Shameless whining, read no further. I’m not kidding. Really. I am telling you, there is nothing interesting in this post.

Last night I was up quite late/early (3:30/4ish) working on MFA applications, many of which are due on January 1st. They require that they receive things by mail (hah, mail!–no, seriously, they won’t accept it by e-mail or electronic submissions…clearly they have similar issues to mine, maybe they’d get along with me after all) by January 1st…great. I got up early enough and worked like a demon to get them all ready*, went to the post office, realized I was missing my credit card, went back to the house to get it, went to the bank, decided to forego my visit to Barnes & Noble**, stressed myself out completely thinking I’d be late, then made it by 11:50 (my flight was scheduled for 1:15). Plenty of time.

Note “scheduled.”

Note that I’m posting at 1:40.

Note that my flight has been delayed twice now (potential for more, I’m sure), and now won’t be leaving until 3:10.***

I generally don’t mind delayed flights almost at all. Today, given that I rushed applications, missed a lot of sleep, a lovely cup of tea and the morning paper****, and a trip to Barnes and Noble, not to mention time supposed to be spent with my dad this morning, in order to make this flight, only to have it continue to be delayed, meaning that I probably won’t make it to the family Christmas party, may be late to or miss dinner at Maura’s, will certainly be driving alone back to her house instead of possibly having company/being driven in my own car as had been tentatively discussed, will be driving in the (snowy? icy? don’t know) dark, etc., etc., not to mention find myself feeling obligated to work on my applications right now instead of relaxing at the airport as I normally do…given all that,***** I would rather that my flight had not been delayed, TYVM.

Back to #$!@$%! applications.

*All except one, which required a 15-20 page critical writing sample–as in, literary criticism. Some of you know this: I am probably the only English major in the history of UF to get by without writing a single literary criticism paper during my college years. How? Well…I did end up taking literary crit classes (2 honors seminars in which I received “A”s, even), but I always weaseled out of the actual papers somehow. It never bit me in the butt…before. The most recent lit crit paper I have to send them is from high school, and it is half the minimum length. Yeeeeah. If I’d noticed that requirement before I might have, say, written a paper. Although maybe not. Anyway, considering how rusty I am (though I’m sure it would turn out fine, given ample time) and how little time I have, I have decided to let another one bite the dust. That’s two applications now out of eleven that I’ve screwed up by not paying attention until the last minute (UC Irvine is the other: I didn’t realize I had to get word out to my recommenders quite as early as I did, and by the time I realized, I had already asked a lot of them and didn’t want to try to get each of them to upload another thing within 4 days…)

**I have a lovely giftcard that I may end up using online due to a lack of Barnes & Noble in my NH vicinity.

***I am not at all expecting the flight to leave by 3:10.

****I’ve been missing the St. Pete Times more than I thought…

*****Aren’t you glad I didn’t just blithely continue the sentence from above without reference to how it began?

The Worst Christmas Eve Ever*

So this morning I got up at five am to get to work by six. Ugh. Do you know how much squishing and squeezing it takes to “persuade” my brain into the shape of someone who gets up at 5 am?** As I was driving in the dark on slick icy roads at 5:40, I thought to myself, how did this happen? I will be driving straight from work when I get off at 2:30 to the Manchester Airport; then I will be flying to Baltimore, then Florida, and get in at the lovely*** ripe hour of 10:10. Then my lovely**** mother will be driving me home, where I expect I will be to wired/caught up in catch-up conversations/doing the Christmas Eve thing to fall asleep at any reasonable hour. We will see whether I get to sleep in on Christmas. You already know how my other attempt at sleeping in went, this week…if you’ve been paying attention. If you haven’t: look two entries down.

