A lot on my mind this week. Woke up a few nights ago, for instance, with the sudden realization that my story has no plot.

You'd think I'd have one, five pages into it. But no. So naturally it's a thrilling read. But I won't say anything more until it's done.

More pressingly, there's the looming deadline for my decision to attend graduate school. I have to tell them before the month is out.

Upon closer inspection the "M.A. equivalent" program at the University of Chicago doesn't look nearly as sketchy as I'd at first thought, and of course the easiest thing to do right now would be to grab that option rather than create a new one.

I see two career paths for myself — copy editor and professor, for those of you who don't talk to me often — and the question continues to be which one I want to try first. Chicago says I shouldn't apply to a Ph.D. program until after I've graduated from their A.M. program (no idea why it's "A.M." and not "M.A.") so it looks like I have the '06-'07 school year off.

So… I do a year of graduate school, burn out, then work in a thankless copy-editing job at the Podunk Times somewhere. That actually sounds like a good plan, underneath the cynicism.

I'm going to let this stew for a while, see how I feel about it. But I think I may have made a decision already.