But... but...

I feel like stopping. I really do. I've scored nearly 1600 words today, well beyond my usual daily production, and I'm so close to the end of this piece that one more day at the computer would polish it off nicely.

And yet one more day at the computer is something I won't have right now, because by this time tomorrow, I will (d.v.) be snug as a bug in a Room with a View in an Undisclosed Location, sleeping and readying myself for escapades of which I've been dreaming for more than a decade. I am ecstatic.

I promised myself that I would finish drafting this essay before my trip, though, which means that it's time to resurrect my good old college-and-grad-school-and-who-am-I-kidding-also-teaching-career stay-up-until-it's-done skills. I'm close enough to the end that I've been able to feel it coming all day long, and I think that even the transitions that seemed weak, or even utterly nonsensical, may by and large be skillful after all. The brilliant thing about meeting this goal--see how I'm talking myself into staying with it, just by talking to you for a little while?--is that I'll be able to sweep inches and inches of paper off of my desk and onto a shelf before I go, which means that when I return, these piles and pages won't obstruct my getting back to work on the big project.

I keep doing calculations in my head: if I stay up for X more hours, I will still be able to get Y hours of sleep before I call a cab to go to the rail station. And when I need a break, I assemble some more things I need for the trip. With some balance of luck and skill, I'll put a finishing touch on the essay right about the time I'm ready to zip up the suitcase, and I'll still get enough sleep so that I don't miss all of the countryside tomorrow.

And a postscript: the Cabinet just received what may have been its very first piece of spam commenting ever! Which begs the question: what took them this long?

Today: 1567 words (so far).