small miracles

Here’s a secret for you: I almost never meet deadlines. At least that’s the way it feels.

I’m quite sure that I shouldn’t be admitting that. I mean I used to meet every single deadline. In high school and college and even early in graduate school, I practically turned in my papers early. Okay, so maybe I did actually turn in a few early. I was that girl. I never—well, maybe once—had to pull an all-nighter.

My dissertation changed all of this. Behind schedule, late with drafts, evasive about my progress. It’s a miracle that I finished as “quickly” as I did. Seven years, of course, isn’t quick to anyone but a graduate student in the humanities. It’s not even that quick to them.

But this is all beside the point. I mention it only because when I accepted my current job, I was asked again and again if I meet my deadlines. I lied. My advisor lied for me. I said, sure, of course, everything is always on time with me! They needed to know this because they had this outlandish idea to publish an institutional history in twelve months. Yup, I said, I’ll certainly have it done on time. I had my fingers crossed behind my back.

A week into my job I realized that that was the stupidest thing I’d ever promised. There was no way. It wouldn’t even be close. I’d be lucky to finish at the end of my two-year fellowship. Surely I'd get fired long before that.

So you can imagine my surprise when the first seventeen crates of this arrived just moments ago.

On time. It's actually two days early, but who could be counting? It could have used that extra year--really, it needed that extra year--but I'm trying not to think about it.

Now I'm just bracing myself for alumnae critique, outrage, vitriol, mudslinging. Bring it on.