Dear lord it was raining down out there when I walked up here to the studio this morning (walked and was late - because biking, which I usually do, would have been insane).   Perhaps I ought to invest in a slightly bigger umbrella, one that doesn't  shield my head and nothing  more; an hour and a half later my back is still soaked.  Perhaps I ought to not wear sandals when there are furious little mountain-streams rushing ankle-deep down the hills I have to traverse.  My feet are all wet and chewed-up.  I'm afraid I might have trench foot by the end of the day. 

Banal concerns, I know.  I'm just cold and wet here and it sucks.  On the other hand, if I didn't have to work and could just bunker in at home, I'd be happy as can be.  At the very least it would be appropriate weather to slog through the final 20 pages of War and Peace, which is all I have left; I peeked ahead, and it looks like it's all essay to the end.  You know, the parts of Tolstoy that Hemingway said everyone skips anyway.  I'm not skipping it, though.  There's a lot that Hemingway said that I used to follow blindly when young, that I finally got over - but that was a long time ago.  We'll talk more about writing later - I'll save that for an entry of its own.

Thanks to this Bigsoccer thread I bought a French press last weekend (Bodum 8-cup Brazil, not quite as stylish as the glass-and-steel Chambord but made of 'unbreakable' polycarbonate.  Since you asked.) and now I'm a geekily fanatical convert (Kiki will attest to this - how many times have I told her about it already?)  Go get one and you will be too.  I'm counting the seconds till I can get home and go through the whole ritual of making my afternoon coffee.

And now, a musical break: 

 Go on over to Todd Snider's website and listen to "Conservative Christian, right-wing Republican straight white American males".  It makes me feel like a grubby hippy, and I like it.

Having summer classes is like having a summer flu: what's not particularly fun during the winter is just plain tortuous now.  Husserl and July just do not mix.

About 3 hours till the live-on-ESPNNews Danny Szetela draft.  At the moment I'm hearing that teams are going to ask for Mike Magee when it becomes clear that Rico Clark and Eddie Gaven are going nowhere, and I really don't want to see any of them go.  I think the Metros are more than capable of getting their act together and winning MLS without adding a player like Szetela, but I hope we get him straight-up through the lottery, just to give the whining anti-NY babies and conspiracists of Bigsoccer something to chew on.  Cheers!