I am so so very tired.

I had this distinct thought while I was teaching today--actually still teaching, on the very last day of class--"Why am I still talking?"

So much talking.

I am looking forward to the grading, in silence.

The silence.

There are times when a bunch of new music and a bunch of old music, a loaded iPod, a car, a day with a lot of festive cooking ahead in it, some rejuvenating housecleaning--times when such conditions call for music, lots of it, for a heady, raucous blast of sound is the ne plus ultra. Is the very-much-to-be-desired. Is exactly what I want.

Those times, the people, are not now.

I remember sometimes when the kids were growing and had soundtracks of their own to play, whenever I had a moment when the sounds could be my own, those sounds would be silence. Such silence would be cleansing. The silence was spaciousness in the form of the absence of something that, when there was no silence, crowded me till sometimes I thought my brain was made of nothing but noise.

I wonder if it's that, after more than a year of no one at home but me and the historian, we had a hit of what it used to be like: our house the guy-crossroad again, with their music and movies and video games, their talk and jokes, their fast food and their late hours. A hit of their beautiful noise, which is now gone. In the clear, quiet space here, just a few faint echoes remaining.

In five days we will be driving to L.A. There is music galore to be listened to, and I am thinking that we'll find ourselves--maybe about the time we hit Vegas, and maybe before--in the mood, ready for the music that will inflect our good time and be a part of our consciousness and imbue these new memories with sounds. Music for the desert, for the freeway, for the ocean and pier, for driving and for arriving.

tags: noise, travel

Momentous culinary event.

There are moments, here on the internet, when I fear I am talking to no one . . . but anyway: today I made pot stickers. I did what any sensible person does, goes on The Google to find out the 411 (or, as my NYTimes crossword had it yesterday, the "FOURONEONE") about pot sticker technique, and then I made my own recipe.

We had the historian's kids over for dinner with the passel of relevant grandkids. It was noisy and fun, and also delicious. I made a Thai-style curry, including a vegetable one that was sublime, I tell you. (I think the secret is Kaffir lime leaves, which I was lucky enough to find at Whole Foods one day not so long ago and which I hope I will someday find again--I did not let a single glossy dark green leaf go to waste, they were that precious and indeed that curry-altering.) Also, garlic snap peas. Also, salad with oranges, avocado, and cardamom seeds. Also, the pot stickers. They had grated carrot, Napa cabbage, garlic, green onion, a little ground peanut, mint, cilantro, and maybe something else, I forget. Salt. I fried them in some roasted peanut oil, another pantry item that I have cherished and doled out sparingly. I will need to find another bottle, but this may entail a quest. The dipping sauce had soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, ginger and green onion and it was divine. Everyone loved the pot stickers and I was so proud of them, their little pursed selves, how well they held together and how delicious they were.

Since everyone went home and we loaded the dishwasher and packed away the leftovers, I have been watching restful and foot-healing amounts of television. When you cook a big dinner, sometimes you are on your feet for awhile or all day. Movies on television, some of which I have seen so many times it would blow your mind, are just the thing to make your feet feel better. And no, I will not say what these movies are. As if. Like I need the internet to make fun of me for my movie preferences.