Parents Gone Wild!

What a week that was. Extra hours at the co-op, loads of evaluations for the search committee, the usual labor of teaching, doing final revisions AGAIN on my first chapter to resubmit it to my committee. I don't know, maybe it wasn't all that much extra work. For the last couple months, though, I've been setting my alarm to get up at about seven in the morning to squeeze the maximum number of productive hours out of the day. Truly, most mornings, I wake up perfectly alert and ready to start the day. My own personal neurosis is that if I don't get up right away, the slowly seeping anxiety will begin to overtake me and completely ruin any semblance of rest above and beyond my standard eight hours. On Friday, though, I actually woke up and thought *ugh, again?*. (Note, for the full effect, you should hear this in the whiniest voice you've ever heard me use.) One class and one search committee meeting later, I was finally able to read some comic books and my assigned reading for Monday. It was kind of relaxing and lovely. Now I'm staring down the barrel of a day completely free for whatever research seems to me appropriate, relevant, and interesting. It's still disorienting to be able to read whatever I want to in the name of research. I suppose it's still akin to the giddiness of radical freedom when I remember being a kid and how badly I wanted to be able to go where I wanted, do what I wanted, etc. Is anybody else still thrilled that they've grown up and escaped their parents?

Also, the pumpkin pie brownies were pretty good. I made them in a 9X9 pan, and if I were to make them again, I'd make them in a round pan of some sort. It figures that I'm not enthusiastic since I'm not crazy about pumpkin in general. Q loves them, though, so mission accomplished.

Lastly, another one for you silly non-sloggers, particularly b. Dan Savage said he would file this one under "every child needs a mommy and a daddy," but I think something more like simply "American family values" would be appropriate. Be prepared to feel very self-righteous. http://www.parentsbehavingbadly.com/

Discuss.