that's going a little beyond mischievous, don't you think?

Drinking tea and eating moon cake with Clarissa (name changed). Talking about our Caltech classmates from college.

Me: "What's going on with David Ramsey?"

Clarissa: "He's dating some guy."

Me: "Is he gay or straight? He always said he's gay, but he was dating Joyce."

Clarissa: "He's gay."

Me: "But he and Joyce would openly talk about their sex life!"

Clarissa: "Oh, you know how he's mischievous. He'll say, 'Want to date me?' Then if you say yes, he'll actually go ahead and date you and fuck you, but he's actually gay."

Me: [shocked]

wish I could live for a week here

Can I rent this for a week, and take my family?



or here:

moonlight run

In the gym a few days ago, DE urged me to do the Palo Alto Moonlight 5k Run. I resisted.

"No," I said. "I hate running."

He kept pressuring me every day, but I continued to stand firm. Like this: "No."

Then he added it as an entry on my calendar, so I had to go.

We arrived an hour early. After registering, we sat down on the bleachers to wait. As we sat bored, the announcer declared that the 10k race was starting.

On impulse, we ran the 10k instead of the 5k! I ran the entire time without walking.

I was god-awful slow. By the end, there was almost no one around me, because everyone else had finished. During the last half-mile, I passed at least 500 people going the other direction. It was a sea of people exiting in waves, after having already completed the race, high-fived each other, stretched, eaten bagels, chitchatted, and finally began walking to their cars.

But who cares! I finished! 10k race with no training!

I rock. That was only opinion, before. Now it's fact.

The marshlands under the full moon were stunning. Lakes that looked as though the water froze into a still snapshot. Reedy grass swaying. Chinese music playing on my iPod.

save the Königin

Edx told us about a game they play at Cambridge. At formal dinner, if your friend slips a coin into your wine, you must drink the entire glass of wine at once. This is calling "saving the queen" because the coin has an imprint of her head.

Alipé: The Queen is actually descended from Germany, you know. [Edx is German.]

Edx: I know!

Me: So you should care even more about saving her.

Edx: Yeah, I should drink when other people get coins in their glasses! [mimes grabbing a glass from across the table and downing the contents] 'I can't let that happen to the Queen!'

touché

Upon seeing a copy of Conan O'Brien's commencement speech at Stuyvesant earlier this year:

Me: "Even Stuyvesant High School could get Conan O'Brien for their graduation speaker, and Stanford couldn't???"

Tom: "No. But we can get mass murderer Donald Rumsfeld."