Big plans this week. Because today is October 6 -- 85 days until the new year, 11 months until I turn almost-30, almost 100 days into this project -- and time to start getting shit done.
I'm going to start working on my thesis again, after taking a week off to do some freelance work. Same time next year, I vow won't be a grad student anymore, so I really hope it's because I graduated.
I'm going to play tennis as often as possible, since something is finally starting to click.
I'm seeing one more house this afternoon, a two-bedroom craftsman cottage for which I hope to find a roommate. I'm getting exhausted by this hunt, but it will be worth it once I find my home for the phase of my life. A place to write and think and make delicious dinners for whoever's around that evening. In my earlier dalliances, long before Mr. A came along, I admit I had imagined that by this point (this age and this much time with someone) I'd be sharing a kitchen, making dinner with some hazel eyed Mr. Wonderful with irresistable stubble and a soft European accent. That sort of thing. But it's actually a good step I've shaken my bourgeois fantasies of stability and the other "things we are taught to wish for," and pushed toward a different kind of purpose. To pursue Craigslist as an existential state. Always seaching, never settling.
I'm going to ask for something sexy, risky, surprising even to myself.
On a different note, here's a bright idea from CNN: instead of negotiating your salary, shoot for perks:
What I'd ask from my grad school, if I were in any position: quarterly paid travel to and from campus, an office on campus, a carte blanche for library fines, a few grand to do some archival research, and a book/materials fund.
Excellent. If I write out the things I want and know I'll never get, that makes my bitterness so much more palpable.
What will I ask for today? TBA.
UPDATE: I asked for a chick flick. Canceled other plans, asked myself what I really wanted to do, and the answer was: watch "The Dutchess."
Gained: 1:45 watching a wiggy woman struggle against the conventions of her day.
