Degradation

I just wrapped up the last bit of grading for the spring semester. A restless
early morning, read: what am I doing wide awake at 5 a.m.?, allowed me
just the amount of quiet time I needed to encode the last few essays, to each a
letter.  Forms are due later today or tomorrow–one or the other, but I
must have left paperwork in the office on campus.  Cause for a bicycle
ride.

I was slower than usual with grading this time around.  A combination of
factors: sapped, more methodical.  Now there’ll be one week of down time
before starting in on the Summer I course in genre theory.  The stuff I’m
teaching doesn’t begin until June 6, which means the course I’m taking will be
solidly underway when the steepened workload involving the reading of student work
hits in mid-late June.  That’s the plan.

Other: I’ve been thinking about blogging lately, but, being sapped, I figure
now’s as good a time as any to lollygag.  I installed a WordPress site for
experimentation; re-designing it seems a bit tedious though.  I was
interested in using the easily modifiable shell of a weblog for a Site of
Self
I’m pulling together this summer.  What do they call these? 
Professional sites?  Personal-professional sites?  Vita, teaching
philosophy, syllabi, etc.

Yet another: Should we move this summer?  Seems like a hassle to switch
to another place, but Landlord–who lives clamorously with his energetic dog on
the paper that is our ceiling–has an apt.-mate moving in over the summer, the
neighbors, who share the driveway, were loud-banging a second basketball
hoop together into the late-night hours, and Ph. will be at the high school in
the fall–a high school beyond walking distance from where we now live. 
Oh, and the hoop wouldn’t be a problem except that the south sideline is
our relatively new and yet un-paid-for Honda Element.  So when the kids are
in the drive working on their cross-overs and sending long-careening rebounds
into the door of the car…eeg.  And I really mean EEG!  That’s the
sound for deep down vexation.  No matter how hard I try, I can’t get over
the angst I feel when I hear the basketball pounding the car.  Yeah yeah. 
Material things and whatever.  But no matter what I do to exorcise the
in-creeping aggravations of car-door-ball-shots, I am my dad’s son through and
through. I can’t block out the irritation I feel so deeply when the ball hits
the car.  So maybe I’ll try moving the car more often (where?). 
Because I’m in favor of kids playing basketball, I have to think of something. 
Help me out, people.

So moving.  Thinking about it.  For now, just thinking.