God, I should just say "everyone at LSA is awesome" and get it over with

You know who else is, it turns out, awesome? Olivia. She comes from Oklahoma, like the best webcomic artist there is. She gave me an excuse to order this extravagant Vegetarian Soviet Republic Mixer Platter, and allowed, nay, insisted that I eat all the beets. Then she and Tyler and I went to the lake and took pictures.
[Tyler is awesome too, but we all already knew that]

Heaven

You know who else is awesome? Cara. This is an actual conversation we had:

Cara: How's it going?
Phil: Hallucinatingy
Cara: Oh. I'm going to some talks. Do you want to go upstairs and sleep in my bed right now?
Phil: ... ... .... ... ........ Heaven!

Prime

Man, I didn't know it at the time, but I had a pretty good day. DeGruyter happened to have my only refereed publication on display at their book table: I got to go for food with Walt the Awesome, shown here paying the price of fame:
And I got to vote on the Word of the Year:
Still, I think the highlight of my day had to be hearing the moderator using his most dignified voice to say 'Va-jay-jay'.

Oops

Have you ever tried to knit on a plane? No, wait, let me rephrase that: Have you ever bought four 12-inch bamboo stakes, sharpened them, and then tried to pass them through Homeland Security? You should.

Repacking

I did a pretty good job of cramming all of my stuff into two bags, even though the amount of stuff I had kept doubling. My secret: bring every CD you own on the trip, then throw half of them out. In case you were worried about Burl Ives, Jimi Hendrix, or the Singles soundtrack (pictured), I made sure to rip them all first.

GAUGE: 4" to thirt.... no... fift.... uh.... cookie monster

Here are 4 things your first-ever knitting project should probably absolutely not include:

1. Blue fun-fur eyelash yarn
2. Finding size 9 double-pointed needles
3. Anything that is not a scarf
4. Felting

Best Idea Ever

So, Mom, Simon and I were brainstorming ideas for what to do New Years Eve, and mom was like "We could see a movie." And we were like "meh" and then she was like "or we could go to dinner?" And we were like "meh" and then she was like "Or, we could gather up the Christmas ornaments that were damaged in the fire and chuck 'em against the trash compactor to smash 'em." I do not need to tell you what we were, in response, all totally like.If you don't know my mom, you don't know how surprising that was. But I guess she's full of surprises.