Toy Story

I have a lot of things on my desk.

Oh of course I have the usual stacks of books, papers, sundry office supplies, pictures, etc. but in addition I have accumulated quite a few cute little desk decorations from one

Liberty Duck, Shakescat, Gargoyle, Cthulhu, and a few other friends in between

place or another.  There’s Shakescat (a gift from an old roommate), Baby Hatching Gargoyle (a gift from my grandmother when I opened my theatre company and she realized that our logo was almost exactly like this sculpture), chibi chtulhu (I made him.  He’s adorable.  Who doesn’t want an elder god on their desk?), statue of liberty duck (gift from my nearest and dearest), and, of course, a few requisite littlest pet shop sets.

Okay, fine, I admit to it.  I, as an adult, have purchased toys that I, as a child, would never have played with.  When we were kids, the littlest pet shop playsets were TINY (and probably all manner of choking hazards).  They also weren’t all that cute.  Have you seen them recently?  Now, they have big giant eyes.  Also, as far as I can tell, a sense of humor.  For instance: on my desk right now are a pirate parrot, a carrier pigeon in a mailroom, a cute little cow, and an owl in a library who wears glasses.

Now, I love my owl.  She’s adorable.  But she has this problem.  She doesn’t like to stay in her library.  She flies the coop at least three times a week, sometimes while I’m sitting at the desk.  I don’t really know what her end goal is other than SWEET SWEET FREEDOM

FREEEDDDOOOOMMMMM!!!

(…which I assume would be acquired if she ever got any further than the patch of desk just below her library… unfortunately, I’m pretty good at preventing owl escapes so she’s never seen the outside world).

I never really understood what her trouble was.  After all, she lives in a LIBRARY.  Why would she EVER want to leave?

…I’m getting to the place in the semester where I’m beginning to see her point.

I turned in my first PhD level paper the other week (in Chicago style, a first for me, and with pretty pretty diagrams!).  The sense of accomplishment I should have felt at plonking that stack on the professor’s desk was, unfortunately, dwarfed by the knowledge that this was only one down…. There were still two lurking on my own desk waiting for their share of my rapidly dwindling attention.

So here I am.  Stuck in this library.  Looking yearningly to the world that I know awaits

my first PhD level paper!

outside.  I leave on Thursday for a two-week vacation and, by that time, all of my coursework for my first semester of the PhD will be completed.  By that time, I will have shrugged the weight of these papers from my back.  By that time, I will be able to sleep soundly knowing that the pages are tucked in to good hands and awaiting critical commentary.  By that time, I will be done done done.

And it will be time to take off my glasses, and leap bodily out of the library.  Alright, owl, maybe you have a point.  There’s a time for reading, and there’s a time for liberating, and right now I smell that beauteous odor of freedom wafting through the open door.  A few more days… just a few more days.