Американский Бродяга

老太太 buys the farm?

Fleece found, the place I least expected to find it, my PhD classroom. Impressed that it should even...

Oct 29th

There goes the neighborhood…

Oct 28th

Bo Peep, 21st C. style

Wind and rain have worked their magic once again, rescuing Beijing from itself. Days already seem so...

Oct 28th

S shows off her mad Oxfordshire punting skills / a gate to...

Oct 25th

ShíDù Skidoo

Gray day, gray week. After last week’s exhilaratingly clear skies, when for days running I could...

Oct 25th

“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that...”
— Abraham Lincoln

Oct 23rd

Return of the 5-second review

No End In Sight: Will be on the 2020 school curriculum when teachers need to explain in under two...

Oct 21st

gusts of anger in the elms...

Thinking today about anger and what triggers it. Friday I had a very long, excessively large lunch...

Oct 20th

“Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The...”
— Milan Kundera (via Vinny D on...

Oct 18th

“Doozers” doing their thing.

Oct 16th

Somebody spoke and I went into a...

6:00 alarm. Years now since I’ve had to regularly set an alarm, having taught afternoons in Batumi,...

Oct 16th

S, R and the “aubergine fish,” 12 Oct.

Oct 12th

The 老外 gets more 老

So, my natal day has come and gone again. A “big one”…of the sort that might...

Oct 12th

“…nor could she help fearing, on more serious...”
— J. Austen, Persuasion. (A...

Oct 10th

Who the hell says I can’t cook? I call it 阳光天在北京鸡肉惊喜....

Oct 7th

are you being served?

Scarcely left the house for two days, whether from laziness, contentment, indifference, or...

Oct 6th

阴还是阳?

Cooling, my fan no longer needed for actual comfort, but only as an expedient at night to keep at...

Oct 2nd

“Да писать-то все, тратить мысль, душу свою на мелочи, менять...”
— Иван Гончаров, Обломов, г. 2

Oct 1st

“Yes, to write down everything—to squander one’s thoughts and soul on trivialities,...

Oct 1st