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get out.
    “The garage looks good,” Kyle says.
    “Yes.”
    “We did a good job. Do you like the color?”
    “Yes. But I’m painting it again tomorrow.”
    “What? Really?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I want to.”
    “Can I help?”
    “If you want to.”
    “Will I get paid?”
    “No.”
    He smiles. “I had to ask.”
    And then he’s gone, running again. I can’t remember the last time I ran. I don’t keep data on that.
    – • –
    Dinner is leftover spaghetti with meat sauce, warmed up in the microwave. I eat spaghetti nine times a week, every week, and it is my favorite food. And yet, tonight, I wonder if I am in a rut.
    – • –
    Tonight’s episode of
Dragnet
—the twenty-second of the fourth and final season—is called “DHQ: Night School,” and it is one of my favorites.
    In this episode, which originally aired on March 19, 1970, we see two
Dragnet
rarities: First, Sergeant Joe Friday spends most of the episode not wearing his customary gray suit, as he is attending night school. Instead, he wears a red cardigan sweater that I can only assume was a popular item in 1970, although I don’t like to assume. I prefer facts. Second, Sergeant Joe Friday has a female interest in this episode, a young nurse who is also attending night school. I guess night school was the sort of place where you met someone in 1970, before the Internet and online dating.
    Sergeant Joe Friday is doing very well in night school, but he spots a classmate carrying marijuana, and because he is a cop and cops are never off duty, he arrests his classmate after school. This greatly angers the teacher, played by an actor named Leonard Stone, who also played Sam Beauregard in the movie
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
, which is one of my favorites. He’s the one who says, “Violet! You’re turning violet, Violet!” Sam Beauregard is also supposed to be from Miles City, Montana, which isn’t all that far from where I live.
    Sergeant Joe Friday ends up getting kicked out of class on a vote of the classmates for breaking their trust. Sergeant Joe Friday stews about this, then comes back and asks the teacher for one more chance to talk to the class, with the agreement that if he doesn’t sway two-thirds of the class, he’s still out. The vote is in favor of Sergeant Joe Friday, but not by two-thirds, and he is prepared to leave until a lawyer wearing an eye patch tells the teacher that he has no right to deny Sergeant Joe Friday an education and that he will file charges to keep Sergeant Joe Friday in the class if the professor persists.
    This episode, I think, is about standing up for what you believe in, no matter how unpopular. I need to be a lot more like Sergeant Joe Friday.
    Sonya Starr:
    I wish to express my extreme displeasure with your intractability on the issue of how to label the calls made on behalf of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Your refusal to listen to my concerns and then your abrupt dismissal of me were not professional representations of your organization.
    I think that people who stand up for what they believe in, no matter how unpopular, should be celebrated, not cast aside. I believe that my ideas about green highlighters and yellow highlighters could have served the Muscular Dystrophy Association well, if only they were given a proper and considerate airing.
    It is my hope that should we have occasion to work together in the future, you will exhibit a higher standard of professionalism.
    Respectfully submitted,
    Edward Stanton

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17
    It’s hazy in here. The edges of my vision have a gauzy feel. An R.E.M. song I like, “Daysleeper,” calls it “headache gray.” Michael Stipe, R.E.M.’s lead singer, puts words together in odd yet pleasing ways.
    Suddenly, she comes into view. I think I have seen her before, and yet I cannot put a name to her. She is looking at me in a way that sends a tingle through me. She licks her lips and moves closer to me.
    She is naked.
    I am