Reading list (and a few comments on the beginning of the semester).

I will read any laudatory article about Serena Williams whatsoever. Because I love her. But this is a very good one.

Next year in Scotland... (thanks to my daughter for this one!)

Not that I am the sort to think real hard about the stock market, but 'The stock market is not the economy' seems like a good mantra.

Recommended by Nikwalk: this and this.

Written by Nicole Walker: this.

This gorgeousness.

I could never.

The people, my moods, they have been up and down and up and down and up again. Perhaps the splendor of our Scotland trip has ruined me for my regular life. At least for now. Or maybe I'm almost over it. I worked out twice today, as if I were a high school football boy and as if I were doing two-a-days. That's what I told myself: I'm doing two-a-days. I am surprised, and why should I be, by the fact that the mornings are a little darker and the evenings fall a little quicker. Yesterday when I was doing pull downs, I heard Pat Benatar singing 'We Belong,' and I felt really, really good. If I were a karaoke person, this might be my karaoke song. I can sing all the parts. I won't deny that I sang it a little bit while I was doing the weights. I am not sick of Beck, 'Wide Open,' not one little bit. Tonight I had dinner with two colleagues, and we ate all manner of good things and sat on the patio and laughed while we ate. I came home and did one last orientation with online students who may or may not themselves be feeling dubious about the beginning of the new semester.

Fact: starting the new semester is an up and down and up and down and up again proposition.