Birds are the fucking worst. Creepy little dinosaurs.

This little bit of vitriol made my morning!

It's only 9 and already I feel like I'm going to be running around all day. Possible phone meeting at 10, definite in-person meeting at 12:30, giving me just enough time to get to the bus if my son blows a gasket and decides to skip his afternoon class up at his campus, 4 pm take Frances to her tutoring class, then up to my son's school to pick him up and a quick visit to his class for Back-to-School. Glancing kiss hello to my husband as he arrives for Back-to-School night, long form. Pick up daughter from her tutoring class and feed both kids. Yipes!

But first, cup of coffee #2 and a shower.

Yup, that sounds like a lot, Burrell!

Yeah, he's a math friend, and friends with a bunch of other people I'm friends with, so I don't really want to start anything with him -- there are a couple people in that group of friends who will turn anything into Drama, and it's just not worth it, especially since I know that the fallout would be a whole bunch of people who stop talking to me. So I'm just not saying anything.

He's really involved with Critical Mass and stuff like that, and he consistently uses social justice language to talk about biking issues, and gets horribly offended if anyone points out that, while there might be some similarities, you can't just wholesale take the language used for talking about oppression of women or black people or disabled people or whatever and use it to talk about oppression of bikers. (I've gotten into it with him a couple times before when I've pointed out that one of his "Let's get rid of all the cars and make the streets safe for bikes!" ideas would mean that I would not be able to travel anywhere.)

Coffee has been made and drunk, shower has been had, phone meeting at 10 cancelled in favor of a more preferable time later in the week. It's still a long day ahead, but it all looks more doable from here.

I need ALL THE COFFEE even though it's 1 pm. The pollen count is stupid high (though apparently not as high as it's going to get later this week, oh joy), and the predominant types of pollen are the ones that I'm violently allergic to.

I am so full of antihistamines that you would need a prescription to drink my blood. And I am therefore sleepy and dopey from all the antihistamines.

Please no one drink my blood. Thanks.

I have written a quiz -- it took two hours, of which about an hour and a half was spent trying to remember how LaTeX works and getting it set up right with the right packages downloaded on my new work computer. At least I actually can download stuff here -- at my old university, we weren't given admin passwords, so if we wanted anything installed on our work-issued computers, we had to get IT to do it, which would usually take a day or two. Now I need to write up notes for class for tomorrow, read over what I'm supposed to be covering in my other class, make a ton of copies, answer a bunch of student emails, read through a draft of a midterm, and probably a few other things.

Probably the best way to avoid Drama is to just not engage him on the oppression of bikes issue, and if asked just note that you have differing opinions and you're done debating them.

My DH is an avid biker and he totally agrees that comparisons between bikers and societal oppression based on identity really don't stand up to scrutiny.

I have had really bad sleep the last two nights because our big goofball labradoodle, Chet, has had bad diarrhea. He wakes me up every two hours to go out. I'm glad he does so, but it does not make for a restful night. I gave him rice for dinner and he's fasting today, so we'll see if things improve.

Probably the best way to avoid Drama is to just not engage him on the oppression of bikes issue, and if asked just note that you have differing opinions and you're done debating them.

That's what I'm trying to do. I'm not always too good at that sort of thing.

Mmmm, forbidden Teppy blood.

LaTex, I remember that being a PITA. But pretty. ETA: 25 years ago when we had to log into the mainframe to use it. I'm sure it's better now. And I am old.

Aw, poor Chet and Scrappy. That's rough.