1. CW and I just celebrated our one year anniversary last weekend — or, more correctly, the one year anniversary of our second first date. Our first first date was over three years ago. Back then, things didn’t work out quite perfectly, but this time we’ve got it right. I always think we are like Harry and Sally, in some ways. We opted to stay in and cook together, which is something we both really enjoy doing, and the night was completely lovely. Also, if you will pardon the tooting of my own horn, I make a pretty damned fine romantic mixtape.

2. I got some pretty flowers. They’ve now been in my house for over a week and they’re still looking great. Flowers! For years I tended to date the kind of men who thought giving women flowers was silly, overrated, or otherwise somehow unnecessary. Before CW, the last guy I was dating who gave me flowers was my highschool boyfriend, circa 1995. Flowers, welcome back into my life.

3. I have been really enjoying using my new fitbit, but it has not magically led to me losing the extra 5-10 lbs I’ve been carrying around. Go figure. I immediately dropped about 3 lbs the first week, then another two, then gained two back, and have been sitting steady at the same number for weeks. I am working out 5-6 days a week and counting my calories, but my body is not being very cooperative. Why is losing 5-10 lbs harder than losing 100, sometimes? HMPF. Well. I’ll figure it out.

4. My summer class is starting soon (the 24th), and I will be reporting for duty, slightly-too-tight pants and all. I’ve been diligently doing all the reading, but I still have to do some of the thinking and course design/planning before day one. I guess I’ll be spending some time at the office next week. I’m giving myself until Monday, but after that, I suppose vacation is… over. Hold me.

5. I had grand plans to pack up all of the household things I won’t immediately need before classes started, but now it looks like that won’t necessarily happen. We move into the new place sometime around July 15th (depending on how long it takes the property managers to do all the carpet cleaning, paint touch-ups, and so on), and I haven’t packed a thing yet. I did manage to unearth a dozen or so broken-down boxes from my last move, helpfully stowed away in my spider-infested storage shed, so I’ve got that going for me. Maybe this weekend I can pack up the books and winter clothes. We’ll see, Internet.

6. So. Who else has read J.K. Rowling’s grown-up book, The Casual Vacancy? I am working my way through it right now, about 2/3 through, and so far I’ve only heard from people who hated and/or abandoned it. It’s not exactly gripping, I’ll say. But I think the plot might be picking up a bit. I’ll be back with a full reading report soon — hopefully before classes start and my available leisure reading time plummets into nothingness.

7. Finally, because Sunday is Bloomsday:

O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.