Must sleep. After I spend a few more hours on this essay, of course. I forget how unproductive I can be on my own computer, with its many distractions. Much better at work, in the library... yep, this is prettymuch the worst possible place I could be working on this.

Also: I don't usually, ever really, drink caffeine. I'm pretty appreciative of this disgusting orange tea right about now.

The essay is good though. Which is why it's taking forever to write. I was unable to shoehorn in blogging, so it's about Roland Barthes' S/Z, one of my favorite theoretical works. I imagine a remake of Paul is Dead in which the kid discovers S/Z and, not realizing how incredibly old it is, starts applying its methods to everything.

Someday I will chart an episode of Lost. This will be awesome. It took me six pages to chart a single paragraph earlier this term though, so maybe just the hermeneutic codes. And the semes.

Maybe not the semes. I spent a paragraph destroying the very notion of the seme.

Good blog-related quote I happened upon while researching the less-good paper I finished earlier today:

"The answer why they won't shut up is - they're not talking to you. They're talking in the private register of blogs, that confidential style between secret and public. And you found them via Google. They're having a bad day. They're writing for friends who are interested in their hobbies and their life. Meanwhile, you're standing fifty yards away with a sneer, a telephoto lens and a directional microphone. Who's obsessed now?"

The Bloggies were exciting, much more interested in them than in the Oscars. I can't believe PostSecret dominated so utterly. Go Fug Yourself, the one "best writing" weblog I haven't really read won, and I guess I'm ok with that. Not my thing, but people seem to like it. And Boing Boing deserved the lifetime achievement award for being so amazingly popular, but next year it had better be Dooce, aka Heather Armstrong.

Tomorrow is going to be a bit of a crunch, but it's a late-afternoon flight, and I'm confident that I can get everything done with three wasted hours at the terminal to spare, as long as I'm not waking up to this essay.

God I am so close to using Courier New, the most embarassing font ever. I would be done. I would have been done hours ago. But it doesn't seem smart, or fair to the students who wrote those extra pages. I have more to say, it's just taking forever to type it out. We need a ethic of fonts around here, stat.

But to business: I'm not sure how often I'll be updating while I'm gone, or if I'll be updating at all. Spending a week or two in meatspace sounds like a good break. If I die while I'm gone, Graham or Josh or someone will hack into my account sometime that week and leave a post telling you guys (and transfer everything to blogspot, ok? I'm not made of posthumous hosting money).

That's a trick I learned from sporadic yet famous blogger Tequila Mockingbird.

As for contact, I'll try to check my email every few days or so; you'll find nothing but oblivion and my answering machine if you call here, and I won't have my cell phone.

I'll be back on the 27th. I'm even looking forward to the plane ride, at this point.

Spring break! Whoo!