Ten Things I Will Do When After I Turn in My Thesis

10. Paint my hallway. The whiteness of the walls has gone from whispering at me to full-on screaming a la Charlotte Perkins Gilman at me. Lovey Loverpants wants a purpley gray. I want a buttery yellow. At this point, I don't care if Baby Girl goes all graffiti on them. Anything but white! 9. Hit the gym at least 3x/week. Thesis booty is a creepin', soon to be cascading if I don't make the gym my party place.

8. Send my Nana a new picture of the baby. My dad told me it's the only thing that brings her happiness. I feel terrible for delaying this happiness!!

7. Go to bed by 11p at the latest. My recent bedtimes have been OBSCENE. They should be rated something ominous to keep small children from learning about them.

6. Deep clean our bedroom. Moving the pile of dirty clothes to the hamper? Does not constitute deep cleaning

5. Finish reading the 3 books for pleasure I started before my thesis unhinged its proverbial jaw and swallowed my life anaconda-style whole.

4. Take some new books out of the 'bary for Baby Girl. I've been hesitating because I'm so bad about returning them. No 'scuses no mo.

3. Take Baby Girl to the aquarium. Need to go to library to get free passes. Again, no excuses!

2. Eat more salads. Which requires my fridge to contain more than one vegetable at a time.

1. Give this girl a tissue, a change of shirt, and buy this girl some pants:

Muscle Beach

Raise your hand if you want to hear about how little progress I have made on finishing my thesis which is due at the latest by May 21st? Raise 'em high...

No. Higher. I'm 4'10" and nearsighted.

Okay. Let me grab my abacus. Erright. So...Carry the one, let's see that's...

Yeahhhhh so how about we cut right to the picture portion of our post!

*** If you look closely, you can see Baby Girl's mama being a total nutbar.

Mmmm...NITRATES!

Sweet....Tart! SweetTart!

How I Will Spend My Summer

One of my classmates, the one I suddenly discovered is actually kind of hilarious to tease, was telling me yestereve that he was going to spend his summer "finishing my novel." And my impulse at that moment was to pull all his hair out from his nostrils and rub his sternum with sand paper and bark in his ears THAT'S WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO GET TO DO WITH MY SUMMER! I SAID MY SUMMER! DO YOU HEAR ME? MY NOVEL MY SUMMER MY TURRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN. But instead I just gave him a high-five, like a white girl does, meaning I kind of missed his hand.

***

I've been getting up at 6 a.m. to write my thesis. Meaning I've done it once, on Monday, and it was beautiful. The birds were twittering their motivational thesis fight song, and my head was so clear I could write a symphony with my eyes closed and I can't wait to do it again tomorrow.

***

After I put this thesis to bed, I'm dying to work on my novel. Meaning the one in my head, about all those multi-faceted characters that I've been inventing throughout my life who are going to intersect in a way that is masterfully orchestrated by my brilliant machinations. I can practically read the acclaims that will cascade across the hardcover stock: "Stanton Lee writes with sensitivity and charm; her words are like nymphs alighting their scattered flight in a deep rich forest of plot...she is the Frank McCourt of her generation...." ***

But for the rest of the day, what I really want to do stock my freezer with Fla-vor-ICE and find some girlish flip flops and summer skirts online. Hang with my two favorite people and pursue literary narcissism another day.