Today

5:30 or so, p.m., it hits me today--that longing to revisit Twitter and Facebook. Twitter gives me an out: I can eavesdrop on several of my friends' accounts, reading their posts to one another, even if I can't post myself. Facebook, not so much. Probably a good thing, that.

***

This morning I wrote a Purim parody song, although we're not likely to do it. (The story will be old news by the spring, probably.) Posted the lyrics and appropriate YouTube clip over at the Big Jewish Blog and In the Rain, thinking maybe it would get some comments at one or the other. We'll see!

That was before breakfast.

Afterwards I walked around the park with R, wrote and sent out some letters of recommendation, posted two Change of Grade requests, edited a Popular Romance Project blogpost, wrote one of my own, glanced at some friends' blogs, dealt with some emails.

Was that it? Other than making and eating lunch, was that my day's work? Am I forgetting something?  Changed the sheets.  Folded some laundry.  Seems too little, somehow, for the hours gone by.

***

Talked with R, on our walk, about the social media itch.  She suggested that I schedule some downtime:  go to a music store or just sit and read a bit, away from the computer, making such breaks a more formal part of my schedule, and certainly using them to "celebrate" finishing a block of work time.

The danger w/ social media, saith R, is that they'll eat up my month off teaching in December, and she's probably right.  Peeking at accounts, then emailing people in response, might be better precisely because it's more cumbersome, less easy to slip into.  Certainly I didn't do it until late in the afternoon, as opposed to the constant shift from work to Twitter, work to Facebook, which was my rhythm a few months ago.

The rhythm just now:  file some papers, jot something here, file some papers, jot some more.

***

Here's a song my son played for me in the car the other day--a CD he'd picked up at the library.  I quite like it, although it does make me hanker for a Telecaster and a Vibrolux amp in the worst way, now that I hear it again...