January 2003

This is not just an excuse. Okay, it's partly that, but really, it's also an explanation. Apparently, some people totally hate me because I can't give them all my free time-- but I'm just doing a deep yoga breath and forgetting the stressers....

A lot of people are confused, and have written to me wondering why there is not a lot of new content on the site. (Other than the book reviews, we have a ton of new book reviews, thanks to Natasha's hard work editing and reading and emailing and all the woman hours it takes; I cannot imagine her having any time to sleep).

I have no time anymore to work on my passion of this website! I do not want to quit, as I've seen other great websites do, but it's getting harder and harder to find the few days it takes me to publish an all new zine. This frustration has evolved quite slowly-- it took about a year for me to stop lying to myself that maybe I'd find the time somewhere to spend on the site. I really did NOT want to give up-- this is my baby, and I really do appreciate and love the interactions I have with (most) people about the work. A few people did fall into the crack of sending something I thought I could publish and not hearing from me forever. I still want to try really hard to get those things read, and edited into HTML, and then published (unless I hear otherwise from those writers.) Those essays and stuff are still sitting in the files of "things to read when I get time"... so if that is you, and you still want to be on the site, I will eventually get back to you. If you're in a hurry, see if you can't get it somewhere else; I will gladly release you from any promises to print here, and will remove anything that does get published if you put it somewhere else. But from my work a few years ago on a print journal, I do know that it takes almost as long sometimes for a print journal, which has money to pay someone to do the editing....

I think that catching up with this site will take until I get a little more of the work towards my PhD under my belt-- but I do think I can eventually catch up. I hope to do a couple of weeks on the site in the summer; summer is always a time for catching up for me, since I usually don't have the extra 30 hours a week from teaching to juggle. Last summer I didn't get it because I got the chance of a lifetime to go to England for almost free-- and that was the zine time... so sue me; but take a look at these great vacation slides!. :)

I am trying (and not doing very well, I'll tell you) to get my PhD done. I really haven't done much work at all on my dissertation-- which has been "in the works" for what seems like ages (without even a draft to show for it!) I do still know what I'm writing about, still plan to do the same thing, still even have a basic outline for the chapters. But I am supposed to do a lot of reading of what all the other critics say before I can consider myself an expert, and I'm just falling asleep on the couch way too much to get this done.

I suspect this is something that happens to everyone eventually-- you get tired of the grind of the job you do even if you still really love it. I just want to get paid real money for it before I turn forty (more than what I could make as a part time waitress, that is) and have some kind of promise that I'll still have a job next semester. I do truly love what I do-- I love talking about books. I love teaching students that writing is not nearly as hard as they think it is (composition & tech writing). But I am REALLY REALLY tired of being a student. I know, the real world has a lot more problems than me, but as an old man I once heard said, "every mule thinks his load is the heaviest." I know my load isn't really that darn bad, compared to some, but it's still mine to bear.....

Combine my academic meltdown with the fact that I am supposed to spend time with my husband (or he gets really irritable) and my cat (who gets even more irritable than him) and my friends (who keep asking me "when are you gonna be done with your PhD.? Maybe I should spend less time with them....) and you get the picture.

Still not enough lame excuses? Well read on.

Then, realize that after a couple of years of graduate school, something had to give on my butt getting bigger & bigger on all that "grad school" junk food. So a little over a year ago, now, I started working out. I succumbed to the pressure of the inner athlete inside me (who had been bound and gagged for most of my life, and who is really relieved to be free now). But with two hours of working out four or five days a week, there is not a lot of time for sitting at the computer, searching for new women's websites, or even updating the ones I already have. It really stinks-- I want to have more time. Where does one get one of those gadgets you see on TV where you can stop time for everyone but yourself, run around & get things done, then start it back up again? If someone would just invent one of those, my life would SO rock. But then, everyone else would have one too, and they'd get more done too, and I'd look like a slacker again. Sigh.

So this website is in what I hope to be a temporary state of very little publication....

I also have to make the decision soon as to whether I can invest any more money into the site (I pay about 600 dollars a year to host it now, and I've almost used up all the storage space that hosting plan allows-- so either I'll have to delete some old stuff or pay MORE money for this). I will decide that, in Scarlett O'Hara fashion, tomorrow. Complain complain complain. I'm amazed you've stuck with me this far, but it's almost over, I promise.

Don't despair, though-- cause there is hope. I got an email the other day that said I could get my PhD with no coursework, or dissertating, or any of that old-fashioned, "sucker-me" sort of system. It also promised that I could eat pizza and lose weight, that I could increase my penis size in an all natural way, that I could go to the best porn site and see the best chicks for free, AND proposed a very lucrative business deal with the former president of South Africa. All that in one email! Things are defininitely looking up. Now, if I could just get an email about that time-stopping gadget.....