My biggest problem this semester is finding a schedule that works for me. My “banker’s hours” idea was one such plan. I thought that if I could just work normal daylight hours, I would be happy.

But no.

It seems that I work best when it is dark out. I’m not sure if there is something deeply embedded in my brain, some sort of temporal setpoint that makes me a night owl or if it’s just the way that my life has organized itself since I went to college at age 18.

I used to think that it didn’t matter when I did something so long as it got done. Now I have so much to do that I need to get an early start to the day, so that I can have the entire day to work (rather than the entire night).

The solution to my problem?

Apparently, if you get up early enough, it is still dark out! I now remember those early mornings in middle school when I went to the bus stop at 7:12 am and it was still dark. When I was 12 years old, I woke up at 6am every day. Half  a lifetime later, I’m right back where I started. Yes, it’s true. I am now waking up at 6am. And it’s been going well enough that I woke up at 5:45am this morning without an alarm clock.

This is terrifying.

But it works. I do feel a lot more productive with this schedule. Is it sustainable? Probably not, but if it can get me through ’til spring break, I will be satisfied.

You know, for the past few years, I’ve felt like I was slowly getting older, more “adult.”  Every morning that I wake up and see a 6 in front of the colon on my alarm clock, I feel old – not “getting,” but oh so totally gotten.

Bankers’ Hours: Working or being open for the shortest and most inconvenient amount of time (~10am-4pm). Also includes a long lunch break and every possible holiday off.

This semester, I have been feeling very frantic. Luckily, I’ve only had one panic episode (thus far), but the fact that I am juggling so many balls has made me realize that I need to get highly organized and scheduled in order to pull this off.

I have been waking up at 6:30 am on Mondays and Wednesdays and not getting home until after 5 pm. The other days of the week are really scattered. So, I want to institute banker’s hours for every week day besides Monday/Wednesday when I need to pull long days. If I can work from 10am-4pm straight, I would feel so much better than doing a couple hours and a couple hours there and feeling like I have spent simultaneously 12 hours doing stuff and yet not getting all that much done. I think that by blocking off the 6 hours/day, it will help keep me on track, and then if I need to do more work in the evening and on the weekends, I can do it whenever and have that flexibility.

It’s kind of funny that as a grad student I have to force myself to work banker’s hours – the easiest and lightest working schedule possible! I guarantee that I put in at least those 30 hours every week, it just tends to happen between 7-9am, 3-6pm, 1am-5am or any other random assortment of the times during the day when it happens. I want to work daylight hours from now on. And I think that I need to do this to preserve my sanity this semester!

J.D. Salinger died today. I hate to say it, but it was one of those deaths where I was like, “Oh, I didn’t know he was even still alive in the first place!”

Howard Zinn, J.D. Salinger, who will be next? They die in 3’s, right? This is also mean, but I hope that if there is a 3rd author death soon, it will be a bad writer. Someone like Dan Brown.

My only real association with J.D. Salinger came during my undergrad years as an English minor. I had been doing some creative writing, and my professor told me that my writing reminded him of Salinger.

I hated Catcher in the Rye.

So I took that as a bad sign. Now that I’ve discovered that he was kind of a mental case, I think I made the right decision to turn away from fiction writing and become a sociologist. That’s not to say that sociologists are immune to mental illness. Weber had quite a breakdown as I understand. He also never consummated his marriage. In case you were wondering.

Anyway, here’s to J.D. Salinger. May you Rest In Peace and not be surrounded by any phonies.

One thing that would make me infinitely  happier is to stop comparing myself and my life to other women’s lives.

I used to be pretty full of myself. In high school and college, I was pretty convinced of my general superiority and awesomeness. Things have changed. I’ve lost that old confidence and zest for life. Bloomington and grad school have pretty much beaten it out of me. I’m not saying that my old state of mind was based on reality or truth. In fact, I think that most of the hubris was a self-defense mechanism that I needed to propel me to do things that scared me. Like moving to New York, dating men, and coping with any social situation by being really outgoing and bubbly instead of the shy little homebody that I felt like on the inside. So, maybe I wasn’t being entirely authentic, but it sure felt a whole hell of a lot better to pretend.

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing with my life right now. Along with that, I’m not sure how “good” I am anymore. And so I’ve found myself looking to other women my age to see what they are up to and maybe not directly comparing myself to them but certainly gauging my reaction to their examples.In terms of personal lives, I feel really ambivalent. There are some married/engaged/coupled people who seem really happy and in love. So that’s great for them. And, of course, there are the women who seem unhappy or clearly settled for a loser. So that’s probably not so great for them. But what the hell does this have to do with me? I guess the settling down or finding the person you are going to hitch your carriage to just seems so pervasive, and I wonder why all of these other people have been able to do it (for better or worse) and I haven’t. Most of this comparison derives from my facebook feed which is really a terrible way to go about assessing one’s life in comparison to others in my social network. All of the people who are desperate, lonely, unattached, infertile, and fighting with their spouses tend not to publicize that information on facebook, so I am unable to make the downward comparisons that could potentially validate and bolster my self-esteem. But the whole cutesy couple thing and boopsy baby thing are plastered everywhere, and I start thinking the type of thoughts that I should be having at age 35 instead of 25.

