Life

This year my husband and I were invited to attend two weddings: one on May 16th and the other on May 23rd. We can only attend the May 23rd wedding.

However, that didn't stop me from booking tickets for the weekend of the 16th in the location of the wedding on the 23rd. Now, after a $200 change fee, everything is settled, but this is just another indication of feeling out of control.

Thank god classes are almost over!!!

Out of Time...

I am running out of time until the end of the semester. There's too much to do, and too little time.

When panic looms, I tend to find myself thinking about the past, when it had to be less "complicated." Ah - hindsight is 20/20.

Today, I'm thinking about college, which wasn't easy by a long shot, but was much easier than graduate school in a lot of ways. More specifically, I'm remembering my fondness for R.E.M., and listening to their seventh album Out of Time, which is much more than "Losing My Religion" and "Shiny Happy People" might suggest. In my more melodramatic times (such as now), "Texarkana" seems pertinent to the process of writing a dissertation, or anything else especially diffcult:

Texarkana
- Berry, Buck, Mills, and Stipe, 1991

20,000 miles to an oasis
20,000 years will I burn
20,000 chances I wasted
Waiting for the moment to turn

I would give my life to find it
I would give it all
Catch me if I fall

Walking through the woods I have faced it
Looking for something to learn
30,000 thoughts have replaced it,
Never in my time to return

I would give my life to find it
I would give it all
Catch me if I fall
All alone
Waiting to fall

40,000 stars in the evening
Look at them fall from the sky
40,000 reasons for living
40,000 tears in your eye

I would give my life to find it
I would give it all
Catch me if I fall
(Lyrics are copyright R.E.M. unless otherwise stated as a cover version, in which case copyright is owned by that artist.)