Avoiding Grading

Here’s a list of things I did, over this three-day weekend, to avoid grading 50-plus summer reading papers:

1. 4 loads of dishes
2. 7 hours of The West Wing
3. Swept kitchen
4. Mopped kitchen
5. Assembled bassinette
6. Assembled multi-featured electronic mobile that hangs over bassinette
7. Studied how to turn off replay of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star in attempt to retain sanity while assembling multi-featured electronic mobile—eventually just removing batteries in frantic fashion
8. Naps
9. 7-9 hours attempting to put video on website
10. Downloaded DVD Shrink 3.2
11. Watched YouTube video some kid made on how to use DVD Shrink 3.2
12. Created YouTube channel
13. Vacuumed
14. More naps (including dreams in which employed in West Wing)
15. Installed baby car seat
16. Visited nursing home (grandfather)
17. Walked around block
18. Downloaded Adobe Flash update in hopes of being again able to watch Daily Show online
19. Read 6 articles on novel publicity, all of which I’d read before
20. Read 20 pages of Tender is the Night
21. True Romance (the movie) on Amazon
22. Googled name of every new hire on Creative Writing Wiki (mostly in search of their age)
23. Helped sister-in-law move furniture
24. Chicken pot pie at Marie Callendar’s
25. Brainstormed how cats could be used to create book trailer
26. Watched other people’s book trailers
27. Watched other people’s Kickstarter videos
28. Scrubbed toilet
29. Scrubbed tub
30. Swept bathroom
31. Mopped bathroom
32. Food-4-Less
33. Wine coolers
34. One dozen donuts
35. Traded pregnant English teacher wife numbers 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 13, 15, 28, 29, 30, 31, and 34 for her grading of 50-plus summer reading papers