I have no idea how this happened. It's been a great summer, but I have not done one single project that I set out to do when the summer began. Not one damn project. No online projects, no offline projects, nothing.

I was supposed to back up everything on my computer. Fill my fire safe with poetry and photo negatives. Update my languishing burb (which I refuse to update until I can redesign it in non-bloated HTML, so I guess that too). Put together my chapbook, for god's sake. Go on a vacation around the Pacific Northwest. Do some serious distance bike riding. Make a mix CD. Go to the library. The list goes on and on.

And yet, none of it happened. Oh well! Nothing I can do about it now. Doo dee doo. I guess we'll make them "fall projects" instead of "summer projects," huh?

The class I am taking is on the Harlem Renaissance. Professor President (who is teaching it) told me about it over lunch the other day. It sounds fabulous, and I am excited about the topic, and I love Professor P's classes, but I can't say I'm all that excited about going back to school. Even though it's my last class ever in grad school, so I should really enjoy it while I can.

(My god. It really is the last class I will ever take at this school. Pardon me while I become maudlin for a moment. Sniff.)

I know I am going to get hella busy as soon as class starts. I figured out a schedule that will work for me in theory; I just hope the pace doesn't kill me. Tutoring appointments sprinkled here and there are really doing a number on my schedule. I long for the days when I just worked at Starbucks, serving freaky people their coffee, instead of trying to juggle two jobs.

My schedule for the semester goes like this: Mondays, early morning shift, then doing tips in the evening. Tuesdays, early morning shift, then writing at night. (Since I have to finish my thesis this semester, writing nights are going to get much more important.) When I have tutoring appointments, this writing night gets canceled. Wednesdays, writing workshop in the morning, then class in the evening, then a set-in-stone writing night, unless I go out drinking after class (hey, a girl's gotta have her fun). Thursdays, work a long closing shift. (Try and bike ride before that if I don't tutor.) Fridays I have off, except for tutoring here and there. They are looking pretty clear though for the most part, and I will definitely do the bike thing and probably try and have a social life too, if I can stand to be around people by this point.. Saturdays, filling up fast with tutoring. Sundays, tutoring plus work.

Looking at this schedule, I realize I don't have time for homework. Hmm. Monday nights, I guess. Let's add homework to Monday nights, shall we? And bike riding is still very important to me, and I will try and go when I can, not just Fridays.

Things will get much less crazy after the SATs. Which are coming up fast, so my tutoring schedule is getting more insane. All my students right now are for the October SAT-- I think I will probably be getting some more for the November SAT. After that, things get kind of dead. Holiday time. By then, the semester will be almost over, and I will be ready to graduate. My god.

Then you all get to hear about my quest to find the perfect teaching job somewhere in the middle of nowhere, U.S.A. and-- that dweam wiffin a dweam-- get my thesis published. Now there are a couple of struggles I'm almost looking forward to. Can't wait to find out how it all turns out.

I made a decision at registration, and I am still trying to decide if I was smart or stupid. (If you think I was smart, please write me and tell me so. If you think I was stupid, please write me and lie.) I turned down one of my student loans.

I did this first of all because the subsidized loan covers my tuition and then some. The loan I turned down was an extra unsubsidized loan. My instinct was that I don't really need the extra money, that I can make it on my own, and that I'd rather not accrue any more debt. The loan payments are going to kill me as it is

But another voice is like, fuck, the loan payments are going to kill you anyway, what's another five grand? You could use that money for things-- take on less students and buy yourself some more writing time, get your car fixed all the way, pay off all your bills. Buy a laptop to write your thesis on! Take a vacation!

I am pretty sure I did the right thing. But gosh, it would be swell to have that big fat check, wouldn't it?

And I really want a laptop.

Speaking of acquisitiveness, I got the coolest glasses today. I haven't had cute glasses ever-- my first glasses were so nerdy that they had a tiny dachshund etched into one of the lenses. (Why a dachshund? Absolutely no idea. Never had one, never wanted one. Yet somehow it seemed like a good idea at the time. I was a weird kid.)

And that wasn't even the worst part-- the lenses had a brown gradient tint to them, and brown plastic frames. Oh yes, I was one styling eleven year old.

I wore my new glasses at work today and not only did my regular customers and co-workers compliment me on them, but a couple of perfect strangers did, too. Someone who knows you will be very likely to notice something new about you and compliment you on it, but two unprompted compliments from strangers lead me to believe that my new glasses are, in fact, the cutest. I think they might just be.

Unfortunately, they don't seem to photograph well. This is the best I could do:

I have so many work stories for you-- Frappuccino Flood 2002, and Picnic Lady, and the cavalcade of assholes that came in yesterday, and the passive-aggressive Retailer's Revenge we wrought on them all, and all the crazy stories you've grown accustomed to and are probably bored with. But I'm sleepy, and so the stories will have to wait.

"I think I like IKEA's instructions better, which are just big cryptic pictures without words. They give you less information, but the simplicity is comforting."