"Is that your mom?"

Yesterday J. and I went sledding on a hill near the creek. It was us and a gaggle of small boys. When I sled I tend to hit every possible jump or bump and go flying. After a particularly spectacular fall, J. reports that one group of little boys said to the other, with amazement, "Is that your mom?" I've never been so happy to be mistaken for somebody's mom.

Unfortunately, the other effect of my particularly spectacular sled fall (someone built moguls on the hill. Who does that?) is that I've bruised my tailbone, that vestigial troublemaker.* It's not broken, which would be excruciating, but I don't think I can ride a bike for a while. And of course, what am I supposed to be doing right now? Finishing Chapter 1, which requires sitting on my ass for long periods of time.

Speaking of Chapter 1, I've decided to incorporate all of Chapter 5 into it and present it to my advisor as a fait accompli: "Here's my revised Chapter 1, and by the way, it includes most of the material on masculinity from Chapter 5. I've got a 4-chapter diss now, I guess I can defend 2 weeks earlier." 5 has never fit in with the rest of the diss, in terms of geography, chronology, or theme, and the ideas in it really need to be introduced earlier. I talked it through with my diss support group, and they think it's okay, if I present it to my advisor when it's already done. It helps that both were pretty weak and underdeveloped chapters: add together 4000-word chapters and you get one 8000 word chapter! So now I actually have to do it!


*And I thought tonsillitis would be the most vestigial-organ problem I would ever have to deal with. Now I'm just waiting for my appendix to burst.