Lesbian, in space

You have to take fun where you find it in my summer job (the one checking for mistakes in pdf files in a windowless office). So, a couple of index entries from scholarly tomes that made me snigger in juvenile fashion during an interminable afternoon:

body:
black 70
as city 65-8
definition of 40-1
disabled 60, 72
docile 50
as landscape 45, 69, 197
lesbian, in space 64
male 163
as a map 50, 199
maternal 59
memory 42
multiple 53
politics of 42-4
pregnant 58-60
research on 36-9
scaling 48
at school 56-8
sexed 23, 42
sick 60-1
in space 41-2
as a surface 47, 51-4
two-sex view 46

American Bottom, 4-6, 43, 44, 46-48, 49, 50-53, 55, 57, 61-85,
92-102, 105-6, 122, 140, 152, 169, 172-78, 181, 183, 186-88;
uplands, 158. See also Northern Bottom Expanse

Duncan.

Epithalamion

Michael Meeuwis has sent us this terrific pastiche of a metaphysical poem, all about our wedding list, which I thought I'd share with you, seeing as how it's so good (the poem, not the list).

ON TRYING TO WRITE A WEDDING POEM BASED ON WEDDING GIFTS WHICH, ALTHOUGH IMMENSELY PRACTICAL, ARE LESS ROMANTIC THAN THOSE THAT I HAD WISHED TO SEND, OWING TO THE MILDLY PICKED-OVER STATE OF YOUR REGISTRY, (PARTICULARLY THE FOOD GRINDER ATTACHMENT, WHOSE ABSENCE I MISS SORELY), AND ON THE WILLIAMS-SONOMA CATALOG COPY FOR SAME

A pair of TONGS has metal legs,
As stiff twin compasses have two,
Just like two souls alike and so on
Plus good for fishing things from stew.
Compared by “chefs” to "extra...hands,'
They sing of joy and love’s surrender;
No apter symbol could I find,
Unless I’d got to buy the blender.
The WHISK is shaped like a balloon
Whose airy form bespeaks inflation,
Through it, I wish you love, peace, health
And joy of “maximum aeration.”
A SALT MILL limns the earth’s estate,
Its stone is brow-sweat’s stark reminder;
It both evokes our mortal span,
And has a “noncorroding…grinder.”
I hope, like marriage, that it brings,
The wanted mix of “coarse” and “fine,”
May kosher salt explode in praise,
My Lucite hymn the match divine.

Just in case it carries on being really really hot or else unbelievably humid so that you can't bear to be in your kitchen*...

...I thought I'd leave this link lying around where I can find it easily.

*I discovered just how crappy it is cooking in heat yesterday when I decided to choose the most humid afternoon to date this year to make tomato ketchup for about four hours.

An embarrassment of double Duncans.

Further Duncan.

Duncan.

Our Super Sweet Twenty-Seven

Felt v. decadent on Monday. E. and I borrowed her dad's BMW convertible to drive up to the Botanical Gardens and then to the florist to sort out wedding stuff. This involved motoring along miles of glorious tree-lined country road just outside New York City in order to select bouquets, tablecloths and (most important) foie gras lollipops. If we get any snazzier MTV will have to make a reality show about us. Though they might get a shock when we move back to grad-student penury in Chicago (they could call it Problematize my Ride -- or Lacuna Beach).