To Do, or Not to Do, List

Now that the PhD is done, I have a lot to do:

1. A whole lot of absolutely nothing. Remember what it was like to have homework due on Monday, how you never could really relax? I've been in that mode since I was in my late twenties, and I'm looking through the cross-hairs at 40 right now. So if there's one thing I'm going to do, it's relax (if I can remember how. . .? I'll start by just breathing, I guess).

2. Catch a movie. In a movie theatre. Suggestions? I'm thinking Borat and that yummy new James Bond, for starters, but I know there are other ones I should catch, i.e., that haven't been featured on magazine covers I've seen at the grocery check-out line. The only "entertainment reading" I've allowed myself is Doonesbury (and I especially appreciated the recent series on Alex at MIT: "no nerd left behind," indeed).

3. Read a book. In modern English. Again, suggestions? The major outlets are coming out with their year-end lists, but those lists can tend to the random, despite claims of methods in the madness.

4. Work out. Yes, I enjoy that (it's not a task), but have had precious little time to. I'm eager to start running in the area around our home: there are hills! (I like running hills). T'weren't hills in flat Illinois.

5. Enjoy my kids. Sure, I always enjoy them, and love them dearly, but it hasn't been healthy, either for them or for me, to have a Mom with a monkey on her back. Bye-bye, monkey: hello, angels. As Hamlet says, I shall hereafter be more myself. Not that that helped him any, in the end, but, unlike Hamlet, I actually realized my quest for knowledge. Hamlet could never reliably ascertain whether Claudius killed his father, and ended up murdering his loved ones in the process. Rewrite!

6. Catch up -- and stay up -- with friends and family, most of whom must have felt like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, dispatched off to some barbaric island (known as England, in the play), and mystified as to the whereabouts -- and sanity -- of their one-time pal. In this respect, the monkey is a real friendship killer, in that it makes you not only think you have "more important" things to do (an utter fallacy), but also feel positively crummy about yourself -- and I'm *terrible about ringing people up when I feel crummy (i.e., I won't do it). Rather, it sounds trite, I know, but there is no way on earth I'd be even considering this list were it not for the enduring support of my friends and family. So, I'll be in touch soon, I promise -- and thank you.

7. I know there's more, much more -- it's a work in progress! -- but suffice to say here that the other item on my list is to maintain the blog.

I look forward to all of it.

More soon!