I am on page 541 of Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks. I am to have finished reading the entire book, all 731 pages, by tomorrow evening’s class.
I am on page 100 of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. I am to have finished reading the entire book, all 602 pages, by Monday evening, the next meeting of the Vlaardinger Boek Club.
I am on page 0 of Olive Ann Burns’s Cold Sassy Tree. I am to have finished reading the entire book, all 391 pages, by Friday morning, the next meeting of the Sixty-Six Dogs Book Club.
I have been awake and Highly Active since shortly after seven this morning, if you don’t count the 40 or so minutes I spent on the sofa this afternoon, Bible and journal in hand…. Oh, and I closed my eyes for ten of those.
Between now and any one of those aforementioned deadlines, I will continue to homeschool my children, prepare meals for my family, keep the laundry moving along, change everyone’s bedsheets, maintain housekeeping, practice my violin with the orchestra, coach my sons in their piano practice, read to my children, clean up various and sudden messes, meet with the director of my graduate program, make at least one visit to Duke’s west campus library, and, when possible, enjoy the company of my husband.
And now, at only 10:15, even as Duke struggles to maintain a lead over Carolina in a basketball game that they have No Excuse to lose, I am going to bed.
Yes, I am.
There is a dim chance that I will finish my reading assignment for class tomorrow night.
There is a remote possibility that I will finish Steinbeck’s book.
I’m almost 100% positive that Cold Sassy Tree doesn’t stand a chance.
