Greetings from Santa Monica

I'm in California for a week with Gregory and his girlfriend, Sierra, looking at some colleges, which seemed like the middle-class parent thing to do. Sierra brought her laptop with her, so I can still blog - hooray!

My thought today is how hard it is to be a grownup, to be the one who has to figure out where to pick up the rental car, has to stand in line to get the rental car (after being the one who reserved the rental car on the Internet in the first place), and has to drive the rental car. My dear friend, David, who is the chair of the Philosophy Department, has told me that one of the things he likes about being chair is getting to do grownup things. He said, when you're a kid, people tell you when the meeting is; when you're a grownup, you get to pick when the meeting is. But I'd rather be a kid. This grownup business has never suited me one bit.

Luckily, at the last minute I did find myself a grownup to help with at least the driving portion of the trip. I splurged and rented a GPS to go with the rental car. What a relief to have that capable, adult voice telling me to go 1.4 kilometers and then turn right. (Unfortunately, she is a metric-system grownup, and I don't know how to explain to her that I can't do the metric system.) I call her "Mrs. Lady" and it's so reassuring to be able to push the little button and have Mrs. Lady tell me what to do. She did have one small lapse at one point, where she had to pause and recalculate, so she isn't perfect, but heck, you don't have to tell me that it isn't easy being the grownup. It really isn't.