that

totally just hit me right now. I'm going to Scotland -- today! I will be there in like 16 hours!! I'm excited. Last night I wasn't really, for no particular reason, but today I totally am. Maybe because, before, everyone else was excited, so I didn't have to be, or something like that, but now? Now I'm definitely excited. And must go get ready. I still haven't packed! Okay, really, I haven't finished packing. I don't have that much else to do.

Packing for a week is so easy. Especially when you're going somewhere that is so similar to where you live. Every time I travel, I feel like I learn (the hard way) what exactly I didn't need to take with me. (I'm typing this to remind myself.) Here are some really great backpacking resources:

backpackeurope.com - this site just keeps getting better and better. I've been visiting it every now and then for years.

lonelyplanet.com - indispensable and fun to read.

Of course, this trip barely counts as backpacking. I think the only thing that does it is that I'm taking my backpack. Updates to follow. Promise!!

wow

I have been slacking on the blog this week. I've been cutting loose. Here's the rundown:

Monday night I went to Cafeteria in Chelsea with a friend and then we met a bunch of people we know at Whiskey Town in the east village because we just found out our friend spins there Monday nights (which means I will probably be there this coming Monday as well).

Tuesday I went and picked up the new Vonnegut, Armageddon in Retrospect, which is simply amazing, of course, and then I read in Central Park until it started to get chilly. And then I bought a bunch more books, including Meet Me in the Moon Room by Ray Vukcevich, which was one of those books that I randomly picked up because the cover is cool, flipped to the middle of, read the first few words of a story (in this case, "My Mustache"), and immediately had to take home with me. It's incredible. If you like surrealism and/or surprising and surprisingly good fiction, go read it immediately. I will be reading it again as soon as I pass it to the three friends I told simply must read it now. Then my friend and I went to dinner at Curly's on 14th st by Second Ave, which was vegetarian yumminess (I had plantain chimichangas), and we got to sample a slice of spinach alfredo pizza from the new place next door, Artichoke, and it was the best pizza I've had in a while - not in a New York City slice kind of way, but in a yummy things baked onto dough kind of way. Very good.

Wednesday I turned in the final copy of my thesis (woohoo!), which my adviser had already signed off on, and then I met my roommate for a free screening of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. When I saw the trailer for it, I thought it looked funny but that I would probably not like the actual movie, but wow, it was really funny. I want to see it again in a room where I can rewind it a little if I'm laughing too hard to hear the next line, which happened a lot in the very crowded theater. Totally predictable plot, but that's not why we go. Then my roommate and I went to Via Della Pace on E 7th St, where I had the lobster ravioli in pink vodka sauce and a glass of sangiovese, and we split the bruschetta sampler and for dessert the white chocolate profiteroles, which were as amazing as they sound.

Thursday I spent the afternoon in Central Park (again!) with friends, some of whom also finished their theses this week, where we played Scrabble, and then we went to my favorite sushi restaurant in the city, Sushi Park (aka May's Place) on Second Ave just north of 7th St, and then to Yaffa for some more Scrabble. Their rioja and tiramisu were both delicious.

Friday I hopped on a train to Harrisburg, where I am spending the weekend. My grandmother turned 90 yesterday, and we had a big party for her, like 50 people, it was really pretty fantastic. I wish my sis and nephew (and her husband, of course) could have been there, but I'm sure I'll get down to see them soon. I certainly got to see lots of pictures, and I got to meet my cousin's new baby, who was born the day before my nephew - the first two great-grandchildren born the same week! How wild is that? And tomorrow I go home for a little less than 48 hours, and then I board a plane to Scotland. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. But I wouldn't change anything for the world. Am having a blast!

I guess

I should not neglect my blog two days in a row, it could lead to falling out of the habit, and I don't want to do that. Even if

I FINISHED MY THESIS!!!

Now I just have to wait until they tell me whether or not it's approved. I can't imagine that it won't be, but maybe it really does just plain suck. Except that I know it doesn't. It's not the best that I'm capable of now, but it's the best thing I've ever done, if that makes sense. It's not horrible, but I know it could be so much better. But, evidently, it's as good as I could make it right now, and that's totally fine with me. (Which means it's not.)

