September 17, 2018 Diary
Awoke early—before 5, but drifted back off for another hour, thankfully. My wife has a sleepless night so she turned off the alarm and rolled over. I got up around 6:30, let the dog out and then fed her. She got up nicely, which isn’t always the case in her old age. Every morning has a little suspense about how she did overnight—a new form of domestic excitement for us. Made tea. Cleaned up the dishes I didn’t get to last night. Sat down for a few minutes and contemplated the day ahead and the busy week ahead. I generally don’t dread Mondays because for the most part I like what I do (teaching and research). Fridays are definitely better, but Mondays aren’t so bad for me. Some bureaucratic work to do today, some of which I’ve neglected in part because I hate it. I put on the TV to listen to a few minutes about the latest politics. The Supreme Court nomination is the issue of the day. Blech.
Sat down to work a little after 8—working at home to have some sustained concentration for a while. It’s drudgery—dealing with subpar student work. That so many of the submissions are not quite good enough suggests I didn’t explain things well. That’s not usually the case with this assignment but things were condensed a bit early in this term and I probably did not spend enough time explaining my expectations for this piece of work. Note to self: fix that for next time. Most students will have to resubmit—more work for me. After a couple of hours I switched over to preparing a public presentation for tomorrow. I did some of the preliminaries on this earlier but now I need to finalize. This is all taking longer than I planned.
Headed out about 11:30. Stopped to fill tires in car. One of them was surprisingly low—a leak? This car has been a pain in the neck since we bought it a couple of years ago. The perils of buying a used car from a guy who knows a guy, I guess. Hit the gym for a 30-minute run. I decide to do it indoors since its pretty steamy out. I used to exercise in any weather. Now I’m too old to deal with even modestly difficult conditions. It’s enough that I can still run a little. I took a quick shower and grabbed a sandwich with a couple of colleagues and did some planning with them for the coming week. Scheduled a meeting for midafternoon to continue the planning and catch up on some other shared work. Into my office, where I waded through emails, organized a lunch event for later in the week, and finished prep for class tomorrow. I’m glad to have had the concentrated time for work this morning since my attention is grabbed by a dozen different things at once as soon as I come into the office.
Got through the bureaucratic tasks in about an hour. Headed to the meeting, where a colleague and I went through a long to-do list, divvying up tasks that included writing some short documents for a website, selecting speakers, and identifying some hiring needs. It felt good to get on top of things—there’d been a drift for the past few weeks that I hadn’t really acknowledged to myself. It was making me uneasy even if I didn’t entirely recognize it until I got organized.
Headed home at 5. I was going to cook early but I found out that the chicken in the frig was well past its sell-by date. So, leftovers. That’s not so bad. Some tasty Turkey burgers from last night. First, I decide to do a bit of an ongoing yard project—digging up a set of yew stumps in preparation for some new landscaping. Dug and hacked away at one for about an hour, then gave up without finishing, drenched in sweat and with a sore shoulder (another sign of my body’s ongoing decay). Gave the dog a short walk (and a slow one until another dog came along and she perked up, ready to fight). I showered, and grabbed some leftovers—turkey burger, potato salad, green salad. Tasted good and no prep. Can’t beat that.
After eating I take care a few final works tasks, so I can be ready to go tomorrow morning. I expect to knock off by 9 and relax for a while.
Finished at 8:51. I’m tired, so that’s enough work for one day. Banishing any serious or substantial thoughts from my mind, I’m vegging out from here. Channel surfing (news, football, baseball, Emmys), internet surfing (via twitter, mainly), Youtube-ing aimlessly. Checked my pedometer: more than 13,000 steps today-yeah!. I’m trying to average 10,000 per day for the entire year. I’m close-averaging about 9,800 as of now. Catch the football halftime and it turns into an annoying pop music video so I switch over to baseball. I’m a grouchy old man, drifting toward curmudgeon status. Tired.
My wife called in sick, with lack of sleep and a headache. Didn’t get much chance to talk with her except when I got home from work. She was off to bed early, before I’d finished my dinner. Hope she sleeps well tonight.
Busy day, in a good way mostly. It kept me occupied and I finished the day feeling as though I got a fair amount done. Too busy for much diary writing!
Shut tv and computer down and read for a bit. Head to bed a little past ten after helping the dog out one more time. Bed feels good.