Self-Indulgent

Yesterday I was in an unusually self-indulgent mood, I mean, unusual even for me. I had decided to go and work in the downtown library, but didn't make it there until 10. Then, before I got in the door, I got lured by the siren song of Dunkin Donuts. Here's the thing about donuts, the goodness to price ratio is incredibly high. As is the calorie count of course. However, I guiltlessly indulged myself with a lovely double chocolate donut, devoured outside the door of the library. It was a cold day; I was planning on working hard. Somehow I just felt like I deserved it.

Inside, it took me a while to get started. I had decided to warm up by copying out a passage from a classical text. It's an interesting way of reading, very different from translating because you start getting the feel of a text while still being able to defer decisions about what the text means. I was enjoying it immensely so I kept at it for something like an hour. Then I did get down to work.

At 2 or so, I went out and had lunch at Panera, half sandwich and cup of soup. Then a quick pass through the clearance section at Old Navy where I bought a slightly silly dress for $4.99. At that price, you can't lose, right?

For dinner I made tacos. It is a meal I remember my mom making often when I was a kid. It turns out to be the easiest thing--you just prepare all the ingredients, put them in separate bowls, and everyone makes their own. Between us Pocket of Bolts and I managed to polish off a pound of ground turkey and a dozen or so little corn tortillas. We were very intently watching Madmen, which was especially interesting tonight.

Later we actually got to the gym to work it off. I spent nearly an hour on the elliptical at heart rate 150, intermittently watching TV and reading. I watched a history channel program on the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. It was extremely dramatic and exciting, though perhaps rather exaggerated. Certainly a big asteroid hitting the earth is a catastrophic and disturbing event. Then I watched something about the Chicago Seven, the late 60s conspiracy trial regarding the 1968 Democratic Convention riots. I got sucked into it because the courtroom scenes were done in rather handsome animation. I was a bit disappointed even that everything else was real footage, because the animation was so cool.