So to celebrate, last night I went to dinner with two of my friends, who also just finished their theses, yea for them, at Fada, this little French bistro in Williamsburg, and then we went a few doors down to the Abbey, which was rather fun.

Omgomgomg!!! I just got an email from my adviser, and she said my "essay is wonderful"!!!!! I have to correct some typos and formatting things and take her a final copy on Wednesday morning, but this means I'm totally done!

And now I'm going to dinner and then out on the town.

I --

have just realized that this has been one of the most bizarre weeks of my adult life. I have not had a drink since Monday, and then only two. I have not been to Manhattan, even on the subway - even out of my neighborhood! - since last Friday. I haven't seen my honey since Friday. I've barely spoken to my friends and family (for weeks). I haven't seen anyone I know except my roommate in seven whole days! I feel like I'm on house arrest. I feel like I'm on house arrest and my sentence has just been extended. It's just one more day. And if I stay up all night and get this thing done by morning, I will be able to get plenty of sleep in time to celebrate tomorrow night. And if i don't, if I'm sleeping instead of carousing, that will be fine too. Either way, this thing is happening.

Update: (I've been really lazy about starting new posts this week, haven't I? 15 posts in 11 days is plenty.) 3:19am - At 1, I decided that to set the wheels in motion I would input all of my "disjointed drafts" into a full draft with that which I had already polished so that I could essentially concentrate on polishing one document instead of rearranging, cutting and pasting, etc. Well, as a result I have a total of 85 pages including title page and bibliography. Um. I only need 50. Which means I have a lot of trimming to do, and the Cat's Cradle section is in dire need of attention (which means I'm putting it off), but I certainly don't have to worry about length. I already decided to reduce my discussion of the connection between med and ice-nine to a footnote, and I'm going to have to omit my analysis of what Jonah says constitutes his karass, but it's for the best. I need to keep in mind that my main focus is memory and writing - not things we can look at in an analysis of memory and writing. Which would be everything. Anyhoo, I'm up to page 20 and not looking back. Time for a snack. And maybe some coffee. It's not like it's past my bedtime... Monday I'm going back to being only moderately nocturnal, I swear. If I wasn't writing, I would go to bed right now, but I am so I'm making coffee. Almost there.

I do know

that this is it. I also know that I will not have it perfect on time. I also know that if I didn't have a deadline in 8 hours and 18 minutes, I wouldn't have it where it's going to be by then, either. I really want to sleep, but it will just have to wait. I have some oj. Some coffee. A cat who is being rambunctious because he's attention starved...

Here's the plan: I'm going to work for three more hours - one hour on each section. I will then get ready and head into the city because that is where the free printing is and a shower will refresh me. The train ride, however, will most likely counteract that one, but I'll do my best. I may need lunch by then... How weird is it that I just used the word lunch to describe a meal around noon? I've been having breakfast at 4pm lately, what can I say?

Part of me wants to email my adviser and ask her if I can give her this thing Monday at 8am, but a much larger part of me knows I can pull this off and I don't want to have to look at this thing anymore, so I'm going to get it done. I finished my conclusion this morning, and I have things sort of organized (I have enough to write a book on this shit, I swear to god), and just need to prune and polish more than anything. That's the part that takes forever. Luckily, I don't have forever. You know how fish grow to fit the size of their tank? That's how I am with deadlines: I'll work until the last minute every time. This is the last time for a while though. Wow, my next real writing deadline will be my PhD apps in the fall. Other than the stories I write for the lit seminar in St Petersburg, Russia (Russia!), but that won't be nearly as stressful. It's been so long since I've written a story. After I wake up from sleeping the next few days...

8 hours left. 24 pages. Halfway there.

Update: I decided to ask my adviser if I could have another day because my brain was starting to ache from lack of sleep, so we're not done yet, but it means it'll be better than anything I would have turned in today. I feel bad. I know she's not happy and that I really didn't give her a choice, I mean what was she going to say? No, give me your not-quite-good-enough version?

So now I've gotten some sleep, and even though I have absolutely no desire to look at this thing anymore and was mentally prepared to have done with it by now, I'm going to keep plugging away and make it perfect like I said I would. (34 pages)

how awesome

are my friends? That's a rhetorical question. There is only one possible answer: very. As B put it, "Home stretch, baby!" This is it. I also took a well-deserved (though rather short at 4 1/2 hrs or so) nap and got a spot-on pep talk from overseas, so here we go.

