48 hours of class, 6 papers, 123455334 Library of Congress classifications, nine novels and four straight days of conferences later…

it appears that July did not quite kill me.

However, I am feeling adrift.

This is not unfamiliar. This happened in May. A break from school leaves me with both mental and actual free time. It’s hard to adjust to that luxury. July, for me, was probably the busiest I’ve been in years. I was really impressed by how efficient I became. I cut my hours in half at my Non-Library Job… which meant that the days I did come in, I had to cram all that work that usually takes 20 hours into 10. And the schoolwork. Five hour shifts at Job #2 that used to stretch interminably flew by in July: I had so much to read, to think about, to write. I squeezed in cataloging in one or two question spurts with my evening glass of wine, staying at it until my eyelids started to droop.

So now I basically can’t figure out what to do with my time, with my brain.

Set goals or enjoy some free time?

Start a new project or clean up for a fresh start in September?

Travel or rest?

Watch some new movies or marathon Mad Men for the 7th time?

Catch up with all the posts I wanted to write or forget and move on?

Squeeze in all the planning and deep thinking I know I won’t have time to ruminate over come September or save the stress and exist in peace?

Focus deeply on something or jump around?

I will figure something out. It will take me a few days to get my bearings, but eventually the echoing on the empty, cavernous inside of my skull will stop feeling so weird.

Greetings from July 28th.

I am in the Tech Lab.

I am writing a paper.

I have a class in an hour, then a barbecue, then I have to give a (very) brief public address to 100ish conference-goers.

Come back to school tomorrow and Saturday and Sunday for other conference-related-doings.

Somehow finish this paper (when?) to turn in on Monday (how?).

Then I’m done.

I am here with my Number One Roommate.

She will be doing the same, except when she turns in her paper, she will be done with school forever.

So today is her last class! Of life!

Here is her commemorative photograph.

We are almost done!

Yay!

1. My iTunes requires two playlists, entitled “A cappella Favorites” and “A cappella Second Favorites.”

2. I am eating a farmshare by myself this week, so I have to eat entire vegetables in one sitting to make any sort of progress. “What should I bring for lunch? Well, I ate the last cucumber yesterday. How about a squash? A squash it is.”

3. Lance’s newest nephew was born a few hours ago. Now nephew Dylan has a baby brother Peyton… and his brother’s baby Emma has a new cousin. This makes me feel quite old for some reason, even though I have pseudo-nieces/nephews Cadance, Alexa, Matthew, Brianna, and Willem already! Ack! Baby presents galore!

4. My next writing assignment for my Children’s Lit class: write a 4 to 5 page recount of my personal Reading History. This should be fun, but maybe painful. We Reading People (and especially Children’s Lit People) tend to mythologize our reading history to a certain extent: we hold onto weird books we loved as small ones with too much affection than is healthy, get defensive about our reading tastes, and generally get a little tied up in that kind of mushy nostalgic stuff. I’m not exempt. I hope I will be able to come up with more than a 5 page dissertation on Karen’s two pairs of glasses in Babysitter’s Little Sister.

5. We said goodbye to extended cable, HBO & Showtime, and OnDemand movies for the summer. Good thing we are all addicted to Netflix documentaries around my apartment. And I think I have 3 or 4 straight weeks worth of True Life episodes banked on the old DVR. No worries!

6. July is flying by. Only one more cataloging assignment (once I get around to turning in the one due today) and then a 10-12 page paper (????) and then the last weekend of the month I will be attending the Children’s Literature Symposium. Which will be 4-5 days of complete madness. You can see the brochure here. If you don’t feel like downloading foreign pdfs I will leave you with this:

• M.T. Anderson
• Bryan Collier
• Jack Gantos
• Sara Pennypacker
• David Small
• Jacqueline Woodson
• Gene Luen Yang

7. I am not a good schmoozer. In fact, I don’t really understand how people “do lunch.” I don’t have any hangups about eating in front of people, but I sometimes feel weird eating at a restaurant with friends much less someone I’m trying to impress. I am sitting in the school eating place and watching professional people lunch with one another and I am wondering why they just don’t eat ALONE. Like me. With headphones.

Then again, I do eat things like entire squashes for lunch, so anyone would probably judge me.

8. This morning I woke up when my alarm dictated, got up and tried to be awake, but then had to put myself back to sleep for a half hour. It did the trick.

Also, the cat bit me last night when I was barely awake. Jerk!

9. I am starting to enjoy unsweetened iced tea, which is Step #24 on The Road To Becoming My Mother. I’m making good progress!

However, this also marks an entrance back onto the Caffeination Super Highway. It starts out with an innocent iced tea. By the end of the week, I’m back to afternoon Diet Cokes, even though I know full well they give me a headache.

This morning I caught myself contemplating a completely gratuitous triple-shot latte!

Ahhhhhh!!!!

10. LANCE IS COMING HOME ON THURSDAY!