Pomposity

my Corporate Finance textbook: "In this chapter we will stick to the simplest numerical examples to make basic ideas clear. Readers with a taste for complication will find plenty to satisfy them in later chapters."

"Readers with a taste for complication" are unwelcome in my sphere of influence.

The desert in winter.

No! There's the land. (Have you seen it?)
It's the cussedest land that I know.
From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it
To the deep, deathlike valleys below
Some say God was tired when He made it;
Some say it's a fine land to shun;
Maybe; but there's some as would trade it
For no land on earth -- and I'm one.

Image: New York Times, January 7, 2009, "Surrendering to the landscape," http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/garden/08idaho.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=bellevue,%20idaho&st=cse
Verse: "The Spell of the Yukon," Robert Service

Hearing

Economics professor with a devastatingly realistic understanding of the culture of a 9 a.m. lecture: I post my lecture slides online. Print them and bring them to class - this means that you won't have to write furiously, and can ask questions. Or, it means you can fall asleep. So I amend myself - bring two things. Coffee, and the lecture slides.

Unpredictable

Something strange that happened recently: in my LA grocery store of choice, I was walking down the main aisle (with the checkout lines on one side and the openings to all the aisles on the other side) when I slipped on a water spill, apparently so recent that there weren't even caution signs out. I fell forward on one knee and caught myself on my hands - no blood, but certainly a bruise and a little bit of pain. It was about 5:30 on a weeknight, so it was crowded, and I saw several people look at me as I fell, but none of them paused as they walked or said anything as I got up. The people coming toward me just looked at the floor where I slipped and walked around the area. I've been having trouble deciding since then whether this is reflective of disinterest in other people - no one cared to say anything - or awkwardness about interaction with strangers - people might have said something but weren't sure what the etiquette was when I got up and was fine. Would I have stopped?

Reading

The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates an the Man Who Brought Them Down (Colin Woodard, Harcourt, 2007)

Conclusions so far: seventeenth/eighteenth century Europe was good to very few people.

The fountains aren't on in January. But do you know what is on in January? The WARM. They keep that on in LA all winter long.

Neo in the afternoon

He is categorically disinterested in everything. I enjoy making guesses at what his nationality would be if he could speak. Much of the time, I think he is a variety of eastern European - blase and comfortably adjusted to his hopelessness. Also, in Los Angeles, January is the time when leaves begin to turn yellow and fall from the trees.