Finito!!!!
Dissertation written, revised, edited and approved!!!!
With three golden signatures, one from each of my committee members, on the critical Dissertation Approval Form!!!!!!!!!
Thank you, dear readers, for your encouraging comments and notes back in December. You motivated me when I most needed it, and for that gesture, for your patience and for your continued support throughout this graduate school journey, you get a special line in my acknowledgements, along with my sincere gratitude.
So... I just realized this is my last Friday as a student. I'm now back on campus in Boston, staying with friends. I'll be here until Commencement (with detours up and down the east coast to see people). That's right: Come late May I'll don the funny hat, smile for the birdie. I was ready to skip it, but Mr. A told me I had no choice in the matter. And when Mr. A asks for something, it's very hard for me to say no.
My friends, this evening, made pasta and fresh mushroom-cherry tomato sauce (both from scratch, mmmm) and we watched a movie.
On Tuesday I hand the whole thing in to to the registrar.
And then I'm getting drunk.
Next on my list: everything I've been putting off for months and years like reading mystery novels, writing, writing, writing (stuff that requires no footnotes, like blog posts and short stories and handwritten letters and lists of movies I'm going to see), learning to bake bread, getting back to the business I just launched, learning a new language, dancing tango regularly, riding our bikes along the boardwalk, working my way through that massive stack of magazines with a Meadow Mule by my side and my cell phone off, making a website for my mom, going to museums again, learning about investing in general and specific, watching some TED talks, making the duck and portobello lasagna I set my eye on in 2006 and chicken pot pie and tom kha soup and pizza dough fritters, sleeping on various couches in various cities in various countries, working my butt off for fun and profit, roadtripping through the South, trying to take photographs like these, churning butter in Amish country with my little sister, visiting my dad in Texas and actually spending time with him (last time I went was a month before this deadline so you can guess how that went), eating tons of pinkberry, buying paints and using them, cleaning out my closet and making a trip to Goodwill, playing some piano, recording stories from my grandmother for my future grandchildren, getting something for friend who has a new baby from my other friend who has a new store, watching Hulu on weekends and taking a break to work (and not the opposite), watching season one of The Wire since everyone tells me I have to, digitizing all those VHS cassettes and giving them to the fam, having a Katherine Hepburn movie marathon, eating brunch -- brunch! -- and tracking down a paycheck from 2008 I never received, sewing on all the fallen buttons that I've stashed in the button box, sleeping in until 2, selling a few bookcases on Craigslist, buying a few books on Amazon, going back to Italy, walking or biking everywhere in my neighborhood instead of driving because I'm in no rush to get there, infusing some vodka with tiny tasty red things, going hiking somewhere lush, staying in a cabin for two whole weeks and sitting on its deck and outlining a novel I'll know never write while secretly hoping I might, fixing that little tear on the slipcover of my armchair I haven't had time to think about until now, regularly checking and probably indulging a little too often in Gilt, taking flamenco lessons again, spending the morning at my favorite oceanfront cafe and watching the waves crash, and finally finally finally not having a deadline tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
