The Endless Cycle.

Month 0: A new envelope from the American Mathematical Society arrives in my mailbox, containing one or two papers to review for Math Reviews. I leave the envelope in my mailbox.

Month 2: I receive an e-mail reminder from the AMS that I have articles to review for them, and that I should complete the reviews in a timely manner. I remove the envelope from the mailbox, open the envelope, scan the titles of the papers enclosed, return the papers to the envelope, and return the envelope to the mailbox.

Month 4: I receive a second e-mail reminder from the AMS, essentially duplicating the two-month reminder. I remove the envelope from my mailbox, and place the articles on a corner of my desk.

Month 6: I receive a final reminder from the AMS, promising to publicly humiliate me in various ways if I do not submit a review within approximately 30 days.

Month 6 + 3 Weeks: I read the papers and submit reviews to the AMS.

Month 8: A new envelope from the American Mathematical Society arrives in my mailbox, containing one or two papers to review for Math Reviews.

Film Review of the Day (Painful Mathematics).

Carrie Rickey's capsule review of It's Complicated in today's Philadelphia Inquirer:

Nancy Meyers' double-variable comedy stars Meryl Streep as an amicably divorced restauranteur dating architect Steve Martin. When her ex, Alec Baldwin, by now remarried to younger woman Lake Bell, rekindles their amour, the algebra of x and y factors overlaps with the geometry of the love triangle.

Ouch!

Today's Choice.

My younger son started high school today. For much of the summer I have been telling him and his brother (already in high school) that they should use hand sanitizer almost constantly throughout the day at school -- after using the bathroom, after touching a computer keyboard used by other students, before eating, after touching a doorknob, after touching a handrail, after hearing another student somewhere within 100 feet sneeze or cough, etc. A few days ago I bought 2oz bottles of hand sanitizer for both kids for this purpose. The goal, of course, is to avoid catching the H1N1 virus.

But then, yesterday, I started to have second thoughts. Constant, obsessive hand sanitizing could very well label a new ninth grader as, um, weird.

So the question becomes: Which is worse, contracting H1N1 or being a social outcast?

Sheesh.