Hare Krishna music, so thumbs up.

This inflatable mattress P. and I bought has grown on me. (Ha.) At first I hated its shower-curtain smell and its tendency to deflate throughout the night. But now that I’m back to my firm and delightfully collegiate extra-long twin bed, the night-raft’s still taking up a large corner of my living room. With some pillows and blankets, it makes a good reading nest but is not going to win any design awards.

Middle-school sleepovers at A.D.’s house often involved her brother’s water bed (brother not present). It was underfilled and with a small movement of my shoulders I could create a loud slosh of inter-bed tsunami.

All this reminds me- I want to see Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. It came and went at the Rotunda in the space of a week. Anyone seen it?

I bought strawberries at Whole Foods this afternoon. They're all mutant and shiny. A beginning fuzz of mold on the bottom ones. Have cut them up and put sugar on top. Powdered sugar would be best, because granules never quite melt in.

So now I'm having strawberries in the sun. I almost need a fan in here.

Tonight is the first Orioles game of the season; I'm going to watch it at Frazier's.

The winner of my search for "mutant strawberries":