Last Day of Class

Today was the last day of the class I teach at Boalt Hall, the law school at UC Berkeley. It's a seminar on the War on Drugs, and I've been teaching for seven years. My students will probably agree that it's time for me to move on. I'm still fascinated by the topic, but I think I've lost the capacity to be fascinating. I was also so focused on the election, and then so focused on my rage and despair after the election, that I'm not sure I accomplished much in terms of my teaching, other than inspiring similarly incoherent rants.

Michael is having the time of his life in China. He and the Master are having story conferences, touring Shaolin Kung Fu schools, visiting various temples and dining with Buddhist masters. But hey, who would want to dine with a Buddhist master when they could dine at the Merritt Bakery on fried chicken and cupcakes? With four screaming children, only one of whom spilled an entire glass of orange juice on himself? I definitely had the more elegant meal, highlights of which included trying to make Rosie blow her nose hard enough to get the frosting out of it, racing behind the counter in pursuit of Abie who had his eye on someone else's strawberry shortcake, and holding a weeping Zeke after his sister told him she wished he had never be born.

Abie ate 1 spaghetti noodle, 1 pat of butter, and all the green, blue, and pink frosting off a very large cupcake. I have obviously underestimated his fine motor skills, because he was positively artistic with the cake frosting, sketching a perfect circle over one of my breasts. Pastel frosting, it turns out, doesn't come out of rayon knit. Anyone need a bronze shirt with ruching and a pale green splotch at approximately nipple height?