So, to recap: packing all night, no sleep, slick icy roads in the dark at freaking five am (though I did make a consolatory cup of tea), waiting 15 minutes outside the store in the freezing cold hitting the buzzer a million times because there was no one to let me in, and oh yes: our second customer of the day, who came in around 8 am (why did I go in so early??!?), nearly broke down in tears as I listened to her story about how her husband died in March and it’s her first Christmas without him, and her kids are taking it really hard. I almost cried too. Poor thing! (Clearly, things can get worse. Yes, I am thankful that I get to visit my family at Christmas, and that I have the money to spend on gifts–I love to give gifts, it’s one of my very favorite activities. But today is still the (second) worst Christmas Eve ever.)

Also: shout out to the Spatula God and all those who have known his glory. Hail TheMost Flippant and Shiny One! You’ll have your own holiday soon, I promise!

*Actually there might have been one worse, but I don’t want to think about that one.

**Last night I was up till midnight. I got up yesterday at seven am to be at work by eight, and the night before I was up till 2.^ This is because I was wrapping your presents. And working on cards for you. And packing said presents and half-finished cards and packing other things like toothpaste and caffeine and pajamas…as if I ever get to sleep anymore.

^If it sounds to you like those are reasonable lengths of time to sleep, please recall that I like to get at least ten hours a night. Thank you.

***Sarcasm.

****Not Sarcasm.

Solstice

Last night, per my tradition, I had a midnight solstice picnic. As I am now in New Hampshire, not Florida, there was improvisation: it was on the (indoor, glassed-in, stove-heated) porch. Usually I have a moonlit picnic; this time it was a candlelit Moonlight* picnic. But it was terrific, food-wise–and definitely unapproachably good as regards presentation, because the food could be laid out beautifully without concern for it being banged around in picnic boxes, say. A (very lovely) fruit plate (strawberries, cranberries, sweet sweet grapes, and apple slices, all drizzled liberally with lemon); a pie dish of artichoke dip; a plate with arranged, sliced bread; a pickled foods plate (pickles, calamata olives, garlic-stuffed spanish olives, marinated artichoke hearts); a cheese plate (blue cheese, sliced cheddar, and smoked gouda); a dried fruit plate (dried apricots, raisins, and dates); and chips and salsa besides. We were going to have sundaes, but there was so much good picnic food it turned out unnecessary. (We had them tonight. Mmm–Edy’s cookies and cream ice cream, butterscotch, fudge, banana slices, whipped cream, and maraschino cherries: do try this at home. Had I remembered to ask Frank to pick up bittersweet chocolate squares, I’d have made brownies.**)

Today, I cleaned my room and finally decided the heck with painting it, and just hung my art and lights, and my wall hangings. It looks more than homey now. Just one major step left (unless I decide to backtrack and paint): the construction of a window seat, quite an ambitious undertaking for me, but one that Frank has promised his help with.

*Yes, I did watch the DVR-d show for the second half of the picnic. It had to be done, according to others’ schedules.

**Maura and I have discovered that we have serious differences of opinion on the topic of homemade brownies. She is of the (tragically and unforgivably mistaken) view that brownies can be made at home from (yeeek!) a boxed mix, without forfeit of one’s culinary scruples, soul, etc…….

I know, I have no words, either.

Taptap.

(nn)

Tap tap tap.

(…)

Knock knock.

(Nope.)

Knock knock knock.

(I do not have to get up this morning. I have no responsibilities, I’m going to work at two. I only set an alarm for a nice ridiculously late time so that I could gleefully turn it off.)

Knock knock.

“Nnnnnnngh.”

Knock knock knock. “Meg?”

“Nnnnghlblauugh!”

“Can I stick my head in?”

“Nnnnnnn…”

“If you could just get Grace dressed and go back to sleep*…Nathan’s taking the girls off to blah blah blah blah blah…”

(Wasn’t Frank supposed to be out of the house with the girls by 9? Hence my quiet sleep-in plan? Clearly these people need to be reminded of the plan…look at the clock, they still have…oh. It’s ten past nine.) “Nnnnnnn…”

“Blah blah blah, great, I’ll just leave then!”**

…

I try to call Grace into my room to suss out the problem, maybe even ger her to bring her clothes in, to no avail. When I finally stumble out of my room, she’s not only in her pajamas with no clothes picked out and her hair looking like one of those unending tasks they set you in classical Greek hell, her backpack packed wrong, her La Las*** all missing, but she’s in about her crankiest, floppiest mood****.

