Breaking all the rules

I had a normal day yesterday. I went to work, I taught a class, I had lunch, I attended three back-to-back meetings, I went home, I took Archer to therapy, we all went out to dinner, I bathed Cady Gray and put the kids to bed, and I stayed up too late watching WSOP, Kitchen Nightmares, and The Daily Show with Noel while knitting the second Essential Vog and accumulating Ask the A.V. Club questions.

First normal day I've had in a while. There was that whole expatriate-husband thing. Then I took off to the top of a mountain for two days. And Monday night I came back to work after dinner and showed a movie. I define normal as "spend 7-10 pm with Noel watching TV, blogging, and knitting."

So much for normality, then. I'll be here at work until at least 8:30 pm, missing dinner and the kids in order to represent the Honors College at RFK Jr.'s lecture on campus tonight. I spent the morning writing a book review and three emergency ATAVC answers, went to class at noon, forgot that I hadn't eaten lunch before class like I usually do, felt peckish about 2 pm and thought about a snack before realizing that I was 3 hours late for the midday meal, and in anticipation of getting no food tonight other than the hors d'oeuvres I'll have to fight 150 people for at the pre-lecture reception, I bought a piece of pie to go with my club sandwich.

That's pretty momentous. I think it's the first time I've broken the No-S "no sweets" rule in months. I might have nibbled on a cookie at a party mid-week -- I can't recall -- but there's a difference between having sweets thrust at you and deliberately selecting one off the shelf and spending money on it.

I justified my libertinism pretty easily. The day was already topsy-turvy, and promised to become only more so. I was hungry and wanted compact calories. But mostly, it all just seemed like a good excuse -- so many rules had already been broken by the day that a violation of this self-imposed one seemed pretty minor by comparison.

And the fudge pecan pie was good. I should have eaten it backwards, outer-crust edge first, since the crust was nothing special. But the fudginess was extremely satisfying.

Perhaps I just wanted something I could enjoy wholeheartedly before the appearance by RFK Jr. tonight. He's a problematic figure for me. His promotion of the baseless vaccine-autism link calls into question the other malfeasance he purports to uncover, like election fraud in the 2004 Ohio presidential election. Without a doubt I agree with the thrust of his stances on the imperial executive and the need for action on climate change, but his strident rhetoric and tendency to frame all issues in terms of cover-ups, cabals, and powerful conspirators, instead of rational investigation, turns me off. Tune in tomorrow to see if I'm won over by his Kennedy charm. (Quoth my divorcée colleague upon seeing the picture that graces our advertisements for his talk: "Is he married?")