Today was a more or less wasted day, I think, but I needed to waste a day, if that
makes sense. I woke just before basketball and decided, on the basis of my knees and the fact I had to grab the railing to walk up the stairs, to skip hoops. I hung out with the boys before school then watched Sportscenter for a while before the library opened. I had earmarked the day for dissertation work. About an hour into changing f—king verb tenses in chapter two, a practice I’m still not convinced I’m completing correctly, and experimenting with circles in the MS Word’s “Autoshape” function, I decided to throw in the towel. I think I’ll hand-draw what I need for Tuesday’s focus group. I drove to Walgreens for a passport photo and stopped at the courthouse for a passport application. I hope, after I drop off the passport application, that I never have to enter the courthouse again. The courthouse creeps me out. You have to go through a metal detector before you enter a building that smells like a hospital but feels, for lack of a better word, just…harder. I hope none of my children ever have to enter that building under difficult circumstances. I don’t know what else to say. After that I ate lunch, answered some email, and met a student at the coffee shop for an action research defense. We chatted for a while before I returned home. The kids were playing in the back yard so, after watching for ten minutes or so, I took a bath and read the latest Sports Illustrated. There are few pleasures in life as complete as reading a new magazine in the bathtub. Plus, the bathroom was sparkling clean. Double-plus, the weather was warm enough for an open skylight. I suppose I could work on the dissertation this weekend. I wonder what my chair will say about my first three chapters. I don’t know. Tomorrow I may meet Mary out in the morning before a meeting. I need to finish Monday’s prep, which shouldn’t be hard, before a 3PM senate meeting. I want to get the hell out of the building by five, stop for a pizza on the way home, and settle in for the weekend. Oh, the boys have movie night at their school, and I’m always the asshole father who skips it. Maybe I should go tomorrow night, just for them, since I’m always the asshole prick off to the side. I love my kids. They’re good kids. Three quick bullet points:

1) T, S, M, and I watched some of “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?” tonight. I answered the first two questions incorrectly. I suck. I also was pissed off that the contestants kept picking the boy fifth graders for help. Why not pick the girls? Game show sexists suck.
2) I haven’t procured any new music lately. Dan and I are convinced The Hold Steady sound like Thin Lizzy, so I’ve been listening to “Boys and Girls in America” to confirm our theory. I like that album a lot.
3) “Gunnar Palace”, a documentary about American soldiers in Iraq, arrived from Netflix today. I’m a documentary whore. Maybe I’ll watch some tonight. Maybe I’ll read. Maybe I’ll get drunk. It’s been a while. Good night.