I'm ashamed to show my face in here, but

You know how people say you should keep a pad and pen by your bed for when you wake up in the middle of the night with brilliant ideas? I've never done that. I have a lot of writings made while I was half asleep; they're called my notes from college. Every afternoon in Phonology I started nodding off. Literally, with the head slowly drooping and then jerking back up. It didn't matter that it was my favorite subject taught by my favorite professor. It was the afternoon, my regular bedtime was 2:00 am, and the deep voice of Joseph Stemberger lulled me into a somnolent torpor. I would try to take notes with one eye closed. I would just make the eyes trade off: first righty, then lefty. Pretty soon righty switched off and lefty forgot to switch on. Man, was I a loser.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk about the brilliant idea I had in the middle of the night, which I forgot the details of because I didn't have a pad and pen next to the bed. Fortunately, the details came back to me in a rush the next day as I was eating a pulled pork sandwich and french fries. In order to understand my idea, though, you have to read two things:

1) This really long editorial by Stanley Fish, in which he explains that deconstruction isn't really a big deal because Americans do it wrong. Go on, read it. It's okay to skip parts. And

2) This recipe for Tater Tot Hotdish.

What do they have to do with each other? Next post.