Microsoft is buying my previous company, Danger. We don't know for how much yet: proportionally, a huge amount more than what we paid for the stock. In practical terms, it's a fairly modest payoff, even more modest than my first company. But considering it's all free money, any discontent is just greed. It's about six months' living expenses, but it's going into my pile of long-term investments.

I finally got my birthday presents from Kat: a copy of Tomato Blessings and Radish Teachings, which is great; Aerostich VeeWipes; and this awesome mug. I'd mentioned the wipers and the book, and of course she remembered, because she's good like that. I recommend the book: it's every bit as good as I thought. Ed Brown cooks more or less the way I do, by thoughtfully combining simple flavors and actually tasting them, but he's much, much better at it than I expect to ever be. (He was the head cook at Tassajara, helped start the vegetarian restaurant Greens in San Francisco, and has been otherwise feeding people for 40 years.)

I'm feeling a bit twitchy this past week, and I more or less understand why, so now I get to move things along and fix it. I enjoy everything about the way I am now, what I've changed into since December 2006, but this thing, where instead of ongoing mental suffering I eventually let all the thoughts and feelings through and just work it out and let it pass, this is great because it's so different. In the past all the mental pressure would build up and it would be a problem; now it builds up and I attend to it. Everything changes, everything arises and passes, we're all just here in relationship to everything else, with nothing fixed or permanent.

The tree outside my balcony started flowering last week. It's pretty.