Things I overheard myself saying to my hair care professional.

Last week:

"...In fact, I would argue that the Thursday New York Times is the best weekday Times, and you know why? Because (1) the Style section, and (2) the Home section, and also, (3) the crossword is challenging but not as hard as the Friday crossword."

Sometimes, the little things, such as the Thursday New York Times, are enough to keep you going on the days when your outfit is good, but you have 2.5 more things to do in the amount of time you have allocated to do things, such as run the contract down to the Provost, and also your travel request because the dean is supposed to sign it but you're married to the dean, but you forgot to get your chair to sign it first, so up and down the stairs you go in high heeled boots, hooray for everyday cardio!, and then the e-mail and the phone call and still there are midterms to grade, as well as the last minute preparations for class, 0.50 of which goes better than you could hope considering your colleague is there for classroom visit one of your post-tenure review, and 0.50 of which is a little bit meh.

On such a day, the prospect of the Thursday New York Times is the earthly reward for getting 88% of the available items on the "I must get this done TODAY" list. And now, I will turn my attention to it.