In five days, I will begin teaching my last ever class at Colorado College. There will be a month of intense activity and then another month of desultory bureaucracy as I play at being the Acting Department Chair and then it will be over.

I have packed, sorted, donated, and otherwise disposed of everything that can reasonably be packed, sorted, donated, or otherwise disposed of given that we still need to live here a few more months. I have in some cases perhaps even gone too far and Jonathan wandered around the kitchen rather forlornly last night searching for a drinking glass, but mostly we are fine with our pared-down life.

I am not doing any writing just now -- feeling very burnt out after the big push to get my final scholarly book out. But also just suffused by the feeling that I am waiting -- waiting to begin, biding my time in a sort of stasis.

But I am very bad at doing nothing, I have discovered (although I have high hopes of developing that skill soon.) So yesterday, while waiting, I decided to learn how to make stop-motion films. Here is my very first effort:

My brother Joe says that the existence of Nick Park is proof that we are living in the best of all possible time lines, all other evidence to the contrary.