if you love me, leave me alone

Reality check:

UC Berkeley's summer 2006 dissertation filing deadline is August 18.

I have about 100 pages written and easily another 150 to go.

The university recommends submitting a completed dissertation to all committee readers two months in advance of the deadline. That means my own personal writing deadline is June 18. (Followed, presumably, by two months of final feedback and revisions.)

Accordingly, I have taken an official leave-of-absence from 42 Entertainment to facilitate a final, Hail Mary pass at finishing this writing. Two to three months of writing until my fingertips bleed, my laptop explodes and my brain falls out of my nose. (Okay, maybe hopefully not that last part.)

So. If you love me, please leave me alone.

That means as much as I hate to say this, BETWEEN NOW AND JUNE 18:

• Please don't invite me to come give a talk, even if the talk is after June 18.
• Please don't tempt me with cool game design opportunities, even if the game date is after June 18.
• Please, especially, don't tempt me with exciting travel.
• Please don't send me emails introducing me to cool new people I should know.
• Please understand if I am ignoring research requests from your students.
• Please don't offer to interview or profile me for the publications I am sure I will be dying to be in AFTER June 18.
• Please don't even invite me to dinner or coffee or parties or anything.
• Please do, however, have cookies or other baked goods delivered to my apartment. That's 1370 University Avenue, #418.
• Please do leave cheerful comments on my Best Sentence blog, where I am live blogging the dissertation in an effort to not be oh-so-totally alone about it all.
• Please also feel free to join me for my one social outlet, taking Meche to the dog park each afternoon for an hour. That is the perfect time to say hello.
• Please don't forget I exist while I say NO to everything for the next 3 months.

In other words, please for the most part let me hole up miserably in my apartment and ignore everybody and console myself with dessert until until I really, truly have a fighting chance at being done.