My stomach: It's slightly on the upset side, I think because I've been eating too much dairy. Dairy doesn't, in general, agree with me; and many times in my life, I've cut it out altogether.

But quarantine doesn't seem like the time for restriction, and in fact, I've met social isolation with cheddar and mozzarella and marble jack. I don't regret it one bit except for the stomachache.

Media: I've been reading some, but I'd like to read more.

Meanwhile, I've been watching some excellent television. Dan and I are three episodes from the finale of The Americans. We're highly invested. Please don't tell us any spoilers for that show. The writers are brilliant and they hit almost every required note from a storytelling standpoint. I can't wait to see how they draw it to a close. Further, my friend Nicole introduced me to American Vandal on Netflix. She and I watched the first episode using Netflix Party where you watch the show and have a sidebar chat (Quarantine Fun!), and I laughed so hard that I made Shef come down and I rewatched it with him. He also laughed.

Apparently, I only want to watch shows with America in the title. Because, patriotism?

Book Work: I'm in revisions. I'm getting there. Someday, people will get to read my second book, and that someday will be next spring.

I've mentioned before that I'm condensing the process of writing a novel from 3.5 years to 1 year. That's one year with breaks to revise the first book a couple of times, to read through and address the copy edits, to travel to promote that first book, and to have periodic panic attacks.

Still, I'm going to make the deadline.

It'll be to the wire and there will be more revisions than last time when I spread the process over 3.5 years, but I'll make it. I'm a deadline person, you know? If you tell me when it's due, I'll do it by that time.

I wasn't always this way. For instance, I distinctly remember NOT doing my seventh-grade English homework by the deadline. There was a workbook called Plain English. You had to put the commas into sentences and fix the capitalization. You had to label the helping verbs. As I recall, I didn't particularly enjoy or understand this homework and sometimes "forgot the book at home" rather than complete the assigned pages.

I did this kind of thing pretty regularly. I got a lot of Bs in high school, and it was totally fine. It seems like it's less fine now to get a lot of Bs in high school. I tried to take the pressure off of my high school sophomore recently by telling him that, "There will be a college that accepts you."

He took this the wrong way and thought I was saying that he wouldn't get into a "good" college if he got a B+ on something or other. But that's not what I meant at all. I meant, just chill. There are lots of different paths forward. You don't have to go to the one tippy-top pinnacle school that everyone thinks is "the best." I explained this, and he felt better, but we now have a running joke about "there will be a college that accepts you." I say it when Shef tells us he's going to play Grand Theft Auto rather than studying for AP US History.

There are therapists for that, and I'll be happy to pay.

In conclusion, I don't even know what I'm talking about, except to say: it's okay to not be the best, but also I'm going to try to be the best and make my deadline. That's great blogging. Right? Tippy-top.

Report Card Writing: Finished! I spent time thinking about each student and what I so appreciate about her or him. I wrote that stuff, as well as some suggestions for the future. I simply cannot believe that I have no plans to write report cards next semester, or the semester after that. I can't really picture what my life outside the classroom will look like. We may fear the unknown, but we must venture ever forward. Someone famous must have said that, and that's my plan. But, in addition to the unknown, I think I'll also do something familiar...

Marathon Training: I haven't run 26.2 in five years, but I feel confident that I can do it again. I signed up for our hometown marquee event, the Twin Cities Marathon. In part, I chose this race because it's in the fall, and fall marathons are usually problematic for me because of my day job as a classroom teacher. Now that I do not have that particular day job, it should be easier to keep running come August, and the marathon in early October can be a celebration of my new gig. Maybe it will be my best marathon ever? Or, maybe I'll just cover the distance. Either way is good, and my sister-in-law, Steph, also signed up. Last time I ran a marathon with Steph, it was a total blast.

Writing: I've been telling myself it's fine to not be writing my book or my blog while I do my report cards. Unfortunately (and, of course, THANK GOD), I have now submitted my reports. I have no choice but to go back to my other work. I'm warming up right now, preparing to type some words of my god-awful first draft. I'm dying to return to the beginning of that novel, to make the story make sense and to make some of the chapters not suck; but I think it might be smarter to go push through the end and then have a whole manuscript to revise.

At the very least, I think I should write 10,000 new words before I go back. Let it be so. Ugh.