Baby, how I ponder your shadow

I really aten't dead. I've been consumed by shelving. There isn't quite enough of it; I'm having to play Tetris with my library and it is exactly the sort of three-dimensional puzzle for which I feel I was expressly not built. The whole process of unpacking took several days to begin with. I am trying to strike a balance between spending enough hours on the books to feel effective and reinjuring my back all over again. It's been worse the last few days. In addition I am having significant difficulty sleeping—my bedtime got pushed forward past five in the morning a few nights ago and it seems to have stuck, despite being so tired last night that I was hallucinating lines of type across derspatchel's face. (No, I have no idea what they said.) And there have been doctor's appointments and I have to get my work finished. The combination means a lot of radio silence and not as much writing as I really want, especially considering the amount of time I spent on Monday reading about Oppenheimer and the Trinity gadget. On Tuesday night, Rob and I saw Tim's Vermeer (2013) at the Kendall Square Cinema. Last night the Somerville was showing John Ford's Stagecoach (1939), which I had never seen on the big screen. These were both good choices, but man, I could get used to not having to step over stacks of books on my office floor.

I see something staring us in the eye

Someone has spray-painted a penis in the middle of Wallace Street. derspatchel and I noticed it for the first time on Tuesday night and again this afternoon as we ran our separate errands. I mean, as anatomical graffiti goes, it's not a great penis. It looks kind of like a circumcised rocketship. But it is recognizably the representation of a human phallus, and therefore I have this persistent feeling that I should sneak out in the middle of the night and add wings to it, thus cementing it as a protective symbol for the entire street.

I am not sure it would go over as intended.

It's really tempting.