Spinning

What a week. I'm not sure where it all went. I mean, if I sit down and look back, yes, I know where it went, what I was doing. But it spun really quickly, a haze of conversations where drinks, food and cigarettes (not mine, Mom) were the excuse, not the object.

And then, broadsided at the end by bad news, the kind where no one knows the right thing to say.

This is what I read this week:

• "Let's call the whole thing off" in the Atlantic, by Sandra Tsing Loh (via sarah).
  
• "Anatomy of a break-up" in the Independent, by Mark Steel (via Qian Xi) --- heartbreakingly real.
  
• "There's always chicken curry at funerals" by Adri --- another heartbreaker.
• "It came from Wasilla" in Vanity Fair, by Todd S. Purdum (published before Palin announced that she would resign as the governor of Alaska).
• "44 little travel rules no one tells you", by Robert Reid.
  

These are some new words and phrases that I learned this week:

• "out of pocket" --- not with reference to business expenses but to one's contactability (see a recent Language Log entry).
  
• "sitzfleisch" --- courtesy of "What Is a Master’s Degree Worth?"
• "dots" --- you'll have to ask sarah (or me) about this.
• ossement --- okay, it's French for "bone", which in itself isn't a remarkable word, but there's a heartbreaking story associated with it that I'm filing away for future use.
  

Today I attended a wedding, a funeral wake and a Fourth of July celebration. There was almost a mahjong session to round it all off, but we settled for Citadels instead.

I wonder how long I can keep spinning for.