I, Muehlenhaus. U, Riedermaus.

I am stuck in one of those ruts where you know you should be working on something, but you can't get yourself to do it, because there is no imminent cost for not finishing it now. Does that make sense? Let me explain...

I'm supposed to make an academic poster for a conference in St. Louis next week, but I can't get myself to work on it. I leave on Tuesday. What this means is that I will no doubt spend Sunday and Monday freaking out, attempting to get this thing done at the last minute. I will curse procrastination. I will curse academia. I will curse just about everything that moves, even perhaps, my innocent canine friend. I am a bastard for this, but at least I know what will happen and am not too proud to predict this outcome.

Birgit understands, thankfully. She has already written off Sunday as a social day, because she knows what is about to go down. I will be upstairs ripping my hair out, screaming out that I am a failure as an academic and that I made a mistake switching my major from English Lit back in 1996. I will probably start blaming my predicament on the fact that her family dotes on us too much; the fact that my father and I are estranged; the fact that the sky is often blue, but it would be so much more unique if it were periwinkle... and then maybe maid of honor's dresses could be blue or something...

I am already ticked that I was offered a 5th row seat to Wilco next week, but I will be in St. Louis, recovering from the rush to finish the damn poster. Wilco... 5th row?! Damnit! This is like being offered a ticket to ride Noah's Ark and realizing you can't make it because you promised your boss you would help her build a swimming pool that weekend. Or something like that, I am positive!

I am losing my marbles waiting for people to give me feedback on my new research design. I submitted it to everyone on the committee two weeks ago but have only heard back from one guy. I've heard back from him twice, actually, and had a really good conversation with him to boot. To tie this back to the fact that I am irked I can't go to the Wilco concert... Waiting to hear back from people before proceeding on something you really want to do is like arriving at a concert venue hours early, waiting for the band to take the stage, and then being told the band hasn't arrived yet and no one knows when it is going to.

No wait, bad analogy. Just bad all around... I'm not with it today. I shouldn't be writing. It is coming off the tips of my fingers poorly. But at least I am venting.

Tomorrow should be better... playing Kahuna with Glen at lunch; meeting Ben in the afternoon; and then meeting up with Adam. Skipping coffee hour. Still not working on the poster... priceless.

Zombie pub crawl on Saturday. Half-tempted to go...

Should get back to work now. But work on what? Hmmm...

Labels: damnit