M and the boys are asleep, and I’m hoping I can sleep soon, but I’m not especially hopeful. This weekend looks large and dangerous. Tomorrow’s high temperature is only twenty-eight, a scenario more conducive to Christmas vacation than spring break. We talked about driving down to Chicago, but we did the waterpark last week, and the kids and I barely survived, so we should probably take this weekend a bit easier. However, if we only hang around the house, the kids will either play video games for seventeen hours in a row or inflict bodily harm on each other approximately every twenty minutes. We can’t win. Maybe we can take them to a film or whatever, but I’ll feel guilty about dropping all the cash. Hm. I suppose there are worse scenarios, of course, but I hate when weekends are a drag.
Hope emerged today. I skipped basketball and hit the coffee shop by 8:15AM or so. I revised chapters one and three of the dissertation. Both look like they’re in decent shape, and I’ll hand them back to my advisor at a Tuesday meeting. Chapter two is a bit trickier. I have to read through her notes again if I want to make progress this weekend. I’m torn on how to spend my time the next three days. On one hand, if I haul ass on the writing I could probably hand in a draft of chapter two as well on Tuesday. On the other hand M and the kids leave for Florida Wednesday, so I’ll have Thursday to work through chapter two’s revisions. I don’t know. I don’t think I want to work on the paper at home, though. The kids become too confused by my working at the dining room table when they want to hang out. If I can sneak out for an hour or two, I’ll think about it. Maybe not. Monday already looks like a motherfucker. I need to grade papers in the morning, hit the office in the afternoon, and teach all night. Tuesday is only a little better. Wednesday morning M and the kids leave. I’m resenting the dissertation today, although I’m happy with my progress. I guess I just don’t see how the dissertation has made me a smarter or wiser person. I would have been better served by reading on my own. You know how it is.

Ten Bullet Post…here we go…

* I feel fat about seventeen hours of every day lately. I need to eat better. My stomach churns a lot. Stupid diet coke.

* I haven’t meditated regularly, either. Tomorrow! I swear! I need it.

* A few minutes ago I finished a re-reading of Klosterman’s “Killing Yourself to Live”. I liked the book better the second time around. I’m skipping around through Ha Jin and Murikami’s short stories. I’m tempted to pick up another of the Murikami novels.

* finished watching the documentary on eastern philosophy. I’m glad I watched the film, but I’m still not sure I could explain Shinto or Confucianism very well.

* Last Monday I stopped at a Barnes on Noble, on my wake to teach, and read the first twenty pages of Nietzsche’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra”. I hadn’t picked up Nietzsche since I was a college student, and everyone knows a college student reading Nietzsche is wasting his time and trying to look cool. On Monday, though, I found the book fascinating. I’d rather read Nietzsche then work on my dissertation.

* Maybe tomorrow I’ll clean something or cook something new. I always feel better when I do one or the other.

* M received an email from a fairly large national magazine expressing some interest in publishing one or more of her scavenger hunts. Wow…good for her.

* Today I bought new headphones for my mp3 player. They felt like a decadent extravagance, but they’re way more comfortable than the tiny ear-headphones, and I’m thinking Italy when I make a purchase of this nature.

* Speaking of Italy, my birth certificate finally arrived. Forty bucks! I can’t believe I paid that much to prove I’m alive. Again, I’m trying to frame this as a very small fee I can pay to facilitate an otherwise free trip to Italy. Thank God we’re not totally broke.

* M is snoring as we speak. I hope I can get some sleep tonight. Melatonin, anyone?