Daily Archives: January 6, 2008

My mother-in-law offered to babysit last night, which was very generous, but we didn’t have any really good ideas for what to do. Ultimately, we decided to spend several hours at the Starbucks around the corner with our laptops. I wrote another 1500 words for my novel, and the Mrs. worked on her website. It was very pleasant. I know it’s pretentious as hell, but it worked. We didn’t have to put the kids to bed, I didn’t even buy web access, so my distractions were limited to coffee and the pumpkin loaf. Mrs. Unfocused gets distracted easily at home, too, because there’s always something that needs doing even if the kids are in bed.

So yes, we brought our laptops to the coffee house ( apologies to Scalzi), but we weren’t trying to be hip — just trying to get some things done, which we did. I’d like to have 5000 words written in the novel before I go back to work on Monday, which shouldn’t be impossible, although I have a response to a motion that I really need to finish, and I’ve completely stopped working on my article (which I really need to go back to soon). Now we’re talking about trying to do a Starbucks night once a week, at least when we don’t have other weekend plans.

The weather today is crazy warm — I just checked, and it’s 59 degrees. I went for an 8-mile run late this morning, wearing SHORTS. I’m going to try to get another couple of outdoor runs in before the weather turns bad again later this week. Shorts in Chicago in January — if that’s the future of our out-of-kilter climate, then there is clearly going to be an upside to global warming.