What NOT to Do After Finishing an Article

Oh, so many things not to do. Consider the following:

Minutes after finishing an article, DO NOT:

1. Save and send to the editor.
2. Write a 100 word biography.
3. Hit "send" without attaching the latter.
4. Write new email apologizing for not attaching your bio, and then send AGAIN without attaching.
5. Throw clothes in a suitcase for a weekend in the Big City with your husband's family.
6. Get in the shower and try to shave your legs quickly, thus necessitating extra time spent staunching the bleeding.
7. Drive in a frenzy to the train station, park in the overnight lot, do a funky run/walk through the parking lot to the station, only to arrive 20 minutes before the train leaves.
8. Get to the city, walk to hotel, check into two very expensive hotel rooms for husband's family.
9. ***do all of the above without eating.***

In the days following finishing an article, DO NOT:

1. Spend two days in the biggest tourist destination in America with four children.
2. Take them to the tallest tourist attraction in said city, which involves several thousand people all trying to get up or down in 6 tiny elevators.
3. Forget to do research on kid-friendly restaurants in said city.
4. Drag them all through the major, massive train station in said city with their panoply of luggage, and then onto the train, to convey them back to Urbania.

In the calm psychic space that follows from finishing an article, DO NOT:

1. Try to become a different person around your husband's family, who are genetically pre-disposed to being happy, positive people who see the best in everything while you are genetically determined to be an evil, cynical Eeyore.
2. Try to convince yourself that you like children.
3. Be overly mindful of your relatives' Christian values, because you can't control where the Museum of Sex is, nor the fact that its window displays feature hippos and rhinoceri humping, sometimes in groups of threes.
4. Obsess about your own fears of bacteria, as everything you consume is available for others to taste, sip, or try.
5. Imagine that any semblance of a time table will be cohered to.
6. Continue to collapse into bed every night, with the thought that it's only a few more days, and you can tough it out.

And WHY should you NOT DO any of these things? Because they depress your immune system, yo, and then you end up with a sore throat and body aches. On the positive side, this does excuse one from visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame, which is DEFINITELY on the NOT DO list. One bullet dodged, many more to go.