In graduate school I had a favorite New Yorker cartoon that got me through some of the tough times. Making lists is one of the great ways to organize one's life. And especially in a profession where you make your own choices as to how to allocate your working hours, lists are both a way of keeping track of time and obligations and a way to achieve satisfaction and get affirmation. I love lists -- I make them all the time. Inevitably, if I put on a pair of pants I haven't worn in a while, I will find an old list in the pocket. I have a fantasy about an art project where I collect lists -- my own, other people's -- and make a shellacked decoupage side table. But that project -- inspired by the mother of my best friend in graduate school, and perhaps conceived as long as twenty-five years ago -- is currently on the back burner. My list this morning looked like this: write blog post about list-making work on narrative for grant (edited volume) work on narrative for...
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