My graduate degree is now 20% complete. I finished my ill-advised summer term with an A- and a B+.

Starting on September 9, I’m back in classes with the titillating monikers of Persuasion Research and Political Economy of Mass Communication, which I anticipate will be roughly as dramatic and thought-provoking as they sound.

Then again, my favorite class this past term was Research & Writing Methods, which is not supposed to happen. I’m an odd duck, I suppose, and shouldn’t pre-judge.

In the meantime, I’m flitting between non-scholastic activities in a way I haven’t since summer meant combing the shelves of the Ilsley Public Library for something I hadn’t read yet and spending hours in the pool discussing the relative merits of each New Kid on the Block.

In addition to reclaiming my guest room as an office and turning my former office nook into a reading space, I’m tackling the stack of books that’s been growing on my bedside table since at least Christmas. I finished Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin on Sunday and highly recommend it, particularly if you’ve ever thought the Roaring Twenties might have been the right historical period for you. It’s a gripping look into the lives of Dorothy Parker and Edna Ferber and the rest of the Algonquin Round Table set in the days of speakeasies and hotel rentals, back when European travel was cheap and these creative, destructive characters cared little for planning ahead.

I think I could have handled the happy-go-lucky, hand-to-mouth existence, especially if it included Grand Tours every summer. I’m not at all sure I could have handled the bootleg liquor, tuberculosis, and the lack of indoor plumbing and electricity in vacation homes.

I’m all for roughing it, as long as I can flush comfortably.

For being culturally savvy women of letters, they were a special kind of crazy. Reading about them writing made me want to write…it also made me want to brush my teeth.

So I’m reading things that are not about communications, I’m rearranging things in my home, and I am, in theory, if I ever get to the craft store, putting the pictures and other detritus from this summer’s events into my scrapbook.

I’m playing Beautiful Katamari every now and then, but I’ve been sucking at it lately.

I’m streaming the first four seasons of LOST via Netflix and Xbox Live…because I can and because I stopped paying attention toward the end of the second season and I’d like to know where it went after that.

I’m sleeping. A lot. I’m pretty sure you can’t make up or bank sleep, but I’m willing to try.

I’m dreaming of a relaxing week of plain old vacation in the Outer Banks with a hammock and a hot tub. Next summer, maybe?

I’m getting ready to close on Mom’s house. More on that in another post…