I really shouldn’t give much merit to those types of comparisons, but I question whether it is wearing me down to some extent.  Have I lowered my standards? I recently wrote about how I have a 90% rule and list of dealbreakers, and that is true. I think that I’m pretty clear about what I’m looking for.  But then I think about some of the recent men that I’ve been involved with, and I honestly wonder whether my college self would have approved of my recent choices in men. And if Younger Me wouldn’t have apporoved, is it because I’ve matured and become more accepting or because I’ve resigned myself and become more desperate?  Well, I don’t think that I am desperate because I definitely didn’t allow it to go very far, so I do have standards. Right now, I just need to execute a successful dating sequence with somebody who does meet my standards even if it short-lived in order to get my mojo back. I don’t want to make poor decisions because my confidence is shaken.

The other type of comparison that I make is a professional one. And surprisingly, I’m not entirely comparing myself to other grad students. In fact, I have been reading a handful of blogs by really cool women who live in different cities, and I am so jealous of them. It reminds me of reading teen magazines when I was in high school and forming this idea of and desire to “have it together” – outside, inside, everything. And now, with these bloggers, when I read about their lives and their fashion and romances and interests, I wonder if I would have a more interesting, fashionable, romantic life if I lived in a city and did something else. Again, I am comparing myself to this little tiny internet world of insight that I get into someone else’s life and make judgments based on that…WHICH is stupid. And I know that.

So the moral of the story is that I should probably stop the internet inquiries into other people’s lives and just start living my own life on my own terms. And who knows? Maybe someday an off-kilter, quarter life crisis gal will flip through my facebook photos and read my blog and wish that her life could be as awesome as mine.

Yes, I’m still obsessed with my potentially impending death this year. I have been way more accident prone than usual. I fell in the shower yesterday. It could have been really bad, but I managed to catch myself twice (twice!!!) on the way down, so it blunted the impact. Thank god -because, really, if I’m going to die, it will probably be in the most unlikely and humiliating way. Such as…breaking my neck in the shower, paralysis, and then drowning. The other weird thing that I’ve been thinking about is what if I do die in my apartment? Since I live alone and nobody really just stops by to check in on me every day, I could be dead for a long time before they find me! One of the parts that I hate most about death is the fact that people will handle my body when I’m dead. That’s gross and invasive. I hope I die in a way where the remains cannot be recovered. Although, that would probably be a rather horrific death, so who knows? I just hope I lose consciousness quickly, no  matter what the manner of death is.

Ok, so all of this death talk is very dark and creepy and disturbing. I don’t know why I am thinking about it so much. Maybe because my Nan died in January. But maybe I should be thinking more about her life/death and not about my own mortality?? I don’t know. I’m not a very good griever. I was also thinking that maybe my fascination with death was implanted at a very young age. I just randomly remembered the “prayer” that I used to say before I went to sleep every night between the ages of 4-8 years old:

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

And if I die before I wake

I pray the Lord my soul to take.
That’s it. The whole extent of the prayer. Nothing else. No thanks for a great day, or  I really enjoy your abundant blessings, or I’m a special little girl who should feel safe and loved. Nope, it’s all about death. Um, hello? No wonder I have fucked up issues about death. Every single night, I prayed to “God” not to kill me in my sleep. My last thought of the day was whether I would even wake up in the morning. So messed up.

Do you see what crazy religious socialization can do to people? You end up being a 25 year old woman who thinks she is going to drown in the shower, that’s what happens.

If you know anything about me, you should know that I am a people-pleaser. Give the people what they want, I say. (ha)

Since July when I came back to blogging here, I have had a small number of regular followers according to the Stats. But there is one post that has been a surprise hit.

Can you guess which one?

It was my post on Why Oprah Matters. The internet – and by “internet,” I mean several hundred people- has gone crazy for my Oprah post. In fact, the Oprah post is only 25 hits away from beating my all-time most viewed post: my thoughts on Eat, Pray, Love.

Luckily for me and my random internet traffic aspirations, Elizabeth Gilbert has a new book out and Kitty Kelley just wrote a biography of Oprah which will be released this spring. So, look for some upcoming reviews of those. Because let’s face it, besides the 6 people who I know read the blog and the estimated 6 other people who I probably know in real life but have not come out as my blog readers, not many people care about my fascination with dryer lint or my whining about grad school. So book reviews and pop culture, it is!

