It wasn't the best of times; it wasn't the worst of times. It was a just a time. No, it wasn't even just a time. It was a time. It was time. Damned bifurcating senses. Even that last sentence is ambiguous when considered elliptically, so I'll stop.

Another auspicious beginning. Once again, I'm here to report that although I have been very productive inside the classroom, the time I have spent outside the classroom has been very unproductive. If after reloading the computer on Monday I had started at game one on Freecell � or any other equally insidious game (ahem) � and marched game by game through every one of the thousands of games available there, I wouldn't, I'm certain, feel more stupid or listless than I have this week. Or was I feeling stupid and listless when I started playing? Or did I start playing because I felt stupid and listless? I'm incapable of answering that in my current state of mind; I can, however, pose dozens more questions, but I won't.

I have been drawn here many times throughout the week wanting to write, not feeling that I should write, but actually wanting to write. Although the signs of the signs have been no more unintelligible to me than they usually are, I just haven't been able to get them lined up in a way that signified anything to me.

I might assert that my noticings this week required a different, less complex and linear medium than words, something that required not less sorting and sifting of impressions, but a different kind of scrutiny and selection, or even non-scrutiny and non-selection, that 'be here now' variety of escape. But then I remember that I drove past some gorgeous moons this week and past a lilac that had been tricked by the recent warm temperatures into blooming six months too soon, and the camera was always with me and ready, but I wasn't moved to stop.

I had a teacher who claimed that Blake could have saved English majors a lot of angst if instead of kvetching about that bright-burning tiger he had written simply "Wow! The moon!" but that's scarely the stuff to fuel graduate departments of English. And as much as I'd like to dismiss my mood of this past week, and move on, there is stuff [Yeah, stuff. Technical term.] from this week to record, so on with it, Arsepat.

Monday night we attended our first-chair trombonist's concert at the middle school. The music was standard oompah fare. Of greater interest that evening was the fact that all the other boys wear their hair just like Owen does. The boys wear their hair short and comb the hair on top of their heads forward and then leave a slight, spikey pompadour pooked up in front. Finally, they lacquer the arrangement with enough gel to make it Kevlar-tough when dry. (I'm a little dismayed to find that Merriam-Webster doesn't yet include the word 'Kevlar' in the on-line version of their dictionary, but on with the show.)

Of greatest interest to me that evening was the view of Owen operating as a social animal among his peers. It's one thing to watch one's child around the house or in the neighborhood when he's among friends familiar to me. It's entirely another thing to watch him navigate the social straits among peers that are strangers to me. Seeing him being touched, punched and tagged, and hearing his name being grunted or called out (Argh, Du'! Hey, O! Pat!) by classmates that are strangers to me reassures me that they appreciate him almost as much as I do.

Wow! My kid!

Reading:
Oh, there's a copy of Eco's The Name of the Rose around here somewhere. Maybe I'll go back to that. Maybe not. Semiotics can be hazardous to the semi-conscious and the easily distracted.

Watching:
KSU made Iowa State pay (56-10 at home) for last week's loss to A&M. Nebraska, a loser last week to Oklahoma, did the same to Kansas (56-17). Although the outcome of neither game was in doubt after the first quarter, my mood has been such that I had to watch both blowouts to the end.

Neglecting:
I've neglected to mention that the local paper reported in October that the new site for the ten commandments monument at Manhattan Christian College would not be completed until January.

And I've also neglected to mention the parent-teacher conference we had a few weeks ago with Taylor's teacher. To say that it was a meeting that would keep a parent smug forever must suffice for now.