• Doubleknit Blazer: Halogen via Nordstrom’s
• Dot-Matrix Dress: Target
• Belt (worn backwards): Forever 21
• Black Tights: HUE
• Brown Riding Boots: Franco Sarto via Zappos.com
• Teal Earrings: Mall vendor

When my late, great advisor in graduate school (the first time) thought I needed a little prompting to get going on a writing project (not that that ever happened. Ever. Of course not.), he would say, “[S.], the tempus is really starting to fugit on this one.” Or sometimes he’d just an e-mail with the subject heading, “the tempus is fugiting!” and a description of what I was supposed to be working on in the body of the e-mail. (Knowing now how little time he had left when he sent some of those e-mails, I wish I had spent more time just listening to him and less time frantically responding to those e-mails, but that somewhat cruel irony is better left for another day). It wasn’t really all that funny a way of trying to get me off the dime (again, that was never necessary! ever!), it was just one of those sort of classic things about him: that he was the kind of person who felt so strongly about your needing to meet a deadline that he had to express it partially in Latin.

But that time has come, now, on a number of projects, as I hurtle towards graduation (a word that never sounded so sweet). Time really is flying by, and there are days that I struggle to break through the deep procrastination that comes from not having a realistic plan for getting it all done on time and in a way that I’m proud of (note to Congress: your inability to resist the temptation to change federal law regarding religious refusals in health care is not helping. Settle down so I can finish writing, already!). But some days are better than others, and I’ve been glad to have some time during this “spring break” (hah!) to work in more uninterrupted blocks than I would normally be able to. We’ll get there, even if I have to just keep breathing through it sometimes. And who knows, being overdressed for a day in the library can’t hurt, right?

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