In SF for conference number two. I’ve been slightly off-kilter and near-sick since leaving Eugene.

Next week, I’ll make Thanksgiving dinner with workingweek and solanaceae in Chicago. We’ve already reserved two ducks.

Then a one week research “clean-up” trip in Peru. Meanwhile, chapters, reviews, deadlines.

There’s this stuffed chicken taxidermy I’ve been eying in a vintage store around the way. (It is a singularly handsome chicken.) But I then I make this calculation: new dishwasher (to replace a barely functioning one) or stuffed chicken? When I frame it in this manner, the preposterousness of the situation is somehow foregrounded in a way that simply asking, “should I buy this chicken?” can not. When I make the comparison, I am forced to concede that I should buy neither. You should try this on yourself next time you see something you want.