Eugenious

The Earthling figure who is most engaging to the Trafalmadorian mind, he says, is Charles Darwin — who taught that those who die are meant to die, that corpses are improvements. – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five

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Listen. All great literature is about what a bummer it is to be a human being. – Kurt Vonnegut, “Cold Turkey”, In These Times, May 12, 2004.

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My uncle Alex Vonnegut[…] taught me something very important. He said that when things were really going well we should be sure to notice it.

He was talking about simple occasions, not great victories[….]

Uncle Alex urged me to say this out loud during such epiphanies: “If this isn’t nice, what is?” – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Timequake

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I say in lectures in 1996 that fifty percent or more of American marriages go bust because most of us no longer have extended families. When you marry somebody now, all you get is one person.

I say that when couples fight, it isn’t about money or sex or power. What they’re really saying is, “You’re not enough people!”

Sigmund Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted. I know what women want. They want a whole lot of people to talk to. – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Timequake

My sister Allie in real life, which for her lasted only forty-one years, God rest her soul, thought falling down was one of the funniest things people could do. I don’t mean people who fell on account of strokes or heart attacks or snapped hamstrings or whatever. I am talking about people ten years old or older, of any race and either sex, and in reasonably good physical condition, who, on a day like any other day, all of a sudden fell down. – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Timequake

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I have one heck of a good time. Listen: we are here on Earth to fart around. Don’t let anybody tell you any different! – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Timequake

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God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut.

For those of you with more free time on your hands than I have (or had, until last week), here’s the master’s thesis (5 MB PDF file) that I just handed in. My master’s degree was in Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon, just like Julie’s.

The title is “A Case Study of a Floodplain Channel Restoration Project in the Southern Willamette Valley of Oregon.” It’s almost 100 pages long (about 30,000 words), but my readers tell me that it should be pretty easy for most people to understand. I worked hard to keep jargon and made-up words, two graduate school standbys, out of my writing.

I handed in my thesis this morning at 8 AM. A note for the Joneses among you: it wasn’t due until tomorrow. How’s that for breaking the mold?

Everyone has been asking me what I’m going to do now. I tell them: “I’m going to read a book.” Really. That’s my big ambition for now.

They don’t give medals, but in less than (fewer than?) two weeks, I will receive a certificate, suitable for framing, declaring me the Master of Science. I will no longer be the least educated adult in my family.

P.S. My primary thesis advisor actually wrote the following when she returned my draft: “I have very few changes to make, it’s in very good shape.” I was shocked. She was probably more shocked than I, having seen the state of my draft just six weeks earlier.

I’ve figured out what this feeling is. It’s the feeling I get during mile 25 of a marathon. I’m exhausted, really exhausted, and I don’t see how I can keep going, but somehow I just keep putting one foot in front of another. At under eight minutes per mile. I know that I’ve got to keep going until the end. There’s a big bag of Doritos waiting for me in less than two miles.

My thesis is due in nine days. As far as I’m concerned, it’s done and ready to hand in. Julie and Patrick have both read it and given me helpful feedback. I have formatted everything in accordance with the graduate school’s strict and somewhat antiquated guidelines. I’m just waiting for feedback from one of my advisors. I have this fantasy in which she writes “This is great! Don’t change a thing!” across the top and gives it back to me, but she’s not that kind of advisor. I picked someone who gives ten constructive comments for every piece of positive feedback. Hmm, just like me.

I’m working on my second cold in three weeks. The last one was a bruiser. I took my first sick days since starting work at the UO more than seven years ago. And of course I spent those days writing. This cold is not as bad yet, but I did sleep for five hours today after sleeping nine hours last night. Did I mention that I’m exhausted?

Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot.

Three thousand words by 11:30 AM. I’ll take it. This feels good.
Time to go print everything out for the plane and start packing for my trip.

This is about how my brain feels right now:

I had 1,000 words done before 9:30 AM, then I stalled at a hard section, fiddling with it for a while. Something got me started again (probably my 11:30 hit of dark chocolate), and I cranked out the rest of a 3,000-word section before 1 PM.

This is going to work.

Here’s our house with as much snow as we’ll probably get this year. This picture was taken five days after Thanksgiving.

Postscript at 8 PM: I finished the day with 5,000 words under my belt. That’s 17 pages. Only 3,000 to go tomorrow.

Is this getting old for you? I’m still having fun. I’ve got 8,000 more words to go, about 27 pages. I got 3,000 done today, despite a haircut, a dentist appointment, showing the house, checking in on the dry rot work, taking a half-hour nap, and dining with Liz and Larry.

For those of you who are tired of not seeing any fun pictures, here’s one of Julie with Aunt Sheila’s casserole cozy:

The good news is that I’m right on schedule. I finished a 5,000-word section tonight, shrinking it to just under 3,000 words. My word counter says I have 11,000 words to go over the next four days, which means I’m about two-thirds done.

The bad news is that we have a mysterious, small leak dripping water from the porch ceiling just above the front door of our house, and the contractor working on the house we’re trying to sell reports that there is standing water under that house. It looks like someone will be buying a sump pump tomorrow, somewhat ahead of schedule. And I don’t think the porch leak will go away by itself either.

I’m still on schedule, with a thousand words this morning and a thousand last night. I think I need to get ahead a little, though. Ten thousand in three days is looking more and more daunting as Friday approaches.