10 Apr 07

Time:

?

Money:

$4, egg whites, D.P., and water, usual place.
$8, usual lunch, usual place.
$3, coffee for the usual suspects (since this time it was my idea), usual place.
$10, a small bottle (glory, glory) of that claret I'm so fond of, wine store by my house.

More interesting things:

Watched, somewhat bizarrely but with great enjoyment, an episode of the Simpsons which the lovely Ben had managed to identify and locate for me before I could even quite finish explaining why I wanted it. Professor Alpha thoroughly appreciated it, and I have to say that I did as well: it was hilarious, and as I have learned is in fact characteristic of the series, very, very intelligent. Maybe more intelligent than getting an hour's pay for watching TV. But I'm not going to argue.

Attended to an interruption of this television-watching when, to add to the bit about Mr. Glasscock, Professor Alpha informed me about a sex research article in the Times which included a scientist named "Breedlove"; a couple minutes later he pointed out the particular brilliance of the show's describing a motel-visiting mayor as "polling the electorate," which was, of course, exactly what I'd been thinking and figured he wouldn't say. A) I should know better and B) ha!

Listened to what seemed to start off as one of those barely-out-loud musings Professor Alpha has sometimes. These are usually interesting for one reason or another, but today it was particularly... well, I can sum it up as "nice," for the moment. It wasn't long before instead of sort of growling towards his computer he'd actually turned around and started speaking in a (relatively) normal volume directly to me, and I was glad I didn't have to strain to catch what he said. For quite a long time - longer than this type of commentary generally lasts - Alpha mulled over how glad he was, and how unusual it was, that the four of us are such good friends. He spoke fairly specifically about how that's not always the case, that people get competitive or work in other places or whatever, and that not only in our friendship had we "given a home" to people who otherwise might not have had one but also that we had turned into "great colleagues." He said he had watched us in the Monday class, and that he thought part of the reason it had gone so well was that people could build on how we spoke to each other. This was one of the nicest - see, I picked that word up there in order to be precise, not vague as it often indicates - compliments I'd ever heard, and as Anne later pointed out, also a little sad: Alpha's getting nostalgic!