While listening to Kid A, windows open, one shoe off

Spring's in full swing and summer's just around the corner. This bit of digital space has remained static as of late (admittedly it's not my first priority), but perhaps the ensuing relent of academic obligations will offer me both (1) thoughts worth sharing and (2) the time to share them. I suppose it's presumptuous of me to deign whether or not my own thoughts are worth sharing... and yet, we do demand a kind of quality control from any purveyor of information. If my judgments about my own thoughts are not taken to be the universal standard by which they are measured (and I am advocating no such thing), they are at least a useful tool for limiting the flow of information. See, was that digression even necessary? I leave it in as an example.

To continue--I have to say that the prospect of this summer, the idea of it, is tremendously exciting. I would say more exciting than anything in recent memory, but there was that trip last year. I'll be moving into a house (a house!) in a few weeks, with such an abundance of light and warmth as you wouldn't believe. Lots of places to read. My plans for the coming months are similar to the plans I make for every amorphous, as-yet-unfilled space of time that has ever loomed over or shimmered just out of reach of the present; cook more, read more, write more. A programme rarely carried out to completion, though I now have the consolation (?) that cooking will no longer be quite optional. This aspirational troika is matched by three other related but more specific targets: bake more, play more chess, get outside. Is this too much for one person to handle? Will my quest for self-actualization lead inevitably to disappointment? Tune in next month to find out! (Anyone looking for a baking/ chessing/ biking partner, etc, feel at liberty to contact me. I also know of a burgeoning summer book-club that promises to mix exclusivity with Greensboro-hipster aspirations. Scintillating! Inquire for details.)

[I was hungry last night. Really hungry. I started flipping through Paul Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice and I almost gnawed through the pages, I almost threw it or myself across the room. The bread looked so GOOD. No, it didn't just look good. That implies culinary desire, carnal desire, simple appetite. It looked beautiful. That bread looked beautiful. I want to bake, NOW.]

It has begun to rain.