I woke up early, around 8:30, today. I've been getting rather satisfactory amounts of sleep at the expense of being on top of my work. While nothing major other than a CS program for Wednesday is due this week, the responsible manifestation of me would be working ahead for next week, aka Dead Week, when four final papers or projects are due in quick succession. But, wait, I think I'll update my website instead.

I don't have a tape dispenser: when I want a piece of scotch tape, I pick the paint-stained (I painted and used rolls of scotch tape as wheels in a middle school science project, and yes, this is one of the vestiges) roll out of my top desk drawer, find the end of the roll tactile-ly, and try to break off as straight a piece of tape as I can with my hands. In delicate situations, I sometimes substitute scissors for my hands in that last segment. I packed for school with one of the more stringent of minimalist attitudes in certain regards. Although I had multiple unused heavy-duty, sand-weighted tape dispensers at home, I brought none of them because the two pounds of weight didn't seem to justify their associated conveniences. Now, I don't really know why I didn't purchase a dinky disposeable one for 99 cents, but it would just seem wrong, somehow.

What I'm trying to grasp for myself—and, consequently, for y'all as well—here is that this is an abnormal, ridiculous, and unnecessary situation. Furthermore, it is one into which I voluntarily entered. I do that a lot. Take, for example, the pasta water from the second night of our OEP Joshua Tree trip. Being at a frontcountry, drive-in campground rendered drinking it completely unnecessary; we could have simply put it in the dumpster at the campground entrance. What made it even grosser was that because we'd cooked pasta for fifteen people with just barely enough water to cover it all, the resultant liquid was two liters of gunk with the consistency of watered-down Elmer's glue or condensed milk, but with hints of pepper, onion, garlic, and oregano. One of our trip leaders, Marshall, jokingly offered $5 for anyone who'd even take a swig; no takers came even when the ante was upped to $10 by someone else, though suddenly I found myself claiming that I could drink the whole potful for no money. I did it. It was warm, scummy, funny, foul, peppery, spicy, bloating, salty, and creamy all at the same time, though various hints dominated at different points in the process. But the "funny" part, I think, seemed to be the overriding sensation.

Back to my masochism. But so far I've written nothing coherent and it's really time to write at least one little function before 11am lecture.