"The American Way of Life"

On the homestretch to writing my thesis, E was my writing partner. We'd meet online, with chat windows open, fill each other in on what we were about to work on, set our Zen-bell alarm clocks and work for 45 minutes.

Ding!

We would take a 5-10 minute break, either go get some coffee in our respective kitchens, or do a debriefing on how our work had gone and anything that had been problematic.

Then the alarm programs would be reset and Ding! another 45 minutes.

Sometimes we did just one or two sessions, but other days, when there was a looming deadline, it would be 5 or 6 sessions. It was the only way I got so much done in such a contracted period of time.

And I think it worked so well because of a quote that E brought to one of our sessions..."Writing leads to motivation, not the other way around." It was that first 5 minutes of the first 45 minute session which were the hardest.

So here I am, trying to put this into practice again. I'm still ramping up to get back to work after a month of debilitating back problems, but I really want to get back to producing something from my dissertation that is accessible (and palatable) to more than just my committee members. I'll try to write about my work a few days a week, but just sitting down to write every day is the best way for me to start again.

Since Mondays need to be slowly settled into whenever possible, I'm aiming for fun photos and light topics. Like the maple syrup bottle at our table at brunch yesterday. M and I had a lunch date, courtesy of our babysitter, and we opted for comfort food, at Bohemia, instead of the anxiety producing exercise of roaming Zurich's old town in search of a menu and ambiance we liked. Pancakes and eggs benedict won.

And on our table was a brand I'd seen already on peanut butter here in the stores. "Nick: the easy rider." That's a brand? Complete with red, white and blue fonts and stars. What we couldn't decide was if it was really ignorance of Americana, or a deliberate aim at kitsching it WAAAAAY up. Or something in between. Did the company know that the branding was weird and at best American-derivative?

Who knows. The pancakes, although outrageously expensive, were pretty good. And on a cold rainy sunday, in a Cuban-ish restaurant/bar, American enough.