All Hands on Deck

I was studying my hands just now. I have a slight obsession with hands, you know. It's not creepy or anything, I simply think they're rather amazing. Where would we be without hands? We do so much with them, from writing to fixing cars to carrying things to making rude (though sometimes deserved) gestures.

You can also tell a lot about a person by looking at their hands. For example, I have a gash across my right thumb from when I broke a glass a few nights ago. So, I'm a klutz.

Most of my fingernails are regulation length, but my index and second fingernails on my left hand are short. So, I recently stopped biting my nails, but it's a work in process.

I have small lines of ink randomly spattered across the fingers of my left hand. So, I write.

The life line on my right palm is long and very pronounced. So, I will live to be 108, have 60 grandchildren and 60 dogs, and write a dozen bestsellers, all of which will become part of Oprah's Reading list.

(Just kidding on the last one, by the way)

Besides vainly gazing at my own manos, I haven't done a whole lot this fine evening except read and watch Glee. I'm trying desperately to finish the book series I'm currently working on so that I can switch to something harder. I think this summer I'll go back to the old pattern of alternating lighter, easier books with dense classics. It seems to work, and then I don't feel like reading the classics is such a chore. Not that I don't ever enjoy the classics, but I'm not going to pretend that they're not difficult to get through sometimes. Depends on the book, of course.

Here's the list of classics I definitely want to get through this summer (note: I haven't read any of these before):
1. King Lear
2. Jane Eyre
3. This Side of Paradise
4. The Bell Jar
5. The Stand (Yes, I consider Stephen King to be somewhat of a classic author. You would too if you had dated the boy I did last year)
6. Crime and Punishment (or SOMETHING Russian)
7. Ivanhoe
8. Either Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn (or both, if I'm feeling ambitious)
9. Dickens (I sort of want to do David Copperfield first. Don't ask me why)
10. Uh oh this list is getting long. But I just can't leave anyone out!
11. The Picture of Dorian Gray
12. The Old Man and the Sea
13. Invisible Man (I guess...Since it was the only assigned book I didn't finish in high school, and because I hated it so much, and because everyone else in the world loves it...I'll try again)
14. Let's do another Toni Morrison. What has she written besides The Bluest Eye? Beloved? Okay.

Okay I'm going to stop before my entire reading list for life ends up in this post (I have one, by the way). How about if I read 8 off of this list I'll be satisfied that I didn't waste my summer reading rubbish? If I read 10 I'll do a happy dance and pat myself on the back a few times. If I read 13 I'll treat myself to a trip to Barnes and Noble and buy more books for next summer's list. Deal? Deal.

Katherine Mansfield

Exactly thirty-three minutes ago marked the beginning of Finals Week. Appropriately, I've been studying more or less all day.
It's gotten to the point where I feel like I'm melting into the bed on which I'm sprawled, and my nose, which nearly touches my open British Literature Anthology in earnestness, is simply sinking into its pages.
Then of course I have to sit up, make the awkward half-leap from bed to chair to floor, and hurry into the hallway under pretense of getting a drink. There, in the semi-darkness, I can breathe again.

Another result of my prolonged time in our small dorm room is that I am now well attuned to Ally's coughs. She has a cold of some sort, and every time I hear a sharp intake of air from her loft, I brace myself for the short hacking cough that follows. Each one lasts no longer than a second, but every so often there will be several of them in a row. It is then that I have to hunch down against my papers and close my eyes.

I'm still plugging away, though. One 750-word Brit. Lit. Essay, and 58 pages of reading in my crusades book left. Then I can shower and fall into sleep.

It's funny, but sometimes I long so much to be at home that I throw myself into my work in order to make Wednesday come faster. Other times I forget why I even want to leave. Why would I leave this life of friends and school, where my only real job is to learn as much as I can, and retain some semblance of what I learn?

I feel like the vague hero in some Shakespeare play. Hamlet, maybe? "To study, or not to study, that is the question!"
It's no question, really, I know. Still, I think it's one I'll be constantly asking myself until all is done.

You can go back to whatever you're doing now. But before you drop into your recliner, the TV remote stuck to your hand with a crust of popcorn grease and relaxation, please throw a few thoughts back for me. I'll be here.

P.S. Forgive the desperate title. It's the author of the short story I'm analyzing for my essay.