Things to remember today:
1. I am not writing my PhD dissertation.
2. I have a 38-page draft that needed mostly quotes inserted, quotes expanded, or transitional statements.
3. I am not starting from scratch.
4. I have less than 24 hours.
5. This is plenty of time.

6:39pm - Two and a half hours later, and I have completely rearranged the PF section so that it is in the order I want it, but I haven't been as successful at paring down as I need to be. I think I discarded two or three paragraphs and a footnote. Time for a quick break and then on to the other two sections.

11:19pm - Let's not even talk about it. I've decided that tracking my progress has become counterproductive and is only making me more aware of my impending doom - I mean, deadline.

One day, we will laugh about this. Hopefully tomorrow, but probably not.

this is

going to be tedious, perhaps, but I want to keep track of my progress because I'm running out of time. Will this make me more or less stressed out? I don't know, we'll see. As of this moment, I have just under 45 hours until I turn this thing in, which has to include train time, printing time, and other necessities. I thought about switching back and forth between sections, an hour each in a rotation, but I don't want to mess up whatever flow I might get into, so we'll see.

5pm-7:30pm - I have the first four pages of the Pale Fire section how I want them. This might seem redundant because I had the first four pages of PF how I wanted them the other day, but I've rearranged a lot since then, so it needed some polishing. Cumulative page count: 14/50

10pm - Another cup of coffee, two pages of Cat's Cradle. Not horrific, but not fabulous. 43 hrs. 16/50 pages.

4am - wow, that's been six hours? There may have been a bit of a break in there, but I needed it. And I've been really focused (read: nit-picky) for at least the last hour and a half, getting the opening of the Castle section how I want it, and I think it's good to go, so there's another three pages. Which puts us at: 37 hrs. 19/50

Okay, I needed a snack, so I decided to peruse the NYTimes, and found this little fluff piece that totally made me chuckle. (Better than freaking out, right?) One tasty quote: "human beings are unconsciously drawn to people and things that remind us of ourselves." And then, what did I think of? I totally dated a guy who had the same initials as my mother for a minute. Trippy.

8:45am - At the suggestion of my wise friend across the pond, I'm going for a little walk. I also needed her to remind me that I am not writing a dissertation, which she did without asking. She read those 19 pages. She knows. I know what I need to do, I just need to do it. I'm making this way harder than it is. I should be cutting, not adding. I have over 100 pages of material. I can make this thing so tight in the next 24 hours. I can. I just need to do it.

What was I thinking?

I'm very quickly running out of time, so I was thinking about not blogging today, but I'm eating dinner, so it's better to blog than to watch another episode of Weeds (seriously. addicted), and I purposely didn't do the little things I do to start my day - like read the comics (Get Fuzzy is essential) and at the very least the headlines on the New York Times - so that I would have little things to distract myself with when I needed a moment away from my thesis. Unfortunately, I don't have enough time to run into the city (even for groceries) or anywhere else that will keep me from my laptop for more than a few minutes, but fortunately, in 67 hours, I will be on my way to a bar with my friend (who is turning his in at the same time) and I will finally be able to breathe.

Man, I need a cigarette.

I don't usually think that, if I think anything I think, a cigarette would be nice right now, and not that I'm advocating smoking, it's horribly unhealthy and kind of gross, but I'm not quitting while I'm stressed out, that would just be silly. (Remember that op-ed I linked to about stretching one's willpower too thin?) (I'm putting a lot of thought into that article for someone who didn't really think it was that good. If anything the message we should take away from it is that willpower can be improved with practice, not what I'm projecting about not trying too hard. That's me cutting myself a little slack and making it look like I'm cutting myself a lot of slack...)

Anyway, back to it. Right now I have... well, I have everything spread out all over the place, so I have more and less than I think I do, but I have my introduction pretty nailed down (for better or worse), and a good first four pages for the Pale Fire section and a good first paragraph for Cat's Cradle. First paragraphs are very important, and very difficult. And I'm not good at deciding on the order of points I want to make, but it's getting there. More coffee and I'll be good to go.

Update: Um. Weirdness. This article in the Washington Post is a year old, yes, but still pertinent, perhaps. I mean, the guy is running for president and has a good chance of winning. (Here's hoping anyway.) Interestingly, the speech linked to has moved to here, but I'm marking this one to read for later, and there's one from the year in between here. Okay, back to work. 65 hours.

Update #2: It is now 7:25am. I would just post a new blog, but I'm too lazy to come up with a clever title. Tired. I'm too tired to come up with a clever title. I'm too lazy to rewrite what I've just written. I think having worked for most of the last 16 hours makes up for it. Am I going to be done by 5pm Friday? Absolutely.

I went to bed yesterday about this time and couldn't get to sleep because the rest of Brooklyn was waking up - including the person who lives above me and my loft bed, which is mere feet from my floor/their ceiling and their footsteps. So perhaps I will eke out another 30 minutes or so. A moment ago I was feeling wide awake, and now that it's getting even lighter, I just would rather be getting up now than going to sleep, but it's impossible for me to turn my brain off. That and I had a cup of coffee at like 4am, so there's that.

Just a nap, I like to tell myself. Maybe I'll get up at 9. No. Probably not. Maybe I'll just stay up until I can't keep my eyes open any more. But who can think without adequate sleep? No one. Que duermas con los angelitos.

I've written

quite a bit in the last 12 hours, and I thought it was time for a well-deserved snack, so I whipped up a little Roasted Red Pepper Hummus, which is delicious, but I bought these multigrain tortilla chips at the deli this evening, and they're a little overpowering. I think it's the corn. I recommend good old fashioned pita squares if you try this one at home. I'm not a measurer, but I know I used about half the lemon juice called for (because I thought the hummus I made on St Pat's was really lemony, remember?) and probably more than 1/2 cup of roasted red pepper, lots of sea salt, and some white pepper. Pretty darn good.

Also, I'm not sure what I've gotten myself into, but I now have over 11k words for Cat's Cradle. I also have a lot of it organized (and will probably have it in some semblance of an order in the next few hours), so tomorrow will be whittling it away, doing the same for Castle, and keeping at it. 3 and 1/2 days. 84 hours and I have to be on that train, if not off of it, and on my way to the office. And then I'm going to have the biggest celebratory dinner and drinks. I need to start recruiting people...

so many

other things I want to be doing as well, but time is running very short, so here's some more items I'll just have to read later:

Olympic Torch Run in Paris Halted as Protests Spread

How to Spark an Energy Quest

Chauffeur and Paparazzi Blamed in Diana's Death

In a New Generation of College Students, Many Opt for the Life Examined - about the rise in Philosophy majors, which I am all for. If I knew then what I know now, I would have taken a third minor at the very least.

French Theory in America - I like this trend today! The two of the top ten emailed articles at the moment are about Thought, for goodness sake.

That's enough for now. I'm really starting to freak about this thesis, but I can totally do this. I have not waited to the last minute, even though I could not turn it in right now of course. I have been working extremely hard on this thing, ridiculously long hours many days, I have the material, I just have to organize it and make it all bright and shiny. I can do that. First on today's agenda: continue organizing the material I have for Cat's Cradle, which at the moment totals 7700 words, which is more than enough - too much! in fact. Then I will do the same for Castle, which I have over 12,000 words for, and then Pale Fire, with 10k words, the first 1300 of which are quite lovely. Today is about organizing and trimming - getting rid of that which we don't need. Deep breaths. Lots of caffeine.

And the White Album. (This montage is making me hungry...)

Update: Kurt Vonnegut joke:
"One of his favorite jokes was about a guy who was smuggling wheelbarrows. Every day for years and years, a customs agent would carefully search through this guy's wheelbarrow.
Finally, when he was about to retire, the customs agent asked the guy, "We've become friends. I've searched your wheelbarrow every day for many years. What is it you're smuggling?"
"My friend, I am smuggling wheelbarrows."
--from Mark Vonnegut's Introduction to the newly released collection of heretofore unpublished short stories by his late father, entitled Armageddon in Retrospect, which I will be purchasing as soon as I turn in my thesis.

great sentences that I

am running across today:

"My soul seemed as foul as smoke from burning cat fur." - Cat's Cradle, 27. (Seemed to whom?) It's a horribly evocative image, but it's also very complicated in terms of assonance and alliteration, which makes it kind of spectacular.

(I have to interject here that I'm listening to the Cure today, and it's got me in such a fantastic mood!)

And check this out: Up Front, about Liz Phair. (I'm trying to verify a citation, I swear.)

"All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental." - Vonnegut. Fucking genius. I was doing a search to check if there was a misprint in Cat's Cradle, and came across this list from shortly after his death, which was almost a year ago, as my roommate reminded me tonight. Incidentally, there is not a misprint where I was sort of expecting, and now I don't know what to do with this. In the chapter on the nihilist who destroys his apartment and murders his cat, he writes, "I have not seen Krebbs since. Nonetheless, I sense that he was my karass" (59). Um. A karass is a team. Krebbs was the team? ...

great sentences that I

am running across today:

"My soul seemed as foul as smoke from burning cat fur." - Cat's Cradle, 27. (Seemed to whom?) It's a horribly evocative image, but it's also very complicated in terms of assonance and alliteration, which makes it kind of spectacular.

(I'm listening to the Cure today, and it's got me in such a fantastic mood!)

thought about

not blogging today, but it's habit-forming. Or a habit. Or... hm.

Postsecret was fantastic as always. I've recently become addicted to the Showtime series Weeds (I've only watched the first three episodes). And what's up with potentially removing checks and balances? It's a crazy world.

I'm officially panicking about this thesis, which is sort of good and sort of bad. It means I'm sitting in front of my laptop for hours on end (yesterday I got up at 9:30am, took an hour nap at 1:30, other breaks, and went to bed at 5am, which is approximately 15 hours of staring at this screen - I'm officially planning on taking all kinds of crazy vacations, mental and international, when this is over), and I'm not allowing myself to go out because I would just be thinking about the fact that I should be working and not having fun (the ambiguity in that clause has been retained for ambiguity's sake), but I'm also experiencing periods of near-paralysis, which is not good. I think I checked my myspace page 10 times yesterday. Not because I give a rat's ass, but because I need some sort of brainless distraction and I'm beginning to think there is no such thing. And I don't really want to not think anyway, so seeking out something brainless is counterproductive, essentially. I'm rambling because I need to get to work. The world can wait. Five days, 23 minutes til turn-in time...

saving them

yesterday was a good idea for a number of reasons, but one was that it made me recall yesterday's headlines today as I glance at the New York Times, and the same stories are on top but the headlines are altered (and the articles themselves are different, obviously). Check it out:

Clintons Made $109 Million in Last 8 Years - as opposed to yesterday's front page: Clintons Income Topped $109 Million... which is not what the title on the actual article yesterday read either, which was Clintons Say They Earned $109 Million Since 2000.

And then there's: Democrats Call for New Aid Package as 80,000 Jobs Are Cut, a remarkably more intelligent title than yesterday's Unemployment Rate Rises After 80,000 Jobs Cut.

One has to wonder at the implications of today's headlines being more accurate and less ambiguous than yesterday's. Is it a Friday/Saturday thing?

Also, what's up with clubbing seals? Stop it! Send an email to Canada's Minister of International Trade David Emerson here. And thank you to the Humane Society for all that you do.

Oh, and remember that yummy Irish Beer Bread I made for St. Patrick's Day? Picture that, fresh from the oven, smeared with cream cheese. Wait, let me take a bite... Okay, saying anything further would just be bragging. I had to make two batches, though (horror of horrors!) because I bought the big bottle of Guiness and it's a bit early in the morning to drink the remaining 11 ounces. Now, if it was summer and/or I wasn't trying to finish a thesis, absolutely. But then again, if it was summer I probably wouldn't be baking.

On to thesis matters: I did in fact cut and paste for exactly 60 minutes. And then my doorbell rang (doorbuzzer buzzed, actually) and I spent the rest of the evening entertaining. It was the perfect break. Great surprise. Exactly what I wanted. But if I'm going to have this monster ready to email overseas this evening (especially if I want to get it some-semblance-of-done in time to go to my friend's gig - I don't even know what time it starts or where it is), I need to get cracking.

