right now, i'm sitting on my stoop* drinking vodka and coke and typing on my wireless laptop. just before, i was doing the same thing, but instead of typing an entry here, i was typing an email answer to one of my students, who is confused about some of the material for the exam tomorrow.

this whole stoop-sittin' vodka-drinkin' wireless-computin' lifestyle is RIGHT UP MY ALLEY.** this is why living in the 21st century is good. this is why i wouldn't want to live back in the (whenever), even if i were rich. because i wouldn't be able to compute from my stoop.

the only reason i can sit on my stoop this fine evening is the weather, which is PERFECT. it was 73 and sunny today, the first perfect day of the year. those of you who live in places with winter (real winter--those of you down south, who think that because your leaves fall off and your petunias die off you have winter are sadly mistaken) know what i mean about that first really great day in spring. you can't help but be happy to be alive, turning your face up to the sun like a flower to get every little shred of warmth and light that you can. you make it a point to walk on the sunny side of the street. later, when it's hot, you'll cross to be in the shade, and duck into air-conditioned stores whenever you can, but today it's the sunny side baby.

*it's a REAL stoop this time, not a porch that i'm calling a stoop because it makes it sound like i've got more cred. now i've got a real life, honest-to-god stoop: 4 steps up to a door. no porch, no roof. just a railing on one side. not that my stoopedness means that i actually have any cred. i'm SO too white for that. this is in stark contrast to the guys who were sitting on THEIR stoop up the street this afternoon, drinking 40s of malt liquor and shoutin' at the honeys as they walked down the street. THOSE guys have cred.

**i really wish i had an alley at this house, so i could be like mimi smartypants and find interesting stuff in it, but i don't, so i'm not. we have a pseudo-alley, in that there is a space at the side of the house which in principle gives access to the back, but in reality is blocked off by several fences and is filled with uninteresting rubble from the abandoned house next door.