Most of my days and nights are devoted to trying to finish the never - ending - research - project - of - doom. This has been the longest process of my life. Some days it feels like I am just spinning around in circles. Perhaps finally finishing a project like this is the last bit of grad school that they never quite teach you before you graduate. The dissertation seems like it was a piece of cake in retrospect. It’s sort of like taking flight lessons, only the instructor leaves the cockpit as you are approaching the runway. There is nothing to do but simply keep working on it. I am committed to this project and won’t let it go. At some point, it will come to an end. Or I will come to an end. Whichever.
As I am zoning out staring at the computer screen, though, I often think of the many other things that I would rather be doing. Here is a brief list of some of those things:
*Have serious dental work done.
*Blog.
*Read blogs
*Make biscuits.
*Wonder if I will ever get to work on my research project on porn.
*Wonder if I will be taken seriously as a scholar when I start my research project on porn.
*Wonder if I will care if I am taken seriously as a scholar when I start my research project on porn.
*Think I should just watch more porn regardless.
*Mop my basement floor.
*Learn another language.
*Learn to spell in any language, even (especially?) English.
*Watch the third season of That Girl on DVD.
*Try to come up with scenarios where people would be inclined to refer to me as "That Guy."
*Read the faculty handbook for my new university.
*See if I really could sew an outfit out of a roll of Bounty© towels and a sock.
*Work on the never-ending-research-project-of-doom. Oh, wait -- That is what I am avoiding. Sometimes I get confused.
*Design a GayProf action figure (with Kung-Fu Grip!).
*Contemplate if I would look better as a red head.
*Apply for tax-exempt status as my own religion.
*Scrub my kitchen sink.
*Scrub your kitchen sink.
*Consider if I will simply retire if they ever stop manufacturing WordPerfect. Seriously, I tried using the newest version of MSWord before they installed WordPerfect on my work computer. What a pile of junk that thing is! I didn’t think that they could actually make the program worse, but they found a way! VUBOQ, can I hear an amen? I know WordPerfect dates me (I was a secretary in the early nineties after all), but it really is better if you ever want to work on really lengthy projects.
*Read the many horror stories about WordPerfect destroying somebody’s term paper/dissertation/manuscript/life that I will likely receive when people read the above line.
*Go grocery shopping.
*Pretend like I have time to plan a party over the next couple of weeks.
*Perform a blood sacrifice.
*Say to myself that I see the light at the end of the tunnel.
*Try not to imagine that light attached to a speeding train heading toward me.
*Protest war/racism/sexism/homophobia.
*Get much needed therapy.
*Write (again) to the local place where I wanted to volunteer to see if they actually got my first message(s).
*Realize that phoning is probably still best for such things (though I personally hate the phone).
*Consider putting my cat on a diet. I didn’t think that he was heavy, but every person who has seen him since I moved to Midwestern Funky Town has commented on his relative girth.
*Search for random Zorro items on e-bay.
*Join the Navy or priesthood. Given the amount of time that I am working, it’s probably the same schedule – only those other professions come with much more guaranteed gay sex. It’s like a signing bonus or something.
*Write a hate letter to the Ugg Boot Company – again.
*Donate to a local charity shop the two boxes of crap that I lugged with me from Boston only to discover that I didn’t really need any of it.
*Go to the gym.
*Spend time giving thanks to the goddess that my new office is on the “good side” of the building with a view of trees (as opposed to the poor souls on the other side who have a view of a flat tar-paper roof top).
*Drink.
