Anti-Climacus

I've had a large number of female friends for as long as I can remember (odd biographical note: between the beginning of my sophomore year of college and the second semester of my senior year, only female friends). The reasons are not especially complicated: until I got to grad school, if you wanted to talk about books or movies, or poetry, or philosophy, or your emotions and relationships, the women I knew were simply much better conversationalists than the men I knew. I enjoyed many a long evening of walking around Ann Arbor with my friend Dara, talking about moral philosophy and life and, more recently, the series of knock-down drag-out arguments I had with Becky over The Marriage Plot. When I envisioned being an adult, those are the sort of things I had in mind.

These past few months have been like that, but more so: I had the good fortune to return to a Durham where all of my closest friends still lived, and I think we've made a pretty good go of it: it's probably the most enjoyable time I've had since the semi-legendary summer of 2008. I've written things to a few of my non-blog reading friends about their general wonderfulness and mentioned the couple who know of the blog (both of whom I think quite highly of). So what better way to acknowledge this, really, than a really excellent song by a great band that always puts me in a good mood?

(and, n.b.: my friends are indeed all right, though our entertainments are strictly of the legal variety. I am still a giant nerd.)

Also, since I have been a bit nostalgic for central New Jersey lately (weird, I know), this is exactly the sound of sitting on your balcony at 2:00 in the morning sometime in June. Not that I would know anything about that: