I've been thinking lately about how Shef was born when I was 26, and Mac was born when I was 30. It came up because I've been pushing myself really hard to finish the first full draft of my book project. Yesterday, I imagined trying to finish it with an infant or a toddler around.

I mean, that seems impossible. On the other hand, I think having kids and still doing stuff taught me how to maximize time - a skill I've used for this book project, too.

Because I did do stuff when I had infants and toddlers. I did My Stupid Master’s Degree. That took four years. It was super hard, especially that one time I almost failed Intro to Literary Theory. Instead of failing, I made myself write a final, 20-page paper on something I didn't even understand. The simulacra. Or anal rope. Something. I can't even remember.

I also ran some marathons. I did those almost stubbornly. Like, you can't stop me from running this! Don't even try to stop me! I did them, and one time I covered the distance even faster than I had before the children were born.

I had new jobs that I performed without sleeping full nights.

So, I guess what I'm saying is, my endeavors are maybe easier now? I'm grateful to have a teenager wandering around asking to learn how to do laundry and moaning about the pain of new braces and an eight-year-old playing too many video games and refusing to clean his room. 

After all, these are people that have reached the age of reason. "I'm busy making myself write 1000 words per day right now. I'll talk to you in 30 minutes." They grumble about it, but they walk away.

So what am I even saying? I guess the point is, if you're thinking about having a baby and writing a book at the same time, I feel like that's going to be really hard.  But now that I'm considering the big picture, maybe it won't be harder than finishing a graduate degree or running your fastest marathon. 

So, just keep trying to do stuff if you feel like it, regardless of the children. That's the message. 

It'll work out, and you'll be happy you had the kids whenever they arrived.

I can’t really believe this, but I’m finished with graduate school.

I know.

My life is one big open field of possibilities.

Yep! Lots of possibilities.

And so far I only have one plan.

This has been a roller coaster week so far: sophs cheating, texting, and hijacking my speakers. My Stupid Master's Degree on the rocks and then off again. Shef standing on the coffee table belting out Smash Mouth one minute, and lying on the floor of Bread and Chocolate screaming for another cookie the next.

Luckily, one of the kids told me we have 43 days of school left, and I'm on the verge of being finished with grad school forever; so life could be worse.

A couple of weeks ago, I sat with Jessie in a coffee shop, and on my thesis-writing breaks, I read blog entries from her thesis-writing era. It turns out, thesis-writing made her hilarious. It doesn’t make me hilarious, but it does increase my blogging productivity.

I could expound on Shef’s recent spate of naughtiness, but instead I’ll just say I’m on the top of page 58. That includes references.

Last night, we whisked away to Vail, Colorado, where so far, I have been working on my master’s thesis while gazing out at a gorgeous mountain view. Although I have written 54 pages – that’s up from the 28 I had on March 6th before I got myself a coach and a support group – I am stuck on this part about the importance of space. I look at the heading:

Space

and I just have a hard time starting to fill it in.

There was some sympathy expressed this morning at breakfast about me having to work on my paper while others hit the slopes, but I reminded everyone that I do not, in fact, have to teach school for awhile; so all is well.

My high school English teacher was a stoic, new critical, don’t-f&*^-with-me kind of guy. He inspired me to love literature, and despite his ambivalence about spending his days with teenaged girls – “Is this any way for a grown man to make a living?” he moaned in a rare moment of vulnerability one day while resting his head on his podium – he made me want to become an English teacher.

Once, a former student came to visit him over his lunch hour and gave him one of those meditation tapes. You know, the ones that are supposed to help you quit smoking or learn to love yourself by repeating affirmations over and over again?

He was already laughing when he put the tape in for us during an American Lit class. When the soothing, airport public-safety voice started repeating, “Writing is easy and fun for me,” he clutched his stomach and belly laughed for a good five minutes.

The point? Well, duh.

Writing is hardly ever easy and fun for anyone.

My coach has been sticking my nose to the grindstone, and I have accomplished more on my master’s thesis in the last three days than I have in many months. I didn't even stop for the lockdown drill today, which happened during my prep period. I just locked my door, turned out my lights, and kept on typing. Later, I emailed my teaching pal, Rachel, that it felt a little weird to be working on the outline of my lit review in the dark at my desk with Justin Timberlake on in the background, but she said: "Bringing sexy back is important—especially when writing a thesis. I don’t think there’s a more appropriate backdrop at this point."

She's kind of right about that, I guess.

I think I owe it to myself to give it three solid weeks of work on the thing, and then we’ll see where I’m at. If I work tirelessly, day and night, without frivolous breaks, I think I have a chance of making progress.

Miraculously, the first set of permission forms came through. My advisor says she can expedite the second set. So, it might not be the paperwork that keeps me down, after all.

You may or may not have noticed that I haven’t written much about My Stupid Master’s Degree™. You might have thought that “no news is good news” on the progress front.

If you thought that, I’m sorry to report that you were sadly, sadly mistaken.

All these months I’ve worried about it and thought about it and kind of done some reading about it. Remember how Dan spent two months in Iowa? That was part of the problem. And other times I’ve frittered away my work time by doing dumb stuff like grading papers and planning lessons and clicking around the internet with reckless abandon.

I was supposed to fill out some paperwork this fall that would make doing my paper legit. It would allow me to actually use the data I collected from my kids. Did I fill it out? No. Not until yesterday, when I realized my school district also has their own set of forms that need to be completed and then signed by various dignitaries. And, I can’t actually submit the former set of forms until I get all those signatures on the latter.

What do you think the chances are that all those forms will be submitted and approved in the next eight weeks? What are the chances that I’ll actually write the rest of the paper in that time?

Yep, I agree. Slim. Very, very slim.