Thesis Done

Yeah, the thesis is in. I handed it in on the 14th of Feb., a day before deadline. And, oh man, was it a rush to complete. Essentially, I did the last half in the last month. Late nights at acoffee shop in Melville with a series of borrowed laptops. Three solid weeks of swimming in coffee, chain-smoking, Red Bull, and massive doses of vitamins; working at the job during the day, writing at night.

I knew things had deteriorated when, on the way to work, I stopped at the local shop. I plomped at Red Bull on the counter, stared at the cashier with bloodshot eyes ringed in black, sniffled, and asked for two packs of smokes. She looked at me and glanced at her manager, who nodded slowly. She reached behind her, without taking her eyes off me, and grabbed the smokes. I don't blame her. Oil-stained jeans, dirty t-shirt, I probably smelled bad. Prime candidate for drug-addled armed robber.

When I took my daughter to one side and told her that her father had turned into a drug addict in the quest to prove the validity of anarchism using Aristotle's ethics and politics (or, put another way, Aristotle was an anarchist), she looked up at me, sucked her dummy thoughtfully, and then asked for a biscuit.