Update: Omg, there's an article by Liz Phair! I've been listening to her since I was 16, and just love her - despite her decidedly poppier recent stuff (also, I have not listened to Somebody's Miracle, I have to admit, just haven't gotten around to it). Frontman is a book review of Dean Wareham's Black Postcards: A Rock & Roll Romance. I really want to read it (the article, I don't know about the book yet), but I am going to have to wait until later because I have finished my breakfast, and that was the time I allotted for perusing the paper.

to read later

After Success, Problems for Microfinancing in Mexico

Unemployment Rate Rises After 80,000 Jobs Cut - ya don't say...

Clinton Income Topped $109 Million - if only because one of the sub-headings on the main page leads to an article called Clinton Calls for Cabinet Post on Poverty

Meet the Oboptimists - um. I have the feeling this deserves a lot of attention, but I'm going to refrain from reading it so I can get working on my thesis.

Stay in it to Win it - do we see a trend with these articles I'm marking for later?...

There Were Orders to Follow

Art With Baggage in Tow

Old Ways, New Pains for Farms in Poland

And yes, I usually do read this much of the paper. I can't get enough of it lately. It satisfies my increasingly short attention span. I thought of taking a book on the subway today and decided that what I really wanted was a magazine (I took a book anyway, but still). I think it has to do with the fact that I am putting so much energy into this one giant thing that is my thesis that I can't concentrate on anything else for more than a few minutes (or seconds) at a time.

Yesterday I read Some Good News on Food Prices, and the day before I spent a bunch of time catching up on the Dot Earth blog, which I just love.

And now I am thoroughly caffeinated and am going to force myself to spend the next 60 minutes cutting and pasting because I think when it comes down to it, I really have most of what I need for this rewrite and am just getting frustrated because I'm too close to the text, which is not helped by the fact that I've made the text size bigger in order not to hurt my eyes, so I'm having trouble viewing the big picture, as it were. That makes sense to me, but I'm not sure if I've effectively translated it from abstract thought to abstract language... Anyway. Yeah.

even though

I am not as far along as I may have wanted, I'm pretty focused today. I was supposed to hang out with two of my fellow thesis-writers to critique each other's drafts, but I bailed on them to keep rewriting. I hope they email me their drafts though, I really do. It would not only be a good distraction (and good practice - I love editing), but I've never read a master's thesis before. That's kind of strange, isn't it? I've read dissertations and loads of journal articles and other scholarly publications, but I almost am unsure what's expected of me at this point. Maybe this is a good thing. Don't get me wrong, my adviser has been completely amazing and I think I have a pretty solid idea of what she expects for what I'm giving to her next week (yikes!), but reading at least one successful thesis would have been greatly appreciated. Perhaps I will mention that in my exit survey.

Okay, that's it, I need coffee. As per that op-ed I linked to the other day, I am not putting undue pressure on myself to not do all of those things I feel guilty about doing, like drinking too much coffee (with too much sugar) and the myriad of other unhealthy habits I have. One thing at a time. Chomp.

PS - my titling fun for the month is shaping up nicely, I think, especially since I have not in fact written a ready-made paragraph but am building backwards as I go. I was thinking maybe for May I'll start every blog with the same phrase, but I have to think of something flexible enough for the job. Shouldn't be too hard, it's language after all.

I don't want to, but

I simply must. I don't know why I'm being so difficult. I feel like I'm outside of myself and I really want to just make myself behave, to shake me or something, wake myself up. I've been sitting in front of my computer since 1:30 this afternoon, and I've only added a little over a thousand words and two and a half paragraphs. I haven't gotten to the end of the introduction yet! Granted, I'm working on the last paragraph, and once I've banged it out, my introduction is pretty fucking fabulous, if I do say so myself. But still. An introduction does not a graduate thesis make. It helps, yes. And I've incorporated a lot more theory into the introduction, which is definitely good. I know where I'm going, I just have to get there. And it's four o'clock in the morning, and part of me just wants to crawl in bed and try to get up at a reasonable hour tomorrow, but I know perfectly well that I wouldn't be able to fall asleep and I will probably get up around 2pm (como siempre), and I want to do this, I want to write this. I have to admit here that I'm pretty impressed with myself, actually. But I sort of feel like this is contributing to my paralysis. That doesn't even remotely make sense. Except it does. Perhaps I will explore that at a later time. I have a thesis to write.

Update: It is now 5:30am, and I just realized that I have added five pages somehow. This is including the bibliography, but still. I've added four pages of text. Not bad. I just began reworking the Pale Fire section, but it's going to be a big job, so I'm going to put it away for the night. And tomorrow, I'm... well, we'll see what happens. No promises. Not making a promise saves me from breaking it. Down to the wire for real this time. Bed time. Lovely.

Apparently I was thinking

wouldn't it be fun (oo, see what I did there?) to get completely wasted last night, because that may or may not be what I did. Sometimes I am a danger to myself and others, I swear to god. Mostly just myself. I had such a blast, though. It was my friend's birthday and we went to Identity on E 6th St between Avenues A and B. (PS - if you follow the link to the reviews on citysearch, you simply must read this one because it's fucking hilarious! Omg, the hot bartender refused to flirt with you?? Pardon me: was reluctant to flirt with you?? That's not part of the job description! Well, they're not allowed to ask us that in job interviews, at any rate, and they can't technically fire us for not flirting, but I have been asked by small-minded bar managers to wear lipstick...) Apparently the place is crazy on the weekends, but it was perfect for our purposes last night because we were able to take over the joint. The bartender Lawrence was fantastic. I asked him where he was from and he said "France." I said, "yes, I sort of picked up on that. Where in France?" He's from Normandy. I don't remember at the moment what his t-shirt said, just that it was a suitable response to that review, come to think of it: something witty about being a bartender. Man, I miss it...

Anyway, I've just made some coffee and need to get down to business, but this op-ed piece was pretty good today, and I rather enjoyed reading about the shenanigans Google got into yesterday, but sadly I missed them all because I got up and went straight to dinner at Zen Palate in Hell's Kitchen (pardon me, the Theatre District) and then straight to the bar.

And now I find myself wondering exactly what it is that all of my willpower is going to... Perhaps I'm simply that out of practice. Ew, scary.

Wouldn't it be fun

if the titles of my blog all formed a little paragraph over there on the right hand side of the screen? I may have to make this one of my April goals. But do I write a paragraph and then make my blogs begin with the few words directly preceding the words I used for the title of the previous blog? Or do I keep it more spontaneous and make that my daily challenge, write it backwards, see what happens? I'll decide in the morning, is what it looks like right now.

More importantly, it is April Fool's Day, and I am just itching to razz somebody or everybody I know, but it's so difficult when stuck at this desk. Or is it? I've already sent a certain someone an ecard that is of the "I'm just kidding, but it's April fool's, so am I kidding?" variety, but I'm not anticipating a response, which is disappointing. All of the things I can think of to lie about would only last a second and since I'm not getting the satisfaction of the look of utter horror on the other person's face just before they realize... well, what fun is that? I could do something to my roommate, but he's already on to me. (Seriously, I am not a secret keeper unless I really want to be.) And I don't want to cause permanent psychological damage, so what I just thought of is out... It's a good thing I don't use my powers for evil, let me tell ya.

Around this time of night, sometimes before, I start to feel like I could use some coffee, but then I think, no, then I'll never get to sleep and I'll sleep all day again, but the thing is: I sleep all day anyway, and I've only been up for like 12 hours (not even!), so why shouldn't I make some coffee and stay up a bit?... Except I'm actually not that sleepy right now, so I should just focus and get some more work done and get on with it already. I'm almost done with the introduction (I didn't have that much to do to it), and I have already set myself up to rearrange several sections, so if I get through the draft at least once tonight, adding notes and rearranging, then I will be satisfied with my progress. Because it would be ridiculous if I couldn't at least do that much.

I am taking at least a week this summer and just sitting on a beach somewhere far, far away. All by myself. Maybe I won't even tell anyone where I'm going. Well, that wouldn't really be safe, and I would probably get really bored, let's face it, but I am taking advantage of my time off is what I'm really getting at. I don't know what any of that means, really, but what I wouldn't give for some sun and sand right about now. The temperatures are gradually slipping upward, the temperatures are gradually slipping upward, it can't be cold and rainy forever...