Words. I been looking at words for almost a week, give or take a few days of procrastination and vestigial birthday fervor. Somebody else’s words. Their big fat technical words lined up in tight rows and packed with syllables, and worse, acronyms.

For this one I dug out the electric kettle I bought for my 28th birthday and set it on the file cabinet on the left for constant hot water, for the constant caffeine flow of dungding.

I think I’ll leave the kettle there. I’d forgotten I had it. After I moved in here, and after I bought that $800 Shin Hyun-chul brazier, I went through this crazy purist phase and only cooked water the slow ways. I don’t know what that was about. Exactly. And I don’t know how I remembered I had this thing, except I think I might’ve seen one at the Blue Willow Teahouse recently.... I think that’s it. Anyway, this is better. It’s nice to use it again. It reminds of recent history, of living at Joan’s. I drank more tea then. I was alone more then. I listened to more music; I read more; I was more poetic.

But this is better.

And today was some lucky communication day. My inbox full of job offers and friendly e-mail, including one from Anthro customer service asking if I would mind if my customer comments were included in their next catalog. I get one DEEP CUP HOLDER BLACK for saying:

The printer cart rocks! I mean that figuratively, of course. It's as stable as a table is able.