Tasty Doesn't Have an E in It

So I met with Dr. C. yesterday about my thesis outline, and we went over all the sections and she helped me come up with some page guidelines, and it's looking like it's going to end up being about 70 pages of narrative. Believe it or not, this is a HUGE relief to me, because I was envisioning something more in the 150 page range. Now that I know I only have to do half that, I feel so much better. I'll still need to manage an average of ten pages a week, but that seems...possible. At various times in my academic career I've managed ten pages in a night, so I should certainly be able to do ten pages in a week.
The downside is that she told me she wants it BEFORE spring break, which is two weeks earlier than the official deadline for turning a thesis in to your committee. I told her I'd try, but frankly, I'm not going to kill myself trying to do it. Obviously I would love to have my thesis basically finished and behind me before I head off to New York, and I'd like to have over a month to just focus on studying for my comprehensive exams and editing when I get back. However, my committee mainly just wants my thesis early because it's convenient for them not to have to read five or six long documents at once (there are only seven graduate faculty members so all of our committees overlap quite a bit) and in the end what's more important, their convenience or my mental health?

So yeah, that's the thesis news. I'm sure you'd like to hear about something else going on in my life, but to be perfectly honest, there's really not much going on at this exact moment.

I realize I never told you about my trip to Houston. I love to do that, actually do something fun and somewhat notable and then not tell you about it but instead bore you to death with yet another entry about schoolwork. But...there's really not a lot to say about Houston either. It was great to see Jenny and Matthew and I had fun with both of them, I didn't drink nearly as much as I normally do when I'm with Jenny (which is a good thing, I suppose), Matthew and I got manicures, I met a guy in an "open marriage" (whatever), we had a hell of a time just trying to go bowling one night and finally got to do "X-treme Bowling" at a cheap discounted price (final verdict: not very X-treme), and I got lost a lot. Every time I drive in Houston I feel like all I do is make u-turns. I ended up in River Oaks three different times during the two days I was in Houston, and all three times I wasn't actually supposed to be there ("I'm on Kirby AGAIN?! How does this keep happening?!"). All in all it was a pretty good time.

Um, what else? I had a good weekend this weekend. I spent a lot of time with my siblings and my sister's boyfriend, they came down on Saturday and we had lunch and drinks and then played football at the park. Well, they played football, I tried in vain to get Cohen interested in playing fetch (basset says "no dice"). Then on Sunday I went up to Austin and Shane and I ate dinner at the restaurant where Chelsea works. I had a lot of amusing conversations with my brother. I think the highlights were when he informed me that he hopes his future girlfriend never plays golf because he needs the golf course to be the place where he escapes from her, and that he actually schedules classes and workouts and life in general around the series of TV programs he watches from 4:00 until 6:00 every weekday afternoon. Oh, and at one point he actually said, "Is she hot and stupid? 'Cause if she is, I'll date her." My brother is such a boy.
On Friday night I went to an undergrad party, which I kind of promised myself that I wouldn't do for a while after the fiasco at the last undergrad party I went to, but a bunch of us grads were out at a bar on Friday night and we ran into one of the undergrads who asked if we were going to the party. And we all just kind of looked at each other and shrugged and she said, "Well, I know you all don't usually hang out with undergrads, but if you feel like slumming tonight you should stop by." And she was totally joking, but how could we not at least make an appearance after that? So we went "slumming", and it was fun enough but completely predictable, especially the part where the cops showed up at 2 in the morning. I did end up giving my phone number to a cute enough, friendly guy who asked for it and told him he could call me Saturday and maybe I'd go out for a drink with him. But then he didn't end up calling, he just sent me a text message at 9:00 Saturday night saying, "So what are you doing?" and is it wrong that I ignored his message? I mean, I didn't have his phone number, so technically it was an anonymous text message (obviously it was from him, but still), and besides, I think that's kind of a pussy thing to do, texting a girl when you've never called her before and not even bothering to say who the text is from. That is kind of a weak thing to do, right? A cool guy would have called me, and would have done it before 9:00, right? (Forget the fact that if the shoe were on the other foot I probably would have sent a text message, too. After all, I can't possibly date someone as phobic of the telephone as I am, that would never work! Somebody has to have the balls in the relationship, and I have no desire for that person to be me.)
Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm just looking for excuses to reject guys. I'm being way too picky. I know. But I think I'm finally starting to really enjoy this whole hiatus thing, and why shouldn't I be picky?