The End of Summer Break
My summer classes start Saturday, and I have that mixture of excitement and dread that goes along with starting back school after a pleasant break.

On my break, I actually got to read books for pleasure for the first time in a good while. I read A Series of Unfortunate Events, by Lemony Snicket; the Spring 2001 issue of Scribbling Mob; Single Mothers By Choice by Jane Mattes; the Birds of Prey graphic novel; Culture Jam by Kalle Lasn; the Summer issue of Bust; Puck of Pook’s Hill by Rudyard Kipling; The Shining by Steven King; and I hope to start American Gods by Neil Gaiman tomorrow night. Oh yeah, and a bunch of comics. But I do that every other week anyway – comics are such wonderful short distractions when I’m in school, when I don’t have time for novels like I did over the break. Gosh, it was nice, to be able to read for fun. It even seems like I must have read some other stuff, but I forget what it was now – probably things I just re-read, old favorites that I go over again and again for fun sometimes.

Having seven weeks off from graduate school was pleasant. Sure, a lot of bad stuff happened in May (enough for me to officially christen it “The Month of Suck”) but once my friends showed up, everything turned around. And having the time off from school and away from Ryan has done me wonders. I started eating soy products of my own free will, and keeping rice milk around the house. Several of the books I read sparked entirely new thoughts in my head, and changed the way I think about things. I re-organized my whole life! I have big new plans! If I were in a children’s movie, this is where I’d start a big musical number! Just like the one at the end of The Muppet Movie, where Kermit and all his cohorts break into the very end of Rainbow Connection:

Life’s like a movie
Write your own ending
Keep believing
Keep pretending
We’ve done just what we set out to dooooooooo…
Thanks to the lovers
The dreamers
and Yoooooouuuuuuuuu!!!!!!


Okay, you got me. I admit it. I sing this to myself all the time.