Miracle thinking.

Here are strategies I'm considering for finishing my two presentations in time to deliver them at the end of the week:

1. Be two people.

2. Turn the still-unclaimed sessions on my consultation calendar into ghost sessions. So no one can find them. Magic: extra time.

3. Run faster, jump higher.

4. Superior state of mind, superior mental attitude.

5. Eat only superfoods.

6. Be like Don Draper in a pitch meeting. But that one where he sells them the carousel, not that one where he tells them about the prostitute who gave him a candy bar.

7. Stay up all hours?

8. Be like Quicksilver, but in terms of writing and video-essay-making.

I'm also considering rewinding time, and making better decisions, like maybe not having proposed two proposals or maybe even one proposal? 

Internet deathwatch.

The internet at my house? It's either dead, or Ima kill it.

Who knows why. I'm a geek, but I'm not a natural-born geek, and no matter how many reboots and cord twirling and fix-the-internet dances I do, it has not been reliable for more than a week.

So I'm taking the advice of fast-internet-guy, middlebrow, and getting the Ferrari of internets at my house. The fast internet people tell me that my set-up stuff will arrive no later than November 7. Which, for anyone who's counting, is five days from now. Yeah. Five days.

I will not bore you with the amount of "going to a place that has the internet to post replies to my online students" I'm going to have to do for five days. Not to mention, I have no faith that the set up will be trouble-free, either. But sometime in--oh, let's say the next two weeks--I will be back online, at home, with smokin' fast internet. Which will make me, personally, run faster, jump higher, and be in a better mood. Also, I think it will help me lose weight, restore my faith in America, and finish a Ph.D., or something along those lines.

Another way to waste my precious time.

Middlebrow taught me how to check the searches that lead people to my blog, and I thought you'd be glad to know that

• awesome kung fu moves
• greatest kung fu signature
• "the simpsons" "keep your mouth shut"

all were searches on google that got people to my site. I'm still mulling over the significance of this. Perhaps, though, as this book I'm reading says, Everything is Miscellaneous, and there is in fact "power in the new digital disorder." Kung Fu Power.

In other news, I'm about halfway through half of my portfolios. And, I healed my internet at home by the laying on of hands, otherwise known as rebooting the modem and router (rebooting is just one of my awesome kung fu moves).

August is the cruelest month.

I counted: fifteen days till I have to show up at work. This means that I'm already nostalgic for summer and it's not over yet, a state which I believe philosophers have written about, which nonetheless does not mitigate how much it sucks. However: at least it's a summer worth being wistful about.

1. the Scotland contingent came over for an extended visit, which resulted in this and this and this.
2. my daughter, the make-up artist, had a baby, and during her maternity leave I got to visit frequently and hold the baby in her quiet sleeping house.
3. we went to the Idaho cabin where we observed the beautiful river and the mercurial skies.
4. the historian and I took an excellent vacation that restored and refreshed us.
5. I got to hang out with the dogs many days.
6. I bought a new vacuum cleaner, which is the bomb.
7. I have had lunch, tea, and shopping with many of my friends.
8. I made new literary contacts.
9. I have some poems coming out in the fall, and more poems and mss. in the mail (burst of optimism).
10. Two sons graduated, one from college and one from high school. College daughter is home, working, and available for late-night movie dates.
11. I took a wonderful trip to see my best friend since forever in Santa Barbara.

Yesterday, in a burst of industry, I pulled many, many items from my wardrobe to give away. I threw away and recycled stuff and vacuumed some ferocious dust bunnies from under the bed. The room is unbelievably tidy, which always feels like a small miracle. I need to do the same in my study and in the kitchen. Optimism is like a drug and I am still on it.

12. I have done quite a bit of new writing, especially when you factor in all of the above.