Birthing Pains

Ugh. I've had the worst writing week trying to crank out my conclusion. Who knew this bloody thing would be so fucking difficult to write? I spent two or three days hammering away at it very slowly (and between shifts), and I only managed to produce about eleven pages that I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to use. I went to work very much on edge yesterday, and vented (with much restraint) my frustrations to one of my co-workers. Poor guy. He responded initially by saying, "Oh, yeah, that's like, the most important part of your dissertation, right?" When I was like "Ahhhhhhh!" he changed tactics and said, "Oh, yeah, nobody will read it anyway." "Ahhhhhhh!" Like I said, poor guy. Seriously, though, I hope neither of those things is true. At least I need to believe that right now.

Anyway, so today I screwed myself up to try again. I sat down and started writing the thing from the beginning. Between 9 and 3 (with a break in there to take C to the mechanics and eat lunch with her) I wrote sixteen pages. Now I'm as done as I can be for the time and very much desirous of a reward of some sort. So far, I've decided to skip pilates, since I'm not feeling it today and ran eight miles yesterday. (On a side note, I didn't really intend to. It just so happened that the jerks at vh1 decided to get the maximum mileage out of the first episode of the new reality tv show, "I Love Money" and stretch the bloody thing out to 1 1/2 hours with loads upon loads of commercial breaks. So, of course, I ran the whole time. And, yeah, today, I'm not feeling it. If it doesn't make me too sweaty, I might flounder around on the living room floor for a while doing some of the moves that like best/find the most difficult. C is suffering through sad tv movies, so whatever I do, I can't be very disruptive.

Other things I'm considering: 1) Driving to Weggies for some more of the Purely Decadent Coconut Ice Cream. This time I'd get the cookie dough flavor, because I'm fat like that. Last time I got the Mint Chocolate Chip, because C's fat like that. 2) Hunting for a pastry blender. I dearly want one and have vowed not to make any more recipes which involve cutting fat into flour until I have an adequate one in my possession. So far, I've only really looked at Target, and the ones there looked very chintzy indeed. I want one that can really cut the cold cold vegan margarine (not room temperature, because, as we all know, pastry is all about coldness. We do all know that, right?) into flour. I feel like getting a substandard one would be like buying it just to throw it away. In the interest of full disclosure, I should add that I have some serious cherry pie on the brain. I made a pie a week or so ago that was quite good, but not perfect. And now I have the need to try again using the sour cherries that are newly in season. Farmer's Market. Saturday. Here I come. The pie crust, incidentally, and not that anyone cares, is the kind made with vodka and ice water. The idea here, which I would have appreciated more fully if I hadn't kind of fucked it up by preparing the fruit too early, is that the vodka evaporates during cooking eliminating forever the problem of the gummy pie crust. Exciting right? 3) Cleaning the fridge. The only good thing about this is that I don't have to drive to do it, and it fills up some of the time between now and when I can have a glass of tequila without feeling...strange. 4) Calling my mom. I'm going to do this for sure, and it has the advantage of fulfilling part of the requirements of number 3. While I decide, check out this pie via www.thenibble.com.