I’m slipping a little, journalwise, but I’m not too badly out of sync. At the moment I’m on my second Corona, and slightly drunk, but I’m not feeling too badly. Today was long but not horrible. What a resounding vote of confidence, eh? N climbed on my head just after midnight, and as soon as I woke, I knew I was up. I thought about taking some melatonin, but I read somewhere that a side effect for some people on melatonin is depression, and I was feeling some of that, thank you very much, so instead I stayed up until about three answering emails and grading lesson plans. I suppose I fell asleep a bit closer to four then slept until seven. I hung out with the boys until they went to the school then, since I had been up all night grading, had a leisurely morning answering a few more emails and taking some phone calls. I also meditated on the front porch. I didn’t meditate for very long, just a few minutes, but I found myself considering a “peace beyond peace” concept that intrigues me. In the past I have considered peace to be the cessation of movement in a scenario where movement could only be paused, like a thumb in a dyke would pause water, but movement would return, relentlessly, probably sooner than later. Today, as I meditated, I considered a peace that’s beyond movement or the lack of movement. I need to develop the idea more, but it has promise. Of course, I was seriously pissed off at work later (thank God I have a cool dean or I would have been fired years ago), so apparently I can’t get to that peace as easily as I would like. Still, I managed to knock out a shitload of paperwork throughout the afternoon and put in about ten hours, all told, counting the middle of the night, I bet. Tomorrow I’m working on my dissertation, at least through the morning, and I should be caught up with just about everything by Friday afternoon.

After I arrived home, about five-thirty, we ate dinner (quesadillas) and played baseball in the back field. T’s hitting is coming along well. Some of the neighbor kids were out on the corner lawn, so we hung out for a while before I snuck inside. T was getting a bit bored, as the oldest, despite his attempts to babysit some of the youngest kids. He asked to go to the library, and I had to pick up ELO’s Greatest Hits from the reserve desk, so we drove downtown for a few minutes. After a brief cut through town we returned home. I answered emails (including one from my dean) and read the atlas with S. I focused on using the index today. Pretty high level skills for a kindergartener, I think, but he can handle it. He’s a smart kid. After that I snuck downstairs, opened a beer, and caught the last two innings of another mighty Brewers win. More tomorrow. Good night.