1. The first deadlines for Infinite Summer
2. Hair (so goes the thick, lustrous hair of pregnancy…down the drain…)
3. An acceptable level of blood iron
4. Uninterrupted sleep
5. Patience
6. The point of NYC Prep (not in an entertainment way, but an existential way)
7. A sunny disposition
8. Coffee
9. A serious plan for how I’m going to function as a working mother
10. Texas
11. My “blogiversary,” or whatever the hell you call it (June 26th it was, and no, let’s not dwell on who I was last year at this time)
12. The willingness to end a list on a uneven or otherwise disturbing number like 11.

Note: I promise not to keep up the “infinite” titles. Annoying as fuck, they are.

Either Infinite Summer is bigger than I think it is, or Borders and B&N are worse than I think they are.

It was a Kafkaesque experience, really, my search for the book. Three Barnes & Nobles and a Borders, three of which listed IJ as in stock.  Three B&Ns with empty shelves where IJ should have been.  Three helpful but mystified clerks who said that their computers listed the book as either out of stock, or in stock but missing, or out of stock but also not sold (not sure what that meant).

Why the shelf gaps?  Why the “available for in-store pick-up” listed on the website?  Why the tease?  For awhile I thought I was one step behind whoever was out there scooping up the IJs until, at the last stop, the info desk person insisted that the book was never in stock and hadn’t been sold, in fact, in weeks.  The website?  Wrong.  That’s not so hard to believe but for the shelf gaps, the taunting blank spaces where IJ should have been.

So.  All of this is to say that I still don’t have the book, and Infinite Summer starts tomorrow.  I’m behind before I’ve begun.