Woe

mr. delgar is writing is dissertation this summer, while the kid is off with her grandparents.

Anyway, he's meant to be.

So far he had reorganized his CD collection and cleaned up his office and watched a deal of TCM.

It is, he tells me, deeply irresponsible of universities not to have some sort of seminar on how to write your dissertation. What, do they just expect people to know how to write one?

Yes, I told him. Yes, they do.

He brooded.

No, I told him: no, they do not care whether you ever write it at all.

I don't know how to write this this thing, he said.

One page at a time, I said, like anything else. Start at the beginning. Go on until you're done. There isn't any trick. I swear to you. That's how it works.

He gave me a mean scowl.

You know what a good dissertation is? I asked him. A finished dissertation.

I think I should move my lamp over behind my desk, he said. It won't blow out my computer screen then. What do you think?