I think there's a part of my brain that just likes to mess with the rest of me. That part of my brain routinely whispers the question, "Are you wearing pants?" Really, you'd laugh at how often this happens to me. Just today, I was walking into a meeting and all of a sudden I panicked and wondered if I was wearing any pants. I actually looked down, just to make sure. (Yes, I was. Phew!) I can't be certain, but I'm about 90% sure that this tricksy part of my brain is the same culprit that makes me wonder if I've worn slippers in public during the winter. I can't tell you how many times I've been on my way up to campus when, out of nowhere, I gasp as it occurs to me that I might be wearing slippers instead of shoes. I can't help but wonder what my brain has in store for me tomorrow.

I realized last night that a dissertation is a lot like the One Ring, the ring of power from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Bear with me for a minute. At the beginning of the trilogy, the ring of power hasn't quite taken a hold of Frodo yet. He's near it constantly and yet he's separate from it, still his own person. But as the story goes on, his life becomes inseparable from that of the ring. He cannot wear it without enduring physical and psychological pain, nor without seeing the burning eye of the Dark Lord. The ring itself gradually takes power over him. It becomes heavier and heavier to bear. In the third book, as Frodo's strength has been sapped by the ring, he says to his friend Sam, "there is no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I begin to see it even with my waking eyes, and all else fades." It's the same with a dissertation, really. Like the ring, a dissertation is with you at all times. In the beginning, as you're just getting underway, you're free to think about other things. Thoughts of your dissertation don't grip you at all hours. But as time goes on, and you get deeper and deeper into the process, you find that you can no longer give your full attention to other things. You eat, sleep, and breathe your dissertation. And suddenly, your life is no longer your own. The dissertation of power has taken hold. (Though, admittedly, I'm not sure what to do with the metaphor when it comes to casting the ring into the fires of Mount Doom, to be destroyed. I guess it depends on how good or bad the dissertation is? Or maybe the dissertation defense is Mount Doom? Hard to say.) I suppose the only thing to do is to continue on, chipping away at deadlines and goals, until the project is finished. Hopefully there'll be a job waiting on the other end of the dissertation of power, but I'll come up with a metaphor for that when the time comes.

It's always strange to start another new school year. The summer never seems long enough (am still investigating what happened to June and July), and the first day of classes never fails to sneak up on me. Last week I noticed more BMWs, Jaguars, and Hummers driving around town, so I knew that the students were back in full force (and they were out of toilet paper at Target, so there's another sure sign). It's weird thinking that this will be our last fall semester in Gainesville, but exhilarating also. I've just finished reading Tiffany's account of their first days in Delaware, and it's got me really looking forward to this time next year, when it'll be our turn to meet new neighbors, find new grocery stores, and start a new life. So, here's to the first day of school! Break out the office supplies.

Have you ever noticed how time seems to pass differently, depending on the situation? When we first got to Gainesville, and I started graduate school, time seemed to move so S L O W L Y. I distinctly remember writing in John's Christmas card that year, "One semester down, eleven more to go!" And the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel hadn't even made an appearance yet. It seemed like we would never get out of here. Now, though, when "all" I have to do is "just" write my dissertation, time feels like it's flying past at a mile a minute! Wasn't it just June? What happened to June? And July! July has gone missing, too! I was going to paint the living room over the summer. What happened to the summer? Suddenly, autumn deadlines that seemed a lifetime away are now just around the corner. What gives? Why does time slip by so quickly at certain times, while at other times it seems to move as slow as molasses in winter?

This fortune cookie has given up handing out advice of its own. It wants you to go elsewhere for advice from now on.

... are slowly killing us. It's true. We stay up late every night watching the little gymnasts do their thing, or Michael Phelps winning another gold, or the sprinters running faster than anyone's run before. (And can I just say how ironic it is to be sitting on a couch, butt firmly entrenched in the cushions, watching other people push their bodies to the limit and beyond? There's a joke in there somewhere, I'm just too tired to figure it out.) Each night the Olympics keep us up until the wee early hours of the morning, then we snag a few hours' sleep before getting up for work. Throughout the day, we pass each other, bleary-eyed in the hallway, and moan about how the Olympics are killing us. But then, like moths to a flame, we gather in front of the box every night and pay homage to those much more physically fit than we. (Although, frankly, I have to wonder how much training it takes to compete in trampoline. I watched some of the white-hot trampoline action the other day, having never before witnessed the...erm... sport, and I was completely puzzled. At first, when the girl was just jumping up and down on the trampoline, I thought that was the entire thing. I actually shouted, "You've GOT to be kidding me! That's IT? Hell, the neighborhood kids can do THAT.) It's a fun sixteen days, but I'm also looking forward to a more regular sleep schedule. Sleeping: the next great Olympic sport. Now that's something I could medal in!

