I still have (at least) one reader!!!!

It's the little things, often, especially today. Finding cumin cheese at the most sedate mall I've ever visited (masquerading as Leyden.. we'll see how it compares to my normal shrink-wrapped personal-air-delivery type), the ease and freedom of my bike, frying polenta to a delightful crispy outside with a solid but tender center (just like the perfect french fry), swiss chard with peanut sauce, roasted pork loin with the leftover orange juice to drink, inane conversation with Ethan, another forty papers graded. The way that you can whistle through a pen cap and it sounds like a kazoo - the same sort of reedy resonance and vibrating amplification. My favorite form of distraction when I'm working. Works best with cheap pens, I've discovered, Bics and Papermates especially. Tonight was a medium point blue pen, breaking the hearts of eager core-satisfying students (or maybe causing them to delight) capped over the back of the pen, trilling along with my Mozart or Radiohead or whatever snatched up bit of song I whistled forth. Lovely. I have renewed hope for greek yogurt, for the farmer's market, for Regionals, for my fate in Urbana, for friendship. Little things that stand out if you bother to look - maybe we're up to a knitting needle in the haystack.