living in limbo

My March calendar is busy, Busy, BUSY!!!!  I hate busy months.  Erin and Emily have something every weekend, something involving me to attend or me to take them to.  Nearly everything is out of town.  I’m grateful they are successful and have all these opportunities, but with all these events and everything that’s going on at work, it seems like my life is not mine.  Maybe it never was and it’s only a false expectation that my time should really be mine.  I suppose it could be mine if I shirked all responsibilities and promises...but then I’d be a great disappointment to everyone and to myself. 

Speaking of disappointments...my dissertation is ready to submit to the board (in my opinion), but I still need one of my committee members to give me feedback.  I sent it to him Valentine’s Day, then actually called and spoke to him a few days after.  He promised to look it over right away.  Well...WELL????   He never replied to me, doesn’t answer emails, never answers his phone or text messages, and never returns my calls.  Is he dead?  Has he left the country?  Did he forget about me?  I’ll have to Google him, figure out where he works, and track him down indirectly.  Committee-man has become a considerable disappointment lately; actually, he’s been a disappointment ever since the first time I asked him for help.    

I’m scheduled (i.e. payed nonrefundable money) to submit my dissertation to the board on March 5^th...the date was not flexible.   If Committee-man and Chairman don’t give approval by then, I’m screwed.   Committee-woman gave approval a week ago.  I wish I’d had foresight to pick a chairwoman and 2 committee-ladies.  I’d have been done last year. 

Believe it or not, when I was a young girl, I used to wish I’d wake up one morning and be a boy.  I envied my brothers – they could be Boy Scouts and play Little League baseball.  Boy Scouts got to camp in tents, hike in the woods at night, build fires and bird houses, and learn to tie knots.  Girl Scouts did lame stuff and there were no organized sports for girls back then.  Girl scouts rarely camped, and when we did, we had to stay in cabins.  No tents, fires, knots, or archery for us.  We baked cookies, sewed, did crafts, and learned to set a table properly.  I wasn’t very successful in collecting badges because I really didn’t have much enthusiasm for Girl Scout activities.  Thank heavens we don’t really get most of what we wish for.  Really, if I were a man, I’d be a huge disappointment to myself and everyone else....and all those man parts would be a nuisance.      

March 5^th is also an important day because it’s Sarah’s birthday!!!  She has already told me she wants no items for her birthday, only money.  Of course, I’ll bake her a cherry pie and find some little something, and wrap it up pretty so she’ll at least have some sort of birthday surprise.  If I had unlimited money, I’d buy her a giant chunk of land with a large lake fed by a delightful creek.  We’d have a gigantic rose garden, huge orchard with all sorts of trees growing just because we like them, not because we expect them to bare any fruit.  We’d have a big grove of chestnut trees, a field of zinnias, and lilac bushes everywhere.  Best of all, a gigantic pumpkin patch.  Well...maybe that’s more my dream than hers.  Maybe she just wants pastures of horses and sheep. 

Things have gone to hell at work.   I’ve been put in the middle of a pissing contest; it’s become a political battlefield.  To make matters worse, my supervisor has decided to bury his head in the sand because it’s too complicated and either way it goes, it’s going to make him look bad.  It’s probably going to wind up causing me lots of travel, either way it goes.  Retirement is looking better every day.  It’s time to take a serious look at the  numbers and see when (if) I can afford to leave.