You should know that as I write this, I am enjoying a baguette with butter and with gouda. Yes, today is the day that I finally broke down and bought the Trader Joe's double cream gouda, even though it feels all too squishy every time I longingly pick it up as I peruse the cheese section, and think of the delicious mittelalt Gouda—middle-aged, I guess, although I don't generally like to think of my cheeses as having life trajectories or anything—that I ate in Germany. Anyway, my suspicions were valid. This cheese is just so squishy and pretty much spreadable and I've got to go somewhere more expensive to get me some perfect gouda. It does taste like gouda though, which is good, and it has the pretty goldy wax instead of boring red. And the bread and butter I'm eating is perfect. The kitten can sense this: he keeps springing up onto the coffee table and whining.
Last week, Alex quoted me passing judgment on the claims of both "science" and "the internet" on his Tumblr*, Hunting for Ghosts. It's insightful, I promise. I guess I'm one step closer to internet fame? Unlikely. He also provides evidence that Germany equals China. (He studied in Qingdao in Shangdong, which was a German colony, he told me. Also, it has the largest brewery in Asia, of course.)
*I guess I have to stop saying I don't get Tumblr, because I do, but...is that really just a noun you can use, like blog? And Twitter? I hate Twitter. Do we have to keep capitalizing them? How do you have a Tumblr (without "account" or something attached)? Confusing.
Now for news item number two. On Thursday evening, I was taking what was intended to be a mini-nap in the middle of reading about the iconoclast crisis in Byzantine history, when suddenly, a loud beep awoke me from my slumber. Or maybe it was my phone vibrating...that was around when my volume wasn't working because I spilled a glass of water all over the coffee table. Anyway, I got a text message, and it read: OBAMA IS DELIVERING THE COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS. Embarrassingly enough, this was too complicated a formulation for me in my sleepdrunk state and my first response was "What's the commencement address?" I tried to think of what Obama would be saying on television now, and why it would be a surprise/exciting that he was doing what must be a president's job, and whaa—and then it hit me. Somehow, somehow, the possibility we had thrown about was happening. Someone once said he wouldn't go to the big graduation unless Obama was the speaker. No one else would make sitting through it worth it. I pretty much agreed.
A lot of people are going to graduation this year. Myself included.
When I called my mom to tell her about Obama speaking at my graduation, she told me that she had almost called me the day before because our no-longer-fat, darling orange cat Mr. Pepys hadn't made an appearance to gratingly meow for food in a long time. My parents' conclusion was that he'd crawled somewhere to die or had escaped into the snowy cold and then died. (Such cheerful people, right?) They looked everywhere, even my uninhabited bedroom, and my dad took the dog out to look for frozen cat bodies, but (luckily) had no luck. But when he opened a can of cat food in the kitchen, he heard the faint meows of greedy Peepers in the distance. Thank god. Pepys had been under my bed by the best heat vent in the house, but my dad hadn't checked there because under the bed? That's where the trundle bed belongs, not cats! Oops. The trundle bed's mattress currently resides in Ann Arbor with me.
This weekend, the horrible feeling of ineedtogetout, ineedtobegone crept in again. Damn you, February. But then I went to a fancy cocktail party and got to wear the jumper Emma and I made a few weekends ago for the first time. (It's the middle one, don't worry, and for the party, I wore it as a dress without a shirt under it.) Today I read about how the Texas school board is horrible—"How Christian Were the Founders?." Apparently the rest of the world did, too, seeing as it's the most emailed article right now on the New York Times. Then I read some mystical Turkish poetry. Now I think I'll do some yoga and go to sleep. Or maybe just go to sleep. Why is it 2:00 am? Someone is playing "Tearin' Up My Heart" in the other room.
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