I needed that

I got up early, got to the office early, and still managed to accomplish significantly less than I wanted/needed to. I worked at the office yesterday (the "holiday") to similar end. On the up side, I was ready for today's class and am ready for tomorrow's, but Thursday? Still in trouble. Still not enough hours left that aren't already dedicated to something else. I didn't go to my writers' group tonight: was at the office until 7 (when I would have had to be in Manhattan), and was by that time seriously hitting the wall. But then--happy sigh--I corrupted Paul and persuaded him to go out for steak with me. Ruth's Chris Steak House, huge, guilt-producing slab of meat (guilt on many levels, not least of which my conflicted feelings about eating meat at all, especially the feed-lot, corn-fed variety): I managed to shove down the guilt and enjoy the steak, along with the side dishes and the nearly requisite scotch that went with it. And I felt all sorts of stress knots untie as Paul and I did our usual mix of talking about students, scholarship, lives, relationships, whatever. And laughing, of course. Rather a lot. I reiterate: I am blessed that my among my colleagues are such terrific friends.

And then I got home and have been revising and re-revising an e-mail to an old friend with whom I have recently re-established communication, and now it's almost 11:30, and I wanted to get up at 6 but I'm not sure I'll be able to make myself do that. Not sure what I'll do to create out of nothing the time I need to get those fucking assignments ready to return on Thursday, but I'm getting myself into the kind of situation I warn my students about: once one gets too far behind, catching up becomes more and more impossible. So they have to be back on Thursday, no matter how utterly wrung out that leaves me by the end of that day.

And now I really must just stop, dammit, and go to bed. This may be my shortest post yet. Probably a relief to you dear and generous souls who actually read this bilge.