Based on your preferences

Amazon recommends  the following things to me today:
1) Solgar Folic Acid capsules, 800mcg (250 ct) -- "for your childbearing years"

2) John Jeffries Martin, Myths of Renaissance Individualism -- offering "a new typology of Renaissance selfhood which was at once collective, performative and porous"

3) The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion and Cooking Manual -- "destined to become a lifestyle mantra"

4) Jessica Marquis, Raising Unicorns: Your Step-By-Step Guide to Running a Successful -- and Magical! -- Unicorn Farm -- "Welcome to the whimsical and very lucrative world of unicorn farming!"
and

5) Accoutrements Yodelling Pickle -- "A great gift for the person who has everything but a yodelling pickle."

What the what???

Well played, Amazon. Well played.

Fastest Turnaround in the West.

This isn't the West at all, but I have just sent emails to every person on my Comps board.

Because I have a Comps board.

What has two thumbs and will be taking PhD comprehensives--for reals--in the Fall? Hint: I'm obnoxiously pointing to myself right now.

Today we are 28

Okay, so yesterday we were 28. But I'm pretty sure it's still true.
A short photographic tour of the first day of being 28:

A little blue box.

What happens when the Ritz knows it's your birthday:
Chocolate and tiny lemon meringues!

Paper products that can be stolen from the Ritz-Carlton's bathroom. 

Downtown New York City from a cab.

Riding the highway, not the subway.

Back in from the cold.

O Tannenbaum

In point of comparison, I present to you the following:

a) The tree at Rockafeller Center, which JWR and I went and saw yesterday. It was the first time I'd seen it since an almost-failed attempt back when I lived in New York before:

So yeah, sure, it's majestic and extremely well lit and so on and so forth, but look at all those people. The "Rock" (as I am assured some people call it) was a good ten degrees warmer than the rest of the city just by virtue of all of the midwestern tourists crowding around.

b) The tree in my own living room, courtesy of JWR and our decorating ingenuity:

Now this tree, this tree is worthy of admiration. It came directly to us from the wilds of Maine, and JWR wrestled it into place while I was at work one night. This is a Christmas tree. New York City doesn't have anything on this.

We drink peppermint schnapps and water it twice a day--it's like a Christmas pet. We listen to Christmas songs and admire it from the couch. It stands there as a soothing reminder of what's to come now that the term is over and break is finally here.

And then, because we can't help ourselves, things like this happen:

And it becomes clear that Rockafeller Center could never be as awesome as two grown people dressing up for no other reason than to pose with a Christmas tree.
Right? Right. Right?

The most wonderful time of the year.

A miscellany, lacking in parallel sentence structure:

1) Peanuts Holiday Collection Box-Set: arrived.
2) The weather now necessitates a change in outerwear. Enter layering and fingerless gloves.
3) Amazing new scarf, courtesy of even more amazing fellow.
4) Silk has begun selling soy nog again.
5) About to have five-and-one-half days off in a row.

I may have more work than can be accomplished in the number of hours I have, but dagnabbit if life isn't just grand.

"The problem with philosophers is that because their jobs are so hard they drink a lot of coffee and thus use in their arguments an inordinate quantity of pots, mugs, and jugs--to which, sometimes, they might add the occasional rock"
                        - Bruno Latour, "Why Has Critique Run out of Steam: From Matters of Fact to
                           Matters of Concern"

The plight of the practitioner of humanities, ever circling around coffee and vessels with which to contain it.
Life is hard.

And eat it, too.

The other day I was told, based upon the contents of my spice cupboard, that I am a real person. A person with my adult priorities in order. A person with their proverbial shit kept neatly together.

In many ways, this is true. I accumulate real ingredients for use in food preparation, because my primary hobby when I'm not scooping out large portions of grey matter to make room for intellectual know-how° is cooking. It's easier and more economical than going to the City for any reason.

So last night, when JWR and I returned to my apartment after class, the unbearable urge for something sweet overtook us. After a brief discussion of baking options, we settled on chocolate cake because JWR wanted frosting.
We started throwing things together. Then, it became clear that I didn't have enough egg to make the thing, and we both stood there in my kitchen, flour everywhere and ingredients otherwise assembled--the room deflated in the exact same way it would if a kid waited in line for a donut, only to find they were all gone. But there wasn't really any turning back, at least not substantially, because we had a bowl of flour and cocoa and sugar that could hardly be converted into some other thing. We put it in the fridge.

Then we made the frosting.
Then we ate some frosting.

We ate it just like this, because we are essentially
hyperactive children in adult bodies.

That is to say, the story still had a happy ending. And tonight there will be cake.



Notes:
° The problem inherent in this image of developing both technê and epistêmê is kind maybe that the grey matter is supposed to hold the know-how, and that by removing it I'm sort of chopping off my own feet, or however the saying (there's probably no saying) goes. But you know what? It's just a bad metaphor, and I'm too lazy to change it. So there.