A man with a plan

Girl, actually. Chick even.

Now that it is August 1st, officially, I need to establish a plan for utalizing my last few weeks of vacation to the fullest extent.
I need to do the following:

1. Read 12th Night
2. Finish my summer cleaning list
3. Organize and plan fall curriculum
4. Read everything I can get my hands on by Charles D'Ambrosio and George Saunders
5. Read everything I can get my hands on period
6. Write a story to bring to class on the 18th.

I know there are other things I need to do.

I always wonder about lists to do, how effective they are, how much time I waste making them, etc. But I'm really not very good at managing my time, it all seems to slip away when I'm not looking. So, the lists will stay and it'll be all good.

I read and I read and I read some more

Yeah, so I know I haven't written in like a week. I was in the Bahamas. It was pretty fuckin' sweet. Mom took me on a mother/daughter vacation. We laid on the beach almost the whole four days (with the exception of taking an hour out of the day to get massages). I've never been to the Bahamas before; I'm a pretty big fan.

I finished the Brain book in a flourish after one day of beach reading. Then, having already watched The Ninth Gate with Johnny Depp, maybe the most kick ass movie ever, I began the short story reading marathon.

I read:

1. "Beverly Home" Denis Johnson
2. "Epstein" Philip Roth
3. "Open House" Charles D'Ambrosio
4. "The Hoaxer" Walter Kirn
5. "The Story of My Life" Kim Edwards
6. "A Record as Long as Your Arm" George Garrett
7. "China" Charles Johnson
8. "Smorgasbord" Tobias Wolff
9. "Rich" Ellen Gilchrist

My favorites were....well I pretty much liked them all. Very different stories. I liked the Edwards story because I think it matches my style of writing the most. This surprised me, but some of the lines as I read them I was like "hey, that's how I would write that." Gave me hope. I obviously loved D'Ambrosio's "Open House." I also really loved "Rich" and "A Recored as Long as Your Arm." Yeah, good short story reading session.

Now I need to bury myself in George Saunders. I also got D'Ambrosio's new collection of essays, Orphens. I hope I live to be a thousand years old so I can read everything I have on my list.

Top Five Dream Jobs

In the interest of High Fidelity here are my top five dream jobs. PS, I love John Cusack.

1. Professional, successful writer. Obviously. And I mean like Stephen King professional successful. Yeah, if I'm dreaming, I want the money, the kick ass house, and the baseball field.

2. University professor of post 1945 literature and writing. Basically what I do now at the high school level but with students who show up, give a damn, think on their own and don't always look to do the minimum and if they fail to do one or all of those things I can fail them or kick them out of class without getting a call from their parents telling me I'm a lousy human being for not encouraging their little deviant in a more positive way.

3. Johnny Depp's personal assistant. Again, obviously. I'd even roll his smokes for him.

4. A Broadway actress. I loved being on stage, back stage, rehearsing, everything when I was in theater. I'm not nearly as big of a fan of directing as I was of being on stage. I can't sing for shit and my acting, well, it was okay in high school. But hey, dream job.

5. An FBI agent. Preferably on something like the X-Files. Quit rolling your eyes. Dreams, people. I'm a big fan of the unknown and I like variety.

So there you have it.