I'm eagerly stalking the end of the semester. I'm at the point where my muscles are tensed to pounce, the prey has glanced up with the sudden sense that something might go wrong, and the other forest creatures are scattering in all directions. Those would be my students.

I'm desperate to get to summer and to resurrect my tan.

I grew up in southern California and moved to Boston eleven years ago for grad school. I finished it, in a reasonable amount of time for my field, and now I profess locally in an adjunct fashion. I'm not sure it's what I want to do forever. I'm exploring the many possibilities that are out there. I think continuous self-reinvention and finding new ways of engaging with world are good, if not vital.

I just realized that I'll make more than 20,000 this year. Might tentatively move up to the next bracket.

Lately, a lot of yoga. I go through phases. Right now I go every day, but I'm worried I'll fall off the wagon again when I go abroad this summer. That would be a repetitive pattern.

Also, a lot of grading, and nurturing small plants that I would like to be able to move outside but can't. Yet. I think it's still too cold. Maybe I'm being overprotective.

Keeping the liquor shelf stocked.

My avoidance of eye contact (see photos). My apparent harmlessness.

Reading now: Quicksilver, Neil Stephenson and Loving Frank, a novel about Frank Lloyd Wright and a fictional (as far as I know) love affair of his. I fight a weekly battle to get to the end of the Economist.

Cooking shows. Sad addiction to reality television. And I miss football.

I'm bad at explaining what kind of music I listen to. It actually makes me nervous and uncomfortable. Not because I think it's bad, just because it strikes me as an enormously complex question with a lot of baggage and meaning.

I was listening to NPR and I learned that hand transplants are possible. Frankenstein-like. This completely blew my mind, just when I had come to terms with 3-D printers. Did you know they're 3-D printing a fossil whale skeleton in Peru? The world is a fascinating place.

No matter how hard I try, I just can't take this box seriously. I really like cats, and I travel too much to have one. If you have one, that's a plus.

Whether or not I know what I want.

Occasionally out with friends, occasionally in watching things, occasionally reading, occasionally asleep.

I bought a Boston Strong T-shirt. I don't usually wear my sentimentality on my chest, but I love this city.

You've always wanted to get to know the Eastie bar scene.

You're happy spending long days on the beach.