Long Live the Campaign.

Walking around campus today, I noticed there was a rogue piece of paper in some of the... shrubbery? Shrubbery. No, it's smaller than that. Landscaping? I don't know. The fancy green stuff with bits of other colors for variety and beautification on campus. Flowers? No idea. Anyway. There was a piece of paper there that I noticed, but it wasn't litter. It was folded too neatly and placed too deliberately. I came up closer to see what nonsense this was. I stopped when I could just make out very loopy, bubbly, and neat girly handwriting. Some words like "love" and "dear" I think were scattered in there, too. I didn't dare read on, for fear I would see the phrase "circle yes or no" at the end of my mystery love letter. I have to believe that college students are past that.

Yesterday I got a package in the mail: from China. Well, maybe it was Hong Kong. No political statements about that here, I just can't remember. It was probably Hong Kong though. My mind went racing through the possibilities while I opened it, since I didn't remember ordering anything. First and foremost it was Edward Snowden passing on some secret documents to my safekeeping because his life was in peril. That was pretty exciting, but I have to admit I was not feeling up to the task. I was glad when I remembered I have that foreign contact (read: friend on an internship) in China this summer, and maybe he was sending me a pack of Chinese bubble gum. (It was a very small package.) Then when I finally got it open (seriously, that took herculean effort—my knife just barely did the trick), I was kind of let down to remember that I was getting some little commemorative trinkets from a project I funded on Kickstarter.

Biggest bummer of my life. But at least now I have something of a prerecorded mental protocol for barreling headlong into international espionage.

It is so hot in this room right now. I can't wait for winter: nature's air conditioning without an "off" switch.

Wow. Anthropomorphize, Much?

I don't know if this is how the rest of you feel when you get up, but I always feel remarkably like I've been run over by a train and dragged for a hundred yards before I start to stir. Then I have to wander around the house looking for bandages to keep my torso from falling apart. I don't remember the last time I felt spry enough to just jump out of bed. Is that just a myth? Because it's a very rude myth to keep giving me hope that I can be like that one day, too.

Dear Little Sister flew home yesterday after a lovely week or so of visiting the folks here out west o' the 'ssippi. We had good times, I trust. For her sake, she had better consider them unforgettably precious and dear and fun. Or else.

So it was weird, yesterday, interviewing someone on the phone whose name shows up first when Googled. (Or Binged. Huh. That explains why nobody writes it out. Microsoft was that close to its very own verb.) Turns out he's a regular human, and a very nice guy. Well I knew that since I'd met him a couple times before, but it's nice to be reassured when your life is on the line.

I have some similarly interesting people I'm going to interview in the forthcoming weeks, that I'm also pretty excited about. Definitely my favorite part of writing for the newspaper.

But no interviews for the blog. Blog, you'd better catch up, better make things a little more interesting and sweeten the deal a bit before I get bored and dump you by the wayside. I don't know who I'd interview here. I think if I ever interviewed anyone for this blog, it would be my blog itself. I'll leave it up to my blog to gain a makeshift soul and a consciousness in preparation for its big break.

Not Quite a Thief in the Night.

About two weeks ago I was up early at 4 a.m. reading in the front room when one of my roommates, apparently turning in way late after a night of excessively leisurely studying, started rattling the door trying to get it open. Since it was locked, I waited a few seconds to see if he was going to just get out his key to get in.

When I didn't hear any other fiddling with the knob, I got up to let him in. But he wasn't there. Nobody up or down the hallway, either. Okay, that's odd, but not a big deal. Maybe somebody else came back home really late and... forgot which room was theirs? Well, I didn't really think about it.

So yesterday in the elevator, I'm talking to somebody else from the fifth floor, one of my neighbors. He's making small talk and asks if I heard about the robbery on the fifth floor? It was about two weeks ago. Some punk from the first floor decided to come up to our floor and go on a scavenger hunt to find other people's expensive things. My friend in the elevator's room got stolen from, for one, and the other one this guy got into was next door to me.

Two unrelated stories, right? Well that's what I thought at first, too. But after the most fleeting review of the available facts I've determined that it's a good thing my roommates and I lock our door every time we leave. I assume they caught the guy, since my elevator buddy said he was from the first floor, but I don't know.

Also, he apparently stole this guy's copies of both Settlers of Catan and Dominion, but left his roommate's electronics collection alone. Who does that?

Anyway. That ought to slake my readership's thirst for crime, intrigue, and suspense for another few days or so, eh?