Today

I shared these with the Folio staff (issue launch next week!)

these are my pretty darn good version of the recipe linked above.
by which I mean, they are almost as cute. (photo credit: jason mcfarland)

and watched this:



and read this obsessively

and wrote this.

Also: the semester is almost over. Just in case you didn't notice. How could you not notice?

Endings: an FAQ.

Q. How would you describe the final exam you just wrote for your Grammar & Style students?

A. Fun. No, wait: transplendent.

Q. Tomorrow, will there be cake in class?

A. I believe so.

Q. Will Reading Day be a quiet day?

A. Unfortunately not.

Q. Have you done all that you could?

A. I am not sure.

Q. But will there be cake?

A. I hope so, I really do.

Q. And is your conscience clear?

A. Not quite: it is not quite clear.

Q. And will there be cake?

A. If I make it, there will be cake.

Music & lyrics.

If my life of late were put to music, these would be the lyrics:

blah blah blah blah stress blah blah

blah blah blah blah whine blah blah

blah blah stress

blah blah whine

I think I'll find something to buy.

The second verse, similarly, would go something like this:

blah blah blah blah I can't take it anymore

blah blah blah blah I am still on the internet!

blah blah no more

blah blah internet!

now I think I'll bake a cake.

However, in case you are worried that I might run out of rhymes, I discovered this weekend that shopping is a placeholder for other forms of self-care. Also, that I manage my anxiety better when I am writing. I'm still anxious, but I linger there less. So I am currently working on two poems, if by "working on" we mean "thinking about and taking occasional notes." Actually, that is what we mean, and it's acceptable, qua writing.

Also, I am rediscovering, as we speak, the curative powers of cake. Cake still works.

Accountability.

In the spirit of transparency, I would like to ask for a full reporting of all the data on the following trend I have recently observed in my household:

We are currently suffering a dearth of treats.

We have butter. We have sugar of many kinds. We have chocolate and eggs. We have almonds and various types of flour.

But can we scare up a cookie around here? No.

A piece of cake? No.

Pie? Forget about it.

The people, there is not even a gum drop.

This cannot stand.

A few rights you may not know you have.

Guaranteed by the (or "a") Constitution (TM) (of some kind):

1. The right to eat nachos

2. The right to cheat on the New York Times crossword puzzle by looking up clues on the internet, if it is too hard, or if you start to feel a little urgent about it

3. The right to shop online

4. The right to enjoy terrible music that you loved when you heard it on the radio during that one period of your life

5. The right to live within seven minutes of three different Targets

6. The right to buy cookies at ten p.m. at night because there is a dearth of cookies in your house

7. The right to read a novel with your dog

8. The right to procrastinate

9. The right to skip the boring parts of anything you are reading

10. The right to bake an aspirational cake on the weekend for the historian's birthday (this might be a right limited to me, but who's to say? This IS America).

TAGS: Constitutional, rights, implied, America, we the people

My book group, a five paragraph essay.

What a great idea! A book group composed of my friends and friends of friends. Let's choose wonderful books and read them! and discuss them! with friends! (thesis statement:) A reading group with friends, with wonderful books, to read and discuss--there could not be a better idea.

Sometimes we all come, sometimes we don't. (examples, details, &c. & c.)

Sometimes our ideas of what are great books look different when we read the actual books.

Sometimes we finish the books, sometimes we don't. (we are all busy people, sometimes we actually start reading the book the morning of the meeting day, and by "we" I mean "I," and possible others.)

(bonus paragraph:) Are we possibly too busy for a book group? How can that possibly be? We're educated, literate people, who read, and who like to talk. And eat--let's not forget eat, because there are always snacks, and often cake. Perhaps it is just important to commit to being a part of the group, as a way of committing to reading books? and to constructing parts of our mutual friendships around this commitment to read and discuss books, and eat cake? I think so.

In conclusion, for our book group today, we read and discussed To the Lighthouse, a book I had never read and, moreover, had put off as a part of an eventual "Read Virginia Woolf" project, for which I had always believed the appropriate time, though not precisely now, would arrive and lo, it did, in the form of an e-book, which I checked out from my library after paying my fines, because all the non-e copies of To the Lighthouse--also known as "books"--were either already with library patrons, or in transit, or at libraries scattered hither and yon about the valley but not in my neighborhood: so, and ergo, today I curled up with my laptop (making today much like every other day of my regular life, in effect, although the experience of reading a novel on the laptop was a little different than reading, say, The Huffington Post or The Sartorialist--less clicky, for one thing--), and the people, I am here to tell you that To the Lighthouse is a beautiful and lovely thing, which I'm sure you already knew, but hey, it just happened to me. In an e-book. And it was great to talk about it, with my friends.

(AND: there was cake. The end.)

TAGS: book group, e-, commitment, hither and yon, clicky

Current enthusiasms.

Lorrie Moore. Lorrie Moore's new novel. Clearance jewelry @ Target. Late evening walks with Bruiser. The New York Times crossword puzzle. Going to Idaho. All the fall fashion mags. Piles of new poetry books. My Mac. Tomatoes. Peaches. Tomatoes. Almond butter. Little white nectarines I got at the market. The market. The historian. The kids. The grandkids. My kids' blogs. Go Fug Yourself. Screenr. Work meetings with people who are my friends. The students. Good days. Leaving town. Coming back.

Or, to put it another way: