Summer is upon us. Well, not technically – That won’t officially start until June 21. Given that my life is dictated by the nine month academic calendar rather than the actual calendar, it has already started for me. Screw the solstice.This leads to my annual list of things that I must accomplish in the coming months. Here are items that must be done by September 2:
- * Complete the Never Ending Research Project of Doom. Yeah, this has been on my list consistently. This time, though, I really mean it.
* Ruthlessly exploit friends and colleagues by having them proofread drafts of the Never Ending Research Project of Doom.
* Attend an all-day meeting to discuss matters deemed critical for the direction of my academic department.
* Struggle not to slit my wrists out of boredom while attending an all-day meeting to discuss matters deemed critical for the direction of my academic department.
* Single-handedly heal the wounds of the Democratic Party once they finally decide on a candidate. The key will be baking enough delicious Bundt cake for everybody.
* Lose eight pounds. I am at that awkward stage where my regular clothes are a tad tight, but my fat clothes are still too large.
* Take my Honda Civic for much needed service. It’s odd that at the point that I finally paid it off, I decided to see if I could destroy it by not bothering to get its oil changed.
* Quash my environmentally-dubious desire to purchase the insanely hot Dodge Challenger. I am not ashamed to say that I would probably have sex with that car. I would do it on camera too as long as I could keep the car afterwards.
* Vigorously shake working-class whites until they realize that the Republican Party is their worst enemy.
* Spend ample time in the sun to obtain a much needed tan and to stave off rickets.
* Invent a new cocktail and name it the Gravitas.
* Travel to New Mexico for research purposes.
* Seek medical treatment for guaranteed heat stroke while in New Mexico.
* Enjoy refreshing TaB cola.
* Enjoy even more refreshing tequila.
* Travel to Philadelphia and New Jersey for an event on my mother’s side of my family.
* Contemplate just how much worse traveling by air will become if we allow Delta and Northwest Airlines to merge. Do we even remember that this nation once had anti-trust laws?
* Solve the mystery at Lilac Inn.
* Use my federal tax stimulus check to buy a single week’s worth of gasoline.
* Update CoG more often (Unlikely if I want to accomplish the first thing on this list).
* Remind the nation that allowing John McCain to assume the presidency would be to install somebody who has no moral conscious; enjoys war as a pastime; voted against the federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.; has promised to continue the disastrous economic policies of the Bush presidency; and smells like Bengay.
* Watch films that center on an alcoholic industrialist with a metal suit; a cowled misanthrope with abandonment issues; and an aged archeologist who probably also smells like Bengay at this point.
* Wonder aloud about why Gwyneth Paltrow has a screen career. Conclude that it has to do with the U.S.’s incredibly low standards for acting.
* Change my currency into something less likely to lose its value than the U.S. dollar – Like the Colombian peso.
* Purchase a new bed and/or couch – Depending on whether I imagine that I will have more house guests or overnight guests.
* Laugh at the fact that the media/government is trying to spin the loss of jobs in the economy as a sign of growth. Hey, we didn’t shed as many jobs as we expected, so things are looking up. That’s a great strategy that I am going to start using with my credit card companies. Hey, my check wasn’t nearly as late as I thought that it would be, so, really, we are ahead.
* Completely redesign the syllabus for one of my fall classes (Unlikely if I want to accomplish the first thing on this list).
* Wrestle control of the Federal Reserve Board away from the incompetent and dangerous Ben S. Bernanke and the other conservative white men who currently staff it (Yep, all conservative white men on the Fed – Nobody else seems to have noticed that).
* Spend some quality time playing with my Mego Wonder Woman doll.
* Convince my friends that spending quality time playing with my Mego Wonder Woman doll is not evidence of the long anticipated mental breakdown.
* Celebrate the genius of Dolly Parton.
* Be grateful to Guadalupe that I don’t have to move this year (unlike the previous three years).
* Start a movement to finally dump the 1789 Constitution and replace it with a parliamentary form of government for the U.S. Why do we cling to a document that stated that some individuals only count for three-fifths of a person? Why do we tolerate a system where one person, one vote is not the standard? We have the technology to rebuild it. We can make it better, stronger, faster.
