When I’m very tired, I have blackouts, like a drunk. For example, I was observing a teaching demo today, opened my palm and found a small red plastic object there that I’d never seen before. I have no idea where it came from. It was creepy as shit. I don’t know where the object is now because it left as mysteriously as it had come. 

So tonight, I come home from work and I see a large, colorful box with toddler basketball. And I don’t have any recollection of ordering it. 

I told my sister about it and she said she’d told me about buying toddler basketball for her own son.

“You said it was a great idea and you wanted to buy one, too” she explained.

I, of course, had no memory of the conversation. 

“Did you buy it and send it to me?” I asked. 

My sister is the mother of two small kids and she is even more tired than me. 

“I don’t think I sent it,” she said doubtfully. “Am I going nuts? Did I send it and forget?”

“I hope so,” I said. “I’d rather you were the nutso and not me.”

After I fretted for an hour about having gone completely crazy and buying a toy I don’t remember buying, I shared my problem with N.

“Oh, I bought it,” he said calmly.

Now I just have to convince the man to own up to sneaking onto campus and covertly placing a red plastic gewgaw in my palm to mess with my brain. 

Are life coaches a response to robotization?

The politics of rich people. 

David Brooks wrote something interesting. Yes, really. 

States are fighting the ridiculous tyranny of license agreements. 

But Hillary is fat. 

Internet is not causing political polarization. 

The source of the Obama wiretapping statement. Prepare to be shocked. No, not really. 

Why is it so shocking that conservatives vote against their financial interests when that’s exactly what every liberal does as a matter of course?

A male critic is pissing himself with delight over Beauty and the Beast.

And a female critic is pissing on the male critic and on the show. 

And I’d rather get my teeth cleaned with gauze than watch the show. 

P.S. It’s not Monday, though, is it?

Just called N and he said that Klara is happy, she sleeps and plays all day, and he’s not in the least tired. 

He is asking if he can spend every day like this.

Bastard.

The semester is 2/3 done. I’m teaching 3 classes with about 70 students in total. And in all this time I haven’t had a single problem with cell phone use in the classroom. I never prohibit cell phone usage and refuse to police it. But students behave as if they didn’t know cell phones existed. Everybody is present, engaged, and actively participating. With no humiliating policing on my part. 

This is what I call teaching. 

I’m at work, resting. Because 6 lecture hours and 2 meetings is rest for me at this point in my life.

Caught a bit of Neil Gorsuch inquiry on the news before leaving. He’s like those job candidates we hate to interview, wasting everybody’s time with endless verbiage aimed at pleasing everybody and committing to nothing. 

“Which of these textbooks would you prefer to use in this course?”

“Well, an argument could be made for both of these excellent textbooks.”

“Yes, it could. Please make one for the book you would prefer to use.”

“Well, they are both excellent textbooks and one could argue convincingly in favor of either of them.”

“Is there maybe another textbook you’ve used that you like?”

“Well, an argument could be made in favor of any of the excellent textbooks on the market.”

And so on, interminably.