It's that time again. The time when, once again, my academic work has been equated to playtime in everyone's mind. The time when, however many times I state the minute I need to walk out the door, no one pays the slightest attention. The time when my leaving for the library may be freely and endlessly delayed because my husband wants to sleep in or read the paper, or my son wants to explore the pantry or read The Snowy Day for the fifth time in a row. Yes, it's once more the time when I have to assert the value and importance of my work.

There's only so much blame I can lay on other people. Really, I'm quite complicit. I want my husband to get plenty of rest and relaxation. I want to spend time with my son, watch him discover, help him learn. Asserting that my work really is work and that my working hours really must be honored by everyone is my job, and no one else's. Sure, it's tedious that every few months, I have to put my foot down, firm and loud, and announce that This Is It, We May No Longer Disrespect Snail's Worktime, but that is simply how it is.

I need about 4 hours per day, six days a week, at the library. Lately that time has shrunk to 1, maybe 2 hours per day, maybe four days a week. But I had to stay home and let my husband rest, right? Sure, except...well, the only way I can justify not going to work is if I stop considering it really work. If I had a job at a corporation, would it be OK for me to flitter off for a day here and there, because my husband sprained his ankle or my kid is teething? I mean, maybe, just a little, right when things are most acute, but not habitually.

It is one of the things the best books on dissertation-writing tell you: treat your academic work like a job. It isn't something to put off because you don't feel like it, or your family wishes you wouldn't go, or your friends want to chat. To finish graduate school, one simply has to give up a lot of socializing time. That's how it is.

Yesterday I accidentally left the ringer off on the phone. I turned it off while I was putting my son down for a nap, and forgot to turn it back on. My best friend, I learned this morning, was exceedingly worried when she couldn't reach me. She phoned over and over all evening, at home and on our cell phones (dunno why we didn't hear those, but we didn't), and sent me emails. Her concern was very kind, even admirable. But it is exactly the kind of pressure that I have to steel myself against once more. Not being able to contact me or play with me or rely on me for some extra sleeping or relaxing time is NOT an emergency. It is a simple, normal part of a reality in which Snail is a grownup with her own grownup concerns that do not always include the gratification of other people's needs and desires before her own.

And now I need to take my 80 remaining minutes and try to get something done. (Herein lies the other problem: I am so disheartened, when I arrive at the library with less than two hours to work, I often can't get anything done anyway.) (And sometimes, rather than being too disheartened, I am too pissed off. Like today.)

Snail Out.