Every Day is Yours to Win

Those who know me, and longer readers of this blog know that I'm quasi-obsessed with REM, and so the news of their closing-up-shop in 2011 was a blow, especially since they had released their best album in 15 years just months before.

But on that album is a typically Stipe-ean song that shares its title, one that seems at once idealistic and optimistic, while at the same time, knowingly ironic. And it is with that same combination of motivational optimism and vaguely weary ironic detachment that I trot that phrase out for my sabbatical.

Because I know that if I don't treat every day as one to be, well, won--against inertia, primarily--that the whole thing will be frittered away before I know it. And so without further adieu, here is the list of projects on the front, middle, and back burners. I won't get to them all, but I want to touch, if not complete most of them.

• proofreading corrections to the book manuscript.
• indexing (or arranging for indexing) of the book manuscript
• The overdue book review.
• The narratology essay, already 18 pages drafted
• the pain essay (see the recent MLA program), currently in either 6 pages of prose or 22 pages of prosy notes
• The essay on theatrical representations of terrorists and human rights, an extension of a recent essay, and maybe only a conference paper.
• The essay on published autobiographies of autobiographical performance artists
• The next book, which will have 8 chapters, with the following thematic titles: history, community, body, authenticity, space, gender, alterity, disability. Of those, only two chapters will be built from the ground up, and there are probably about 150 pages of extant prose to work with.
  

So keep your fingers crossed. To win tomorrow, I've got to touch the book review.