Walking Backwards

Research paper is done!! I am so excited to print out all 18 pages and get the damn thing out of my life!!

I just had to get that out :)

Levity in a world of stress and studying and paper writing. No way applicable to what I am studying, but it makes me laugh amidst the tears :)

So, my new years resolution this year is not going as bad as I feared, but it is not going as well as I had hoped. January's 'Blaxploitation' went okay, though I don't think Joe got it.

Now we're almost all the way through the month and I have not gotten my theme night down yet. This month, I think we're going with 80's technology. I'm going to try to scare up some New Coke if that is even possible and maybe 'Max Headroom' or 'Short Circuit' for our viewing pleasure. Next month will be alien theme night I think with 'Explorers' for the kiddo and 'Aliens' (or 'Alien' - haven't decided) after he goes to bed. I want to make green jello or some such theme meal, but haven't figured it out yet.

I'm not excited about any of it, though. Blah. Planning. And blah. Having to find stuff and work for it ;). I suppose my inheriant lazy attitude toward entertainment is really showing through. I have been fortunate in having people around me with wonderful taste who put a great deal of work into putting good material out there and promoting it and showing the merits of it. For instance, a friend is showing 'Killer Klowns From Outer Space' on Tuesday as part of his b-movie series. We're going to get together at a pizza place downtown and watch it . . . and there will be cotten candy. I'm quite excited.

But I think that is because someone else is doing it.

I am not doing so well this semester. It is my own fault, I know myself and, if trends are to be followed, this is when I reach burn out phase. I push myself really hard and submerse myself completely in school to the point of excluding all other interests. As you can imagine, this can only be sustained for so long (a year and a half history will tell). I start missing bad movies, concerts, hanging out with my kid at the park, and drinking cheap beer on the patio of seedy bars in downtown Austin. So I remain distracted and don't do even the minimum of what needs to be done to get by. The worst part is that I am distracted by surfing the internet and watching junk on the computer instead of activities that would actually get me out of this funk. So, if you see me anytime soon, shake me a little and tell me to buck up - it's almost over. In a year and a half I will have scraped together enough credits for two degrees. And if I quit now . . . it just gets harder and harder to come back.

A random list of stuff I am getting done this today, kind of a "today-in-the-life" if you will:

1. Head out to Sears to pick out a new sewing machine

2. Eat a cookie from the food court

3. Go to Lowes to buy air filters, random scrap wood and spray paint

4. Hit up Costco and the grocery store to provision myself and my family

5. Clean the damn house (this is purposefully vague because there is tons to do and I hate doing it so I am going to accomplish what I can)

6. Friends come over to help with household project #518 - build a new computer desk for Nico

7. Friend leaves, but leaves her children behind for us to babysit

8. Play dominoes, mancala, candy land, make popcorn, watch Scooby Doo, watch my newly clean house destroyed, etc.

9. Put kids to bed

10. Work on a new abstract for anth paper about the "War on Poverty" programs

11. Conjugate Latin verbs

12. Read textbooks

13. Go to sleep at 2 or 3

14. Woken up at 6 to start the day again :)