etc.

· The curse of regularity will get you everytime. I’ve had 17 emails in the past two days, seven from people I know (real life know, that is) and ten from Web friends, inquiring about my silence over the past week. It seems that a few back-to-back posts sets a level of expectation that I clearly cannot maintain. I’ve been around, of course, preparing presentations, writing more articles, consuming media and posting about it elsewhere.

· Last weekend I spent a few hours in my parents’ basement going through boxes of stuff they’ve been storing for me for ages. I whittled the number from seven to four (mostly books I still have no room for) and purged a whole recycling bin’s worth of class notes from two of three degree programs I’ve completed. I’d always imagined that I’d hold on to those notes since I have such good memories of those classes, not because of the comfort and distance of lapsed time but because I actually enjoyed them. Still, the purging was easy and liberating, I have such little nostalgia for physical things.

· I’ve been a tea-drinker for six years, always strong, black, long-drawn, and deeply-caffeinated tea. For the most part I would become indignant at the sight of milk in tea, a position that only weakened when someone dunked a cookie in a cup in my presence. For six years I’ve been unwavering in my commitment to black tea but have always been mildly seduced by the dunking of cookies and last November I succumbed to the coaxing of my mum and sister, milky tea-drinkers both, and added a dash of the dairy to my cup, followed closely by a generous slosh-around of a Bourbon Cream. Woe that I drank the brew for six years before trying this! A good buddy sent me some Assam leaf-tea for Christmas and thus inspired a holiday season that will forever be known as the Cookie-Dunking Christmas.

· The mister, who travels to the Far East every Fall for work, has talked me into going with him this year. China, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan. Not that all that much talking was required mind you, the trip itself is a no-brainer, but leaving work for 18 days during one of our busiest months has held me back somewhat. Lucky for me (big luck, HUGE luck), I work with a group of wonderful and supportive people who have been wonderful and supportive about my tentative absence so the trip is [tentatively] a go. Only tentative because a lot can happen in all these many months between then and now, but has this stopped me from spending hours in the Travel section of my local bookstore? What a ridiculous question.

· I have been playing four records in constant rotation lately: Pilate’s Caught by the Window, Sebadoh’s Harmacy, Andy Stochansky’s Five Star Motel, and Yo La Tengo’s I can Hear the Heart Beating as One. What have you been listening to?