I am making a bona fide effort to dissertate. "Bona fide" means that I am actually sitting down and doing significant chunks of work several days in a row. One of the unfortunate consequences of getting significant chunks of work done is that I have a much more concrete idea of how much I have left to do. It gives the beast more of a shape, and you'd think that it would be less frightening that way, but that's not how it works. That's because when you're not working, it's possible to imagine that when you truly dig your heels in, you'll be done in no time. After you've spent hours just slogging through some guy's footnotes, you might find the fact that this sentence is aggressively alliterative terribly amusing, but more importantly, your mental tally of the hours ahead becomes more accurate.

You have seen Swingers? You know when Mikey and Trent hop in the car for a spontaneous road trip from L.A. to Sin City? "Vegas, baby, Vegas!" they shout. For like ten minutes. They do that because in your head, Vegas is just down the street from San Bernardino. In your car, Vegas is still down the street from San Bernardino, but it's a long fucking street, and you probably got stuck in traffic about four miles into your trip, and the temperature outside is already 115 degrees, and you're not even to Barstow yet, and Christ, what kind of world is it where you look forward to hitting Barstow? By the time you make it to State Line, you totally get why State Line exists, though you'd never stop there. If you did, your friends would give you endless shit about how you probably shouldn't bother with Vegas, because you're "more of a Laughlin type."

So, now, imagine that they've moved Vegas to Rhode Island, and you're not driving, but typing your way there. It's enough to make a girl turn to existentialism. One must imagine Sisyphus happy, and all that rot. I just think the reason he's happy has nothing to do with being engagé and a whole lot to do with the fact that he's got Pringles, good music, and time for an occasional round of mini golf.