Monday, better known as Tuesday.

--not to moan about it or anything.

Discussing our respective long, long, long, long days, while preparing dinner. The historian is rehearsing the tenor of the conversation in one of today's meetings:

Mr. Dialectical himself.

The historian: . . . and it just seems like we've had all those conversations before--a billion times.

Me:  And it's not like one of those Hegelian deals, thesis-antithesis-synthesis. [hand circling in an ascending spiral]--what's the word for that?

The historian: Dialectic? That's the dialectical process.

Me: I know, but isn't there a word for that moment of transcendence? when things get better*?

The historian: I don't know. Probably.

precipitous descending spiral.

Me: [resuming:] but it's more like circling [hand circling in a precipitous, descending spiral] down into hell. Or like Sartre. No Exit.

Sartre was French.

*Aufhebung. FYI.