Me: "So they're looking for an Assistant Professor of Chinese history at Berkeley."
John: "Oh?"
Me: "Yeah. I bet I could do that."
John: "Oh yeah?"
Me: "Yeah! I took Chinese history."
John: "Wasn't that Japanese history?"
Me: "... Oh, right."

There are days, man, there are days when I yearn (YEARN!) for an 8 to 5 job. Days when the sheer enormity of my dissertation comes crushing down on me like a pile of bricks, days when the project seems so profoundly undoable, days when I want nothing more than the ability to go to work and not care about my job. What's that? You say that those types of jobs only pay $25,000 a year? Sign me up, yo, 'cause that would be a pay RAISE. And then, once these thoughts are firmly entrenched, I remind myself that I had such a job. And I hated every second of it, felt myself getting stupider while I had it, and resented the jackasses charming people for whom I toiled. It also helps if I remember the time that one of my bosses walked all the way across the office, straight past the photocopier, to demand that I photocopy one single-sided page for her. Or the time that my manager, while wearing orthopedic shoes, criticized my own footwear. Or the time that another one of my bosses instructed me never to open her mail, then later demanded to know why I hadn't opened her mail. Inevitably, after I've reminded myself of this, I sigh and remember why I went to graduate school in the first place.

John and I are serial Olympics watchers. We're the sort who can't get enough of it, watch every event we possibly can, watch the highlight reels and even (am I admitting this?) the cheesy "spotlight" segments that they do on various athletes. (Like 33-year-old Oksana Chusovitina, a gymnast from Uzbekistan, who competes for Germany because that's where her son could get treatments for his leukemia. DUDE. We watched her compete and I kept shouting, "Look at her! Look what she can do! She's older than me!") We like watching the Olympics, is what I'm saying. We like it so much, in fact, that we are SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING getting another TiVo to help us get over the strain that these sixteen days put on our original TiVo. Clearly, we have Olympic Fever. Sadly, I don't believe that a prescription for more cowbell would help anything.

How do you know when the time is right?
How do you know if it's what you really want?
How do you know whether you can handle it?
How do you know if you can afford it?
How do you know if there'll be enough space in the house?
How do you know if there'll be enough time in your lives?
How do you know whether you're ready... for a second dog?

So, ever since my car became the Lukemobile, I've been trying to keep it clean. I give it a really thorough vacuuming every so often with a shop vac, but when the dog days of summer set in, that's a chore I'll put off indefinitely. Somewhere after scrubbing the toilets, to be honest. Recently, though, I heard about a mobile detailing service in town. They come to your house on a schedule that you set (once a week, once a month, once every three weeks, whatever you want), and they'll clean your car for you-- as much or as little as you'd like. PLZ TO SHOW ME WHERE DO I SIGN? I had the detailer come out a week before we left for DC, and after he looked over my car, he said he'd like to have it in the detailing shop first, to give it a thorough cleaning inside and out. It had (cough) been awhile since I'd cleaned it thoroughly. No problem. I dropped off my car in the morning and picked it up a few hours later, and folks, it looked and smelled like the day I bought it. It was beautiful, man. NEVER have I seen it so clean! I'm not one to dote on my car, but this was worth every last penny. In Gainesville, call Leroy at Pamper Your Auto Detailing Spa.

Spending a week doing dissertation research from dawn to dusk is grueling, there's no doubt about it. In this case, it's complicated by the fact that we're sleeping in a full-sized bed. WOE. That makes for a lot of tossing and turning, bizarro dreams, all mixed with sleepless nights, shaken not stirred. Last night I just couldn't get comfortable. I was tossing and turning all night and I know for a fact that it was interrupting John's sleep because at one point he actually said, "I'm trying to sleep over here!" Oh, me too. Me too. I've got one more day of research at the Library of Congress, and although I'm looking forward to being done, I'm feeling more than a little stressed by the fact that this is likely to be my last-ever research trip here, so no pressure or anything. We're headed home Wednesday and honestly, I can't wait to do some laundry, sleep in my own bed, and see my dog. Is there anything better than life's creature comforts?