Dear Leah,

I need to buy post-its; how am I going to remember to do that?

bk 2 bk

I like Berkeley; it's like Brooklyn but duller. I'm getting dumber. I got hit on today by a Haas student; he was the kind of gay person who in a more conservative town would pretend to be straight, because it's what you would expect of him, but who in Berkeley would pretend to be straight, because it's not what you would expect of him. I instantly regretted not giving him my number so that I could blog his accumulated messages on my voicemail. But then I figured I will have ample opportunity at such fare, as the same exact thing will doubtless happen again, tomorrow.

Earlier I went with my parents to a contemporary church service and my mom noticed on the program that, among others, John Yoo would be presiding. You might be asking, as I was, "Yoo who?", but apparently he wrote the torture memos under Bush and now teaches at Boalt. It wasn't the same John Yoo though, just a contemporary. Then we planted me a Meyer lemon tree that will soon yield golden fruit.

this is, like, so my life

SAD TALE
(With an Even Sadder Moral)

Susan is one of those accurate cooks
—Meticulous, she, to a fault.
She follows the rules in her recipe books
And she measures, so help me, the salt.
When the rule demands lemon, she doesn't use lime;
And when it says chervil, she'd never touch thyme;
And when it says sift, Susan sifts with a fervor
And beat for 3 hours doesn't even unnerve her.
And when she begins to construct you a meal,
Interrupt her, my friend, if you dare;
For cooking to Susan is earnest and real
And compounded of patience and prayer.

Now, Katie's is one of the lighter approaches;
She moves in an easier sphere.
From the sauces she makes to the hen-fruit she poaches
She cooks, as the phrase goes, by ear.
Her way with directions is handsome and wide;
She couldn't repeat you a dish if she tried;
When the rule says Madeira, she'll reach for the brandy
Or possibly port, if she has any handy.
She'll chat of aesthetics, she'll whistle and sing
As she whips you a major soufflé,
For cooking, to Kate, is a casual thing . . .
As free as a breeze and as gay.

And which is the product that's perfectly awful?
The cordon bleu dishes are whose?
Though I hate to admit it, Kate's shouldn't be lawful
. . . While the lyric creations are Sue's.

-P. Bracken, in the December 1949 issue of Gourmet magazine, found by happenstance

Beacris

I've just returned from Beatrice, Nebraska, where my grandmother taught me bridge, so we can complete Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger's foursome. I also picked up sticks a summer storm had strewn across the lawn.

I'm moving soon to Berkeley, where the mayor maintains a population of worms on used coffee grounds. My apartment there is always cold. My grandfather kept telling this same story about his sister, reportedly rather ornery in her youth, protesting when her mother perched bows in her hair. It takes place on a plane, I think, during the years directly following World War II.

She: Where are you FROM?
They: Germany.
She: West Germany or EAST GERMANY?
They: We are from the Democratic Republic of Germany.
She: Is that EAST GERMANY?
They: Yes.
She: How did you GET OUT??
They: We are diplomats.
She: Are you COMMUNISTS?

What I like about this story is that every line seems to be the punchline, and any of several lines have served this purpose in various tellings, but none is especially satisfying, nor do they seem to have a cumulative effect; yet everyone laughs softly and knowingly afterwards.