Around the world by way of Pittsburgh.

When I was in school, I expected people to move around. And they did. Towards the end of my time in Philadelphia, I had a pretty even mix of students and friends that I thought of as having normal jobs. Now, five years later, many of the normal job friends have stayed put, at least citywise, while most of the students have moved elsewhere. And now, five+ years later, many of the post-student friends are on their second or even third hop. (Readers, you know who you are!) This is normal and expected.

When I moved to Seattle, I made a couple of friends who were students but more friends who had normal jobs. So how has it happened that people are moving around anyway? In the last two years, we've had friends from Seattle move to:

• Dublin
• Maui
• Aachen
• Pittsburgh
• Sydney
• Melbourne
• Charlottesville
• Tokyo

Sucks to be the one in Charlottesville, though not as much as it sucks to be the one in Pittsburgh -- although never fear, that one is about to move again. ;)

Not one of these people was a student (although a couple were moving to become students, so I guess that kind of counts). So what's going on here? What is this trend that leaves me determined to make friends only with old-school Seattle fishing families in the future? And what prevents me from up and moving along with everyone else? Increasingly I am thinking about this question.

There's one trend I spot among everyone whose moves are captured in the above list: They are all either single people, or couples who agree to let their location be influenced by the career choices of one or the other of them without direct regard to the other. Which must mean something, somewhere, to this pattern.

A good reason to go to the farmers' market.

The saying goes that man cannot live by bread alone, but my saying goes that I am willing to try. Anyone who has known me more than two minutes knows how I feel about the stuff. And though I appeciate bread in all its many-crumbed and -crusted varieties, I must admit that I have my favorites. And when it comes to artisanal bread in Seattle, there are some pretty good options. We have two breadmakers whose products are generally very good (Essential Bakery and Grand Central Bakery) and one whose products are generally excellent (Tall Grass Bakery). One of the best things about the new farmers' market in Phiney Ridge is that Tall Grass sells there.

You can't go wrong with one of these, my top five Seattle loaves:

1. Whole Wheat and Honey (Tall Grass)
2. Pumpernickel with Cherries (Tall Grass, seasonal)
3. Avery's Pumpernickel (Tall Grass)
4. Walnut (Essential)
5. Hominy (Tall Grass)

Runners-up include: Campagnolo (Grand Central); Pain au Levain (Tall Grass); Desem (Essential); Rye and Onion (Essential).

When I lived in Philadelphia, I used to frequent Metropolitan and LeBus, which also had some great choices (especially that LeBus multigrain mmmm!), but I don't think that either of those can compare to any of the three above bread bakers in Seattle. Maybe my next post about complex carbohydrates will be about soft pretzels, where Philadelphia has a clearer victory.

My life in bullets.

Last month I ran the Vancouver Marathon. I didn't blog about it because I haven't been blogging about anything. So in a nutshell, here are some other things that I have done in between returning from Mexico and discovering conservapedia:

• Finishing War and Peace. I liked this, but I liked Anna Karenina more. After 1000 pages of expository philosophy interwoven with the narrative, I did not feel that Toystoy had left a whole lot of room for ambiguity about the nature of his feelings regarding the role of the individual and free will vis a vis the making of history. Did I really need the extra hundred pages of expository philosophy at the end to recap?
• Working like a gazillion hours. I have work-life balance issues. I'm working on it.
• Loving the series finale of The Sopranos. No one seems to have been neutral about this. I'm kind of wondering if David Chase is a fan of the movie Limbo.
• Having the annual clothes swap party. I picked up some really cool stuff this year, and got rid of over hal my wardrobe at the same time.
• Thinking about buying tickets to Australia. We haven't pulled the trigger yet, but we plan to soon. We're going for part two of Carlton and Sindy's wedding. We're trying to figure out which place we ought to stop along the way/back.
• Attending the new Phinney farmers' market. It is so awesome to have one of the markets happening so near our house. It is doubly awesome that the Tall Grass Bakery attends. And the most awesome thing of all is that it runs from 3-7pm on Fridays only, so it provides a very good reason for getting out of work at a reasonable time on Friday.
• Seeing my sister graduate from law school. This has two benefits. First, she is now done with law school. Second, visiting Meredith now means going to LA instead of to St. Louis. Everybody wins!

Probably some other stuff too. But now I don't need to feel bad for loitering on everyone else's blogs without giving updates of my own.

Childlike, gentle, pretty, willowy, submissive.

I am emerging briefly from hibernation to tell you about http://www.conservapedia.com, sort of like wikipedia for fundamentalist Christians. Some of my favorite entries:

minimum wage increase: "a controversial manoeuvre that increases the incentive for young people to drop out of school."

Hilary Rodham Clinton: "may suffer from a psychological condition that would raise questions about her fitness for office."

femininity: the quality of being "childlike, gentle, pretty, willowy, submissive."

pro-choice: "is the euphemism preferred by people or organizations who are in favor of permitting or promoting abortion, under some or all circumstances; some believe that a woman should have the right to terminate her pregnancy for any reason, including as a method of contraception, while others maintain that it should only be used in special cases.
Planned Parenthood performs nearly 200 abortions for every referral for adoption, making the term "pro-abortion" more appropriate than "pro-choice.""

Al Gore: "starred in a keynote presentation about the supposed climate crisis."

megachurch: "There is no page titled "megachurch"."

George W. Bush: "Though the liberal media continues to disparage Bush's handling of the economy, they often neglect to report the many aspects of the economy that Bush has improved. For example, during his term Exxon Mobil has posted the largest profit of any company in a single year, and executive salaries have greatly increased as well."

And my single biggest favorite so far:

premarital sex: "This page has been deleted and protected to prevent re-creation."