Listening to Leonard Cohen and making blue cheese mashed potatoes. I can’t believe I haven’t heard much of his music before. He speaks in a way that demands you listen, though not forcefully and not because he feels he has something supremely important to say. It’s more of a care he has about enunciating everything so that you just have to stop what you’re doing.

Started GRE practice last night with a little trepidation. In 8th grade Algebra when I asked “When will we ever use this?”, the answer should have been “so you can get into grad school.” It’s silly but I’m actually enjoying looking back at all this stuff. It’s definitely something I can reasonably expect to be well prepared for.

I’m going to take the test with Karl sometime in November. My score will be valid for 5 years so I’ve got time to work out the little details like where, how, and why I would ever want to go to grad school. If I do go end up at grad school, I will not want to ask “when will we ever use this?”

My note of last week to Ryan, written in the style of a worrying parent, asking why he went to New York and got beaten up and arrested at the RNC, was met with no reply (yet), but I heard through a third party that he was indeed an innocent bystander and I felt silly (like I might have been too harsh). Hopefully I’ll see him later this month in Nashville, if he hasn’t moved to Illinois, and I can hear it all directly from him. Ryan’s existence stirs up lots of irrelevant side-chatter. He might be famous.

Found out today that there is such a thing as Fair Trade Tea, and that Harney & Sons is getting a bunch of their teas certified. Time to place an order for the fall.