Sunday, Bloody Sunday

One of the things I had forgotten about being back to school is that feeling on Sunday that you could either sit down and work, thus getting ahead for the week, or you could take advantage of the fact that there is a whole day (and a nice one too) when nothing is scheduled, and you can do as you please. It's a terrible decision. But I think this weekend I have gone in the direction of seizing the day, since so far I have gone to the gym and taken Extravaganza to brunch at a local trattoria with an impressive dessert menu and it is now three o'clock.

And while I have a small break coming my way (I cleverly scheduled a movie for Monday, on the theory that it is still drop-add and the population of my lecture class is in flux), by Tuesday the scheduling part of my brain has to go back into motion. This week I must:

* write a lecture, since the last lecture I gave on the Mattachine Society was over three years ago, and I can't imagine giving the one I have again.
*write a book review that I am actually going to be PAID FOR that is due Wednesday.
*read a very hard book by Tuesday. Or at least half of it. Or at least as much as I think they will have gotten to, plus ten pages.
*pull together a conference proposal that I took responsibility for that is due Thursday.

This may not seem very difficult to those of you who have been slogging away in the trenches since September, but believe you me, if your schedule has looked like this for almost two years:

*go to the gym
*write until lunch
*eat lunch while watching TIVO'd episodes of Friday Night Lights and DVD's of Deadwood, The Wire and The Shield.
*read until cocktail hour
*have a drink and dinner.
*read
*go to bed

it is daunting. And then, of course, since I have been gone for ever, everyone wants to have lunch with me, which means I can no longer watch TV at noon. So heaven only knows how I will keep up with TV.

In other news, events suggest that it is a matter of time before I am thoroughly outed to my colleagues: in checking my sitemeter, I realize that I have been linked to several on-line sites which cater to the academic trade, one of which has a close colleague of mine as a regular commentator. The only saving grace is this: I never write mean things about my friends. That would be the main difference between me and Harriet the Spy (that and the Ph.D.), who got thoroughly trashed for her indiscretions if you may recall. And I would never skewer someone on-line who I would not skewer in person.