Random Thought of the Day:

I hate doing laundry. Every aspect of it. Especially folding.

BUT.

I always feel a little rush of pleasure when I scoop the dryer lint out.

(It’s the little things, people).

I have never had a panic attack, but if ever it will happen, it will happen this semester.

Let’s take yesterday for example. I woke up in the morning and did some work. I took a lunch break and did some cleaning and TV watching for a couple hours. I did some more work which pretty much ended up in procrastinating on the internet for a few hours. And before I know it, the day has escaped me and it is getting late. “Well, shit,” I think to myself, “I guess I’ll make it a later than usual night because I promised that I would cross #4 and #5 off of my list today.”  I managed to get halfway through Task 4 before getting distracted again. By this time, it is 1 am. I decide to call it a night, go to bed, and then bust my ass the next day.

I go to bed, but I start beating myself up. How could I have spent so many hours in front of the computer and not accomplish a damn thing? What a waste. I looked like I was working, I was pretending to work, but I was not really doing anything. I should have just gone away from my desk, went to a movie, a bar, a bus stop. Wherever. Because I wouldn’t have gotten any more work done anywhere else.

Then my mind starts racing. About #4 and #5. But also #6-18 that I have to do by Monday. This is horrible. I can’t lose a day.  I just lost a day. I’m never going to get everything done.

I start feeling a sense of dread, anxiety, misery in my mid-section and it starts traveling up to my chest. I am in the grips of a mild panic. Oh, crap. This must be what the beginning of a panic attack feel like…

So, I get out of bed and work until 5am. I don’t go back to do #4 and #5 because I hated those tasks and that’s what got me off track in the first place. I did #12-15 instead. And I went to bed feeling calm and tired.

I slept for 5 hours and I’ve been working all day today with the exception of watching 3 episodes of 30 Rock (How wonderful is James Franco!? How terrible is Julianne Moore!?) and working out for 90 minutes.

I hate my life this semester.

For Christmas, all I wanted was one of these:

That, my friends, is a Clarisonic brush that I use to wash my face every day. It has supersonic powers which promise to eliminates both pimples and wrinkles – dual ailments that my 25 year old face is currently bridging . It’s a pretty expensive little contraption, so I couldn’t afford it on my own. Therefore, I requested it as a gift and my mother obliged. I’ve been using it for the past few weeks, and I have not had any breakouts. I wasn’t particularly wrinkled before, but I have noticed a smoother appearance overall. I can’t say that I have had miraculous results, but I guess my skin wasn’t all that terrible before. I’m hoping that if I keep using it, I will have naturally glowy and dewy skin but even if I don’t, I think it was well worth the price just for how much I enjoy the way it feels. My skin feels incredibly clean and refreshed, and it’s like getting my own personal facial every day.

I’ve been sitting here, looking through the news and reading blogs from the past week, and I am struck by the overwhelming douchiness that is all around.

Here is a list:

1.  Newly elected MA senator Scott Brown saying that his daughters are “available” in his acceptance speech. I’m not happy about him winning that election (and I bet old Teddy is rolling over in his grave), but that comment made him seem really tacky and uncouth.  Plus,  it’s pretty bad when Glenn Beck and I agree about something.

2. King of Douche John Mayer’s interview with Vanity Fair. Some great quotes: “All I want to do now is fuck the girls I’ve already fucked, because I can’t fathom explaining myself to somebody who can’t believe I’d be interested in them, and they’re going, But you’re John Mayer!” or “”Do you think it’s going to take meeting someone who I admire more than I admire myself? But isn’t it also about a beautiful vagina? Aren’t we talking about a matrix of a couple of different things here? Like, you need to have them be able to go toe-to-toe with you intellectually. But don’t they also have to have a vagina you could pitch a tent on and just camp out on for, like, a weekend? Doesn’t that have to be there, too? The Joshua Tree of vaginas? …I’ll be happy when I close out this life-partner thing. Think of how much mental capacity I’m using to meet the right person so I can stop giving a fuck about it.”

I have hated this guy since he made it big with “Your Body Is A Wonderland.” I think that his music is whiny and annoying, and I have found no redeeming qualities of him as a person, either. Maybe he should stop doing interviews.

3. NBC and Jay Leno. I’m most definitely with Coco.

4. John Edwards admits that he is the baby-daddy. The only thing shocking about this revelation is that he is such an idiot to believe that anyone cares about him anymore. How many times do we have to listen to his denials and apologies? He is a slimy liar and should disappear from public life for good.

5. Pat Robertson saying that the earthquakes in Haiti were a result of a pact with the devil. Maybe this one is too cruel to even be considered as douche behavior. I mean, the Jersey Shore kids are douches. Pat Robertson is…I don’t even have a word to describe him.