Nerd Journal: "Summer Is A-Coming In -- Loud Sing Cuckoo!"

Oh, early medieval English poetry! And summer is coming. Summer is here.

Yesterday was a gluttonous festival with friends -- everything from an early round of Satan Coffee and pastries at a local legend of a bakery...making wickedly awesome brownies in the afternoon...watching a DVD of the hilarious BBC retelling of Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew"... (Note: If you needed another reason to watch it, observe that somehow Rufus Sewell manages to wear tall high-heeled boots as well as La Parisienne and I can!)

Then I decided to splurge on a big luxury. The result was an image that I found really amusing: me sitting in a comfy chair getting a spa pedicure while reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and chatting with the Vietnamese manicurist about the value of hard work and education (she was asking me about my schooling since her own daughter is soon going to college).

Something about that whole exchange made me happy -- and not just because I was indulging in a luxury. I find the whole idea of small business and entrepreneurship to be just thrilling -- and the idea of the honest exchange of goods and services to be thrilling too. There's no element of pity or charity or sentimental bleeding-heart emotion in the exchange of my hard-earned money for a good pedicure. I buy the time and skill of the professional, and in return she gives me what I want. There's something really pure and honest and -- yes -- respectable about the entire exchange. The entire shop was completely busy too -- the hum of business and the sound of people making a living. I absolutely love it. Especially in a time of recession. (Well, I guess I really AM a heartless capitalist pig. Oink, darlings!)

FYI, not that you care, but I picked out a shamelessly bright red nail polish that says, "Summer is here and I mean to enjoy it!" If you look carefully, you can see tiny little sparkles in the paint. Wear with wedge-heeled sandals, knee-length skirts, and a sassy attitude (natch). It is so not-Nerdworld that it'll make your heart sing.

And no, I didn't splurge all the way and get a manicure. Nice manicures are wasted on me. I type too much on computers and spend too much time lugging books and journals; the nail polish chips almost immediately. Also, I am evil and spend a lot of time doing stuff like clawing out the eyes of my enemies while listening to the lamentations of their women, so I can tell you that that sort of behavior is very hard on manicures!

Life is good. And getting better. Nerd News: Tomorrow -- finally! -- I am getting on a plane and disappearing. (I can see the student newspaper now: "Enviro-Criminal MM to Mother Earth: Drop Dead.") Yes, I'm off to join the Cinema-Mad Sibling to wreak havoc across the universe. The undergrads have long since fled campus; finally it'll be the turn of the instructors, grad students, and faculty.

Check back tomorrow for the last Nerdworld Soundtrack song of the Spring 2009 school term! (UPDATE: Here's the song!)

PS: From La Parisienne and Il Barista, here is a bit of manicure-related humor (starts around 4:30, though she's got some other funny ethnic-humor stuff before then too). No political-correctness here, people!