Deadlines

I work... best under pressure, so if I... wait 'til tomorrow... I should, start working now...

From my childhood classic:

So... I have a week and a half of no teaching, and a promise to myself to finish my penultimate chapter before Friday... and it seems almost impossible to nail myself to the (metaphorical) chair. I had all day today, and perhaps I got 4 good hours in (which amounted to a net gain of 3 pages?! ugh), but there were so many other things that needed to be done.

Like prepare my next class! (Urgent! isn't it always?)

And eat! (Well, there wasn't anything, so I HAD to make an eggplant parmesan, right? After all the vegetables would go bad if I didn't! I added zucchini, mushrooms, ricotta, and of course, truffle oil, along with hand-grated parmesan. Little I. who hates eggplant ate dinner cheerfully: "MMMM... truffle makes everything better!" she claimed.)

And then there was the migraine to contend with: caffeine is highly addictive (not emotionally, but, it appears, physically) within days I am getting withdrawal headaches if I don't drink coffee).

And the cookies that needed to be baked (after all, the dough needed to get used up so I can go back on my diet, next week, she said...), and I had a stroke of brilliance of adding Vietnamese cinnamon and organic sugar to the edges, then making a thumb print hole, and filling it with the strawberry/ red wine reduction that I made the other day.

So, after a mad dash to the gym and an inferior workout (but a workout nonetheless), I must settle my mind and begin to systematically end this misery. Right? Right. Here's to deadlines!