My one birthday resolution

As some of you know, I make jokey resolutions on New Year's (because who can successfully resolve to do ANYTHING in the dead of winter and the middle of the academic year?!) and my year's serious resolutions around my birthday. No long lists this year. Rather, just this one:

I resolve to develop more productive sensible and productive work habits.

I had phenomenal work habits as an undergrad, but they went seriously south at some point during graduate school. I have still managed to get a phenomenal amount of work done, but I have to admit--to myself, to the world--that my habits are bad, nasty, abysmal. I procrastinate, I panic, I self-flagellate, I take to my bed, I take to the drink, I work in long crazy irregular no-sleeping no-showering spurts, I run away with rock-and-rollers, I talk myself up, I talk myself down . . . I do everything but devise a sensible work schedule and stick to it. No longer! If I can pull off the quit smoking birthday resolution of 2005 and the fitness resolution of 2006, I can do this!

So again, I resolve to develop more sensible and productive work habits.

I would love to hear your suggestions and stories, as well as any strategies that have worked for you. I hope to do a longer post about this at some point, once the resolution has been put into practice.

Random morning bullets

• If I spent a few hours today choosing materials for my old-new class, writing the syllabus, writing the assignments, and then working out the dates for the syllabus I am not changing for my other class, I would be free from all of my teaching and research obligations for the rest of the month. Well, at least the most pressing obligations. Would this not be awesome? Why would I not do this favor for myself?



• Despite experiencing on one level the dark-night-of-the-medusa-soul anxiety I wrote about yesterday, I am also doing things like waking myself up from a deep sleep because I am laughing in my sleep. I have friends who do this, and I once listened to a despairing ex-boyfriend of Amy Poehler describing lovingly her tendency to laugh in her sleep on a regular basis. But this is not something I normally do. I did it a couple of times last week when I was with More Fun, but that's because we laugh so constantly when together that there is simply not enough time for all of the laughing during the waking hours. Last night I dreamed I was having dinner with a much older (imaginary) colleague and her teenage daughter. Her daughter kept disappearing into the bathroom, quite obviously to do cocaine. But I was the only person who noticed that this is what she was doing. Her mother was completely oblivious to the fact that her daughter was a crazy cokehead. (Let me explain that this cocaine factor is totally random. While you might think I encountered it on my travels with the rock-n-roll circus and while I am sure it existed in bountiful amounts around me, I do not do it and I was not aware of it.) Anyway, every time the daughter returned from the bathroom, the mother would say with a knowing smile, "Beware the Ides of March." On her last visit to the bathroom, I heard the daughter mutter under her breath, "Yeah, Beware the Ides of Coke." This is what had me laughing so hard that I woke myself up at 3:30 a.m. And I actually still find it hilarious this morning, even though it makes no sense whatsoever. Anyone who would like to offer an interpretation of this or explain it as proof of my incipient insanity, please feel free.



• Is it just me, or is Project Runway terribly boring this season? Has it jumped the shark so soon? I am sure people are blogging about this somewhere.



• Some things I want to blog about but cannot seem to get it up to do so: 1) my annual birthday resolutions, which this year involve correspondence, learning to sew, and financial stuff; 2) my "Year without Cigarettes," quit-smoking reflection post; 3) a return to discussing great mirror scenes in movies or maybe a Great Mirror Scenes contest of some sort; and 4) a post about blogging boundaries (what people feel comfortable blogging about, what they absolutely will not blog about, whether it is a personal thing or if some kind of blogging boundary etiquette exists).



• One more cup of coffee and then the syllabi. For real.

Birthday Resolutions

I obviously can not take a break from computing, so I have fired up The Dinosaur for some birthday reflecting and professing.

I tend to be more serious about making resolutions at birthday time rather than in the dead of winter when all I want to do is bury myself in a hole. My New Year's resolutions tend to be mock the whole process, e.g. "Learn How to Drive Drunk," "Budget for Cocaine," "Adopt Cambodian Baby Named Maddox," "Get Maggie Gyllenhaal's Email Address," etc.

But the birthday has rolled around and I am reflecting on the past year. Professional progress: very good but to the detriment of my mental, physical, social health. Physical health: fair; could become much worse considering smoking, lack of exercise, poor eating habits, weight loss; Mental health: I am not crazy yet, but I am often extremely stressed; short bursts of (circumstantial?) depression. Social health: Portrait of a year in Medusa's relationships--dumped by ex-boyfriend with whom I unwisely became involved with again after break-up two years prior; brief affair with long-time friend, Cassio; ongoing silliness (falling into bed a dozen or so times) with long-time friend, Demetrius; two-month whirlwind romance with The Grand He, chief counsel for Fuckwit, Wanker, and Sons; currently not-dating The Bassist who is also not-dating his best friend; perhaps a one-night stand or two thrown in for good measure (ohhhh, remember Romeo?). Social health diagnosis: borderline retarded.

Some resolutions seem to be in order.

1. Quit smoking, new diet plan (eat something green besides the frosting on St. Patrick's Day cupcakes), resume serious exercise program

2. Work gets done when it gets done and does not prevent me from making plans for travel, family, and friends (i.e. no more "I will think about all of that when the work is done")

3. On a related note: Make actual plans, which is to say IN ADVANCE of more than five minutes or so, for non work-related activities

4. On the relationship note: What can I even say? Grow up? Settle down? Do I want a serious, stable relationship? Hmmmm . . . figure out answer to that question and in the meantime, follow these guidelines:
--Thou shall not fall into bed with Demetrius
--Thou shall not fall under the spell of any associate of Fuckwit, Wanker, and Sons
--Thou shall not play Medusa to The Bassist's Perseus

5. Find a way to control stress, anxiety, and depression (exercise--yes; medication--???)

6. Catch up on long overdue correspondence (and keep it up)

7. Work goals: keep blazing but see #2

8. Finally find a way to avoid pressure from family to visit for 3+ weeks a year, to move to the Deep Red, to quit career "because it is too demanding and you need to have a family" by a) giving up on trying to make them understand; and/or b) explaining tactfully and with love ONE MORE TIME how your life is your life, how it is not flawed because it is not theirs, and how hurtful the constant pressure is

9. Possibly change identity and move to Peru