"I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything I dreamed it could be."

So, I’m on vacation (hence the lack of posts). It hasn’t hit me yet that I am totally done in lab, but it feels awful nice to not be there. Yesterday I was painting a (very pathetic) picture when my phone rang. It was a friend of mine who is still trying to finish up, with a technical question about an experiment. I put down my paintbrush and answered his question, and he asked how things were.

Awesome. Things are awesome.

The time is going by frighteningly fast, but it is great. A few days ago I didn’t even change out of my pajamas until 3pm. Pathetic, you say? Definitely. But I’ve really been able to catch up on my Little House.

Let me tell you what: the shit always goes down on the prairie. One of my best friends, Andrea, and I realized this some years ago. We didn’t notice it so much when we were kids watching the show, but as an adult it can really put things in perspective. Have a rough day at work? I’ll bet it wasn’t as bad as the time that Pa got run over by the giant, one-ton milling wheel. Got stuck in traffic? Not as bad as the time that Mary, newly blind, got into a really bad stagecoach accident, was stranded for days with her also blind husband trapped under the coach, and almost died in the open plains. Missed your favorite TV show? At least you didn’t lose your baby and your best friend, mother of two young children, in a boarding school fire.

I haven’t just been sitting around watching LHotP. I’ve engaged in other highly impressive activities, such as going to the grocery store and occasionally showering. I’ve had a really good friend visiting so we’ve been hanging out and that forces me to put on real clothes, but I’m going back to the PJ’s when he leaves on Wednesday.

I worry sometimes that this lifestyle is spoiling me, and it will make it all the more painful when, in a few weeks, I have to get up at 4am, work for 15 hours, come home and eat whatever is in the fridge while studying for several hours, and then pass out, hopefully in or near the bed. On the other hand, maybe it will get me nice and rested up.

I sure will miss Little House, though. I might have to check in now and again, when I really feel sorry for myself, and see what kind of horrible plague has descended on the people of Walnut Grove, or who died in a tragic barn raising accident. It will help me remember that they, too, have to get up at 4am, but I'd take walking around an air conditioned hospital over slaving in scorched fields any day.