slow-motion

Ever have one of those days where it feels like you can't move fast enough? Where it seems like everything is taking longer than it should be? Like your mind is moving a faster rate than your body is willing or even able to do? You're continually planning out and envisioning the next 60 seconds of your life and you just can't keep up?

Well, that's what today felt like. It seemed like I couldn't even refill my dog's water bowl as fast as I wanted to. I was impatient with each present task, knowing there were so many more to do. There was no seconds to waste.

Thesis anxiety is kicking in as the final 8 days approach to the deadline to give a complete photocopied manuscript to each of my committee members. At that time, I also need to provide them with a confirmed list of my thesis book list--15 titles in all. My oh my.

It will all get done...the optimistic corner of my brain knows that and repeatedly chants this to myself. I might be wearing the same cycle of clothes and not brushing my hair very often over this next week, but the thesis will get done. It has to. Sleep can always be sacrificed.

Yet, the quarter still moves on...and I'm attempting to keep up with the reading for my NF form/theory class. I'm liking Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, however, I'm only getting her in short doses so far. Tomorrow, I'm planning to read the book in larger chunks of time. On Saturday evening as I was reading the book and marking passages and lines I liked with a newly-sharpened pencil, my fiance's 4-year-old niece Emma (and my future wedding flowergirl) came alongside my chair and said to me, "You're writing in your Bible?!" I guess it is a pretty thick book...but I explained to her that it was a story book for school. "You go to school?!" she exclaimed. Emma goes to pre-school and has recently learned all about ladybugs--their wings, life cycle, etc. (Her rich and vibrant vocabularly rivals the men in the family.)

As I explained that I go to college, just like her mommy and daddy went to college, she paused to exclaim (most statements are a genuine exclamation for Emma), "My mommy and daddy went to college?!" I'm not sure what Emma's concept of college is.

Considering that Dillard is fairly spiritual (I learned that she was raised Presbyterian than converted to Catholicism as an adult), Emma's question about me writing in my Bible is interesting.

Nonetheless, I was quickly swayed into playing with Emma. What adult can resist a cute little girl asking, "Do you want to play with me?" She led me downstairs to the playroom and we enjoyed multiple rounds of "Simon Says." She let me go first at being "Simon" and she rotated our turns equally. My favorite of her requests, "Simon says: pretend like you're buckling your shoes." Then we played hide-n-seek, my personal favorite. The first time I was "it", I had to count to 5 and 1/2. I tried to pretend like I didn't know where she was hiding, though it was obvious from the sounds that she was behind the chair in the same room we were in. So, as I pretended to look for her under the table, she squealed, "I'm behind the chair!" The next time it was my turn to count, I had to count to 33. Obviously, she had a much tougher hiding place in mind. But before I could really look for her, she called out, "I'm in Papa's closet!" Oh, the joy of being four years old. That sweet, simple exhiliration of hide-n-seek. The suspense of waiting in a special hiding place and then the "surprise" of being found.

As a result, Dillard received little of my attention the rest of that evening.

This week I'm also reading Paul Guest's first book of poetry, The Resurrection of the Body and the Ruin of the World. Paul has a recent poem on Slate, and also has a blog! So far I'm only on page 33 of his book, but am enjoying it--as Jonathan said I would. I'll discuss it more with him on Thursday for our second thesis advising meeting this week.

Good night! It's one of those rare evenings in Spokane where it's raining really, really hard. It's like Seattle. Ah.