I’m right now sitting at a public email terminal in the LA airport, waiting for my connection to Honolulu. I’m waiting an extra four hours for it, because I gave up my seat to some standby passenger, a course I recommend to all. I get a fresh new (1st class!) seat, a free ticket to anywhere in the continental US, and I don’t have to talk to a single family member for an extra four hours. Bliss… Of course, I should use this time to work on my master’s thesis, due in six days, or one of the other two papers I need to finish to get my master’s, but I feel that would be a misuse of a laziness windfall. And coincidentally, just this minute my friend Chris from high school emailed me from, guess where, LA, asking where I am. Maybe I’ll even get to see him again. My cup overflows. In addition to all this, I’ve got an idea of how I’m going to finish one of those two papers, on Tristram Shandy. That lovely “now I can go on” feeling. Quite a change from this morning, when I found out I had only half the time left I thought I did to finish my thesis.