So apparently I forgot to set my alarm last night. (You already know how this is going to end, don't you?) I woke up this morning feeling refreshed and, frankly, wondering how that was possible, since I'd gotten only a handful of hours' sleep. Thinking that I'd woken up before my alarm went off, I looked over at the clock to see what time it was and whaaaaaaat? It was 8:45! No wonder I felt refreshed-- I'd slept for almost NINE HOURS! Suddenly I wasn't so much refreshed and on top of things, but harried and stumbling out of bed. Whoops! I guess we've all had days like that!

Dear Professor,

I'm sorry I didn't email you sooner. I had an injury/accident/financial crisis/stint in jail/pole-dancing gig/whatnot that prevented me from coming to class the other day. I'm really, really, really sorry I wasn't able to come to class. I'm sure you understand that it Wasn't My Fault (TM). Anyway, I was wondering if you could tell me what I missed? Also, could you tell me if there's anything important I need to know for the upcoming exam/paper/quiz? Thank you!

Sincerely, Your Student

Lots going on here, and not a lot of time to post, so I'll leave you with this brief reminiscence: When I was little, I thought that working for a non-profit meant that you wouldn't get a paycheck. I had this idea that it would be great to work for a non-profit and be a part of a worthy cause, but I was always worried about how I'd pay my bills.

I'm going to go ahead and ask: what, what, is so threatening to hetero married people about gay marriage? Same-sex marriages are already illegal in Florida. But in November, we're going to have the opportunity to vote on a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriages. Wait, what? If there's already a law against it, why is a constitutional amendment necessary? Oh, I get it: so it's harder to overturn than a measly law. I ask again: what is so threatening about it? Why are so many people so vehemently in favor of keeping a group of people from realizing one of society's most timeless rites? Proponents of gay-marriage bans claim that gay marriage would undermine the institution of marriage. "If marriage can mean anything, marriage means nothing," says John Stemberger, chairman of Yes2Marriage. Uh... how is that, exactly? Maybe I'm naive, but I don't understand how my marriage-- or the institution of marriage-- is in any way undermined by gay marriage. Can someone explain it to me? Because I just don't get it.

Do you ever feel like your life has turned into one giant game of Whac-A-Mole? That you're dealing with a hundred things at once, standing on tiptoe and wielding your rubber mallet, trying to stay on top of everything? Except, not only are you not able to stay on top of everything, you're also not devoting enough attention to anything? Let's form a club together, then. Because this week, I'm not able to do anything 100%. I'm barely managing 50%. I'm not able to devote enough time to my dissertation, not able to scrape together any free time for the people (and animals) that I love, not able to maintain some semblance of patience, not able to feed my family in a timely manner, and don't even get me started on the laundry situation. I'm at the point where I feel like I'm drowning, and there's nobody who can throw me a rope. Or maybe they could throw me a rope, but I wouldn't be coordinated enough to catch it. And no, this isn't indicative of anything seriously wrong, and tomorrow I'll probably have forgotten the fact that I felt like this at all, but right now, the moles are winning. Handily.

Here's a fun trick. Get a group of academics together in a room. Doesn't matter what department they're in. History, Sociology, Econ, Statistics, Engineering... get a good mix. Talk to them for awhile. Move around the room and watch them interact with one another. Do this for at least an hour. Then review what you've just seen and heard. I guarantee that you won't find a bigger group of social retards socially maladjusted people. I don't know what it is about universities, but they tend to draw an overwhelming number of misfits. It was described to me perfectly the other day: in society, you have a majority of normal people coexisting with a minority of oddities, people on the fringe who don't know how to act in public. In academia, it's the reverse. The misfits are in charge and the normal folks are on the fringe, getting the weird looks and the sidelong glances. Why is that?

Remember Garfield? The cartoon cat with a weight problem? Growing up, I couldn't imagine a cat being fat. Our cats were always slim and fit. The whole Garfield-is-fat thing just never really made sense to me. When Amos came into our lives eight years ago, he was this tiny little puffball, so young he couldn't even be fixed yet. In Manhattan, he made a game of begging to be let out (on the pretense that he had to use the facilities) and then racing up and down the street, hiding under cars, in a tremendously-fun-for-him game of chase. In Lawrence, he raced around the yard, chasing bunnies and birds and anything else that moved. And here in Gainesville... well, here in Gainesville the lethargy set in. At first he tried chasing lizards and frogs, but quickly found that they caused him to froth at the mouth if he caught them (they being poisonous and all). Ever since he's given up on that, he's just been eating and sleeping. And eating some more. Until one day, it dawned on us that it's not just that Amos has a lot of hair, nossir. Amos is fat. "How fat is he?" Amos is so fat, when we recently went to look for a cat door for the front of the house, we realized that he'd get wedged in the one we picked out. We put it back. Frankly, I'm at a loss as to what to do. For almost two years now, we've had Amos on a diet. He no longer gets his daily ration of food in one go, because he'll eat it all. Instead, he gets (no kidding) two tablespoons of food at a time, three times a day. When I took him to the vet recently and asked what we could do to help him lose weight, the doctor (not our usual vet) responded, "feed him less." When I pointed out how little we already feed him, she hemmed and hawed and said that we could try taking him on walks. Ha. Ha ha. It is to laugh. Have you taken a cat on a walk? It's not so grate, akshully. We've tried playing with him, pulling a string around the house (which he used to love), and he's nonplussed. My only hope for Amos is that when we finally get out of here (fingers crossed, knock on wood, salt over the shoulder) next summer, we'll move to a place that's better for him physically and mentally and he'll start to drop the weight. Otherwise, I fear the worst.