Today I was cleaning up my desk and I found this list, which, as I recall, I wrote about a month and a half ago, on my birthday:

I present it here today as an important cultural artifact and because I think it is a hilarious example of how neurotic I occasionally can be. I would also like to take this moment to check in and see how I am doing on each of these items:

1. No sleeping with unsuitable men.
Well, I have not slept with anyone, suitable or unsuitable, since the writing of this list. I have thought about unsuitable men, though. I have thought about them a lot.

2. No sleeping with unsuitable men on first dates.
See above. I have, however, gone on some dates! Which is good. Dates are good. Even if they don’t go anywhere, dates are good. (Making out would be better, but, what can you do?)

3. Volunteer with worthy cause.
Done! I am co-chairing a conference with my friend Lindsay for the journal that we both volunteer for, and also next weekend I have an orientation session so that I can start volunteering with the American Cinematheque.

4. Be better at writing back/phoning friends at home (esp. Jess!)
Um, I’m doing pretty good, I guess. I mean, I answer emails and I had phone dates with, like, a lot of people a couple of weeks ago. I should probably do that again. And…I should probably email Jess.

5. Seduce philosopher?
Working on it, sort of. I have decided to have a crush on the philosopher in question because having crushes, I’ve decided, is fun (so long as one does not allow the crush to evolve to “wicked mad” status, because that is horrible) and gives me something to do. Also, I enjoy thinking of hair-brained seduction schemes that I will probably never actually put into action. My current hair-brained scheme is something I like to call the “hey, wanna hang out and talk about Levinas?” scheme, which I will not put into action because because with my luck we would end up actually talking about Levinas which would be horrible because I have approximately nothing to say about Levinas.

6. Less time in bathtub.
Well, I am finally running out of bath bombs, so things are looking up in this department.

7. Read Kristeva finally.
Sure. Fine. Whatever. (No Kristeva has been read.)

8. Find roommate for next year.
I am almost positive that I have secured the best possible roommate and the best possible apartment but I do not want to say much lest I jinx the situation!

9. Less sugar.
Look, it’s not my fault that I eat too many cookies. The department is doing a faculty search right now, so I get to go to all these receptions after job talks and inevitably, there are delicious cookies. And they are free. And what is the best kind of food? Free food.

And I would like to add one more thing to this list:

10. Write shorter sentences.
I’ve been reviewing some of my work for the past term as part of an assignment, and holy fuck, I write some long-ass sentences. They are all well-crafted sentences, to be sure, and follow all of the appropriate grammatical rules, however, they are long. And they do not need to be, because long sentences need to be re-read several times before they make any sense, and god knows I don’t ever want to be one of those writers.