Do you buy herbs and spices online? What’s the best place?

The best Mexican oregano and oreja de ratón (oregano indio) are on Rancho Gordo. But they have no other herbs.

Why are kids so sociable? She spent all day at school playing with other kids. But every day after I pick her up, we need to drive to a playground or a park in search of more kids to play with. And as soon as we finally get home, she’ll start asking to go over to a friend’s house.

And the kids on the playground are all masked. What is it, a posh playground, or something?

Very annoying.

I didn’t get enough sleep because Klara urgently needed to borrow a book from my bedroom at 7 am. Everything at work that could go wrong went wrong. Adobe changed salary numbers in faculty contracts in weird ways. It was all crap.

My eyes are bleary, I’m hungry and miserable. I’m pacing around the playground, dreaming of steak. A juicy, bloody, very rare steak.

One thing about me is that I have no impulse control. None. Delayed gratification is not a concept I can comprehend. When a whim possesses me, I get up and run wherever it takes me.

Today, for instance, I was sitting at the meeting with the Dean’s Office, and experienced an overwhelming desire – which is the only kind I get – to read true crime novels.

OK, this didn’t sound the way it should. I have no bad feelings towards the Dean’s Office. We have a new Dean, and he’s great. Really great.

But the desire struck, so I dropped everything, ran to the public library, and dragged out two doorstoppers by Ann Rule. Then I read one of them. Yes, the whole 400-page thing. It was very enjoyable.

It’s all like that. The other day I left the office to pop down to the library on campus. Halfway there a desire possessed me to cook lentils. So I turned around, went to the car – never even bothered to go get my things from the office or lock up – and drove home to cook lentils.

Why lentils? Why true crime? Who knows?