I submitted a complete, revised draft of my dissertation to my committee on August 4, and I defend in just under two weeks. Where this leaves me, ultimately, is in the strangest August on record.

Some background: August has traditionally been by far my least favorite time of the year. The summer is at this stage not unlike a casserole that has beeen baked in the oven just too long: it's too hot, and any good that may have come out of the heat has worn out its welcome.

Add to this the fact that I am that rarest of academics, the kind who has really never wanted to bail. I still look forward to the first day of school like a crazy third-grader who can't wait to show off his new clothes to the friends he's seen little of in the last three months. Top it all off with the fact that my summer jobs have been serviceable, but ultimately were only boring at best and soul-sucking at worst, which was exacerbated over the last couple of years by the fact that these jobs came at the expense of time spent on the dissertation. Short answer: August blows.

And yet: At the beginning of the summer I left the job at Northern Gunman, so no crappy job to trade on my personal integrity. The weather has been much better than usual, so the casserole metaphor thing isn't quite accurate. I've been going to faculty development meetings at GW all summer, so the suspense of the first day of school hasn't been quite so palpably delayed. And, as I mentioned above, the diss is done. No more writing to do (at least not on that 800-pound gorilla).

So you say: "You should be having a grand ol' time! Kick back, read some books, drink some lemonade, snuggle with your wife, and enjoy yourself! You earned it!"

So why have I spent hours in August at my computer, juggling 8 MS Word documents at a time, managing a to-do list as long as any early December? waiting, dreading, nursing a little acid pit in my belly, expecting the other shoe to drop, and imagining it to be a steel-toed, spike-heeled boot-made-for-walkin'?

I am so going to party after the defense, as long as that spike heel hasn't punctured a major artery.