This morning did not go as planned.

*This statement clearly establishes Frank to be out of his mind. Go back to sleep, after wrestling with a four-year-old who is fighting me every step of the way, even taking advantage of the fact that I thought I had done my job and passed her on to Nathan to begin removing layers while my back was turned?

**”Great, I’ll just leave then!”–Verbatim

***Two or three squishy pink dolls–she cannot do anything or go anywhere without at least one of them, let alone spend a whole day at school, hence my fun treasure-hunt this morning. I have heard her say something along the lines of: if she doesn’t have a La La at school, she doesn’t feel like playing or talking or picking up or anything. Rrrr.

****The one in which every time she’s asked to do something or cooperate, she collapses dramatically to the ground and claims she can’t move, and gets increasingly upset if you try to get her to do anything that she can’t do. At that stage she is dead noodlish weight. Have you ever tried to get noodles through shirt sleeves? How about noodles that decide they can squirm away after all at the worst possible moment? How about when there’s a four-year-old insisting that it hurts to put on every piece of clothing, and failing to respond to (what I think is) a perfectly reasonable argument about how it wouldn’t have hurt if she had put her own clothes on when Daddy asked 30 minutes ago, and it still wouldn’t hurt if she would cooperate? (How can each sock possibly hurt?)

Snowstorm

Serious snowstorm! Got snowed in at Jackson Gore…::sigh:: I ended up skiing today. Skiing=Nirvana. Whoosh, whoosh! I *almost* didn’t panic at driving in the snow (not during the worst of the storm–I only drove in a bit of a letup, though the roads were still less than pretty!). A big step for me. It may have helped that it was arranged so that I would be *following* Maura on the roads. It’s also comforting that the Spatula God is watching over me.

No good tea all weekend, though =(.

An hour and a half to spare…

Two MFA applications down, finished 1.5 hours before midnight. Eight (Really? Yes, eight!?!) left. Ugh. Most of the deadlines are January 1st-ish. I think I have a shot at one of the programs; it’s the only low-residency program, and the only spec-fic-friendly one, that I’m applying to.* The rest of the applications are basically a way for me to say, “See, I did try…” Er.**

Anyway, it’s a relief to have those two done with; the others should be easier now. The sad thing is, I have no food. If I had known I would have an hour and a half to spare, I’d have rushed down before ten*** to buy myself some Twizzlers or Skittles or something, but it was almost ten and I thought, “Oh Flippance****, I have two and a half hours to finish two applications, I haven’t five minutes to spare!” even though I’d just spent an hour and a half working on catching Auntie Maura up on Moonlight…and even though I spent a nice drowsy afternoon period***** couch-napping******. Applications, schmapplications, is what I may or may not have been thinking (hard to remember, too drowsy).

I don’t want to be this wired. I want to go to sleep. Ugh, why was I dealt such an insomniac lot? And why have I never properly applied willpower to this problem–same sleeping times every day, don’t read in bed, meditate (even ten minutes a day): these would probably drastically improve my sleeping life.

Oh wait. I know why. I’m not willing to risk my lovely lucid dreams. ::Sigh:: Off to pretend to sleep again for a while…

*If I don’t get in even there (not “even” because it’s an easy program to get into, “even” because it’s a program looking for, I think, people like me), I can kiss my poor ego good-bye. It’ll never trust me again. I told it that it probably wouldn’t like the results of these applications, but I let it get its hopes up about the one program that I’m not really sure I want to attend…because I actually like school, with all the trappings, and low-res is missing a lot of trappings. Sad. But I know I would like the teachers, the other students, the way the program is modeled, etc…

**Don’t anyone dare try to squeeze in some kind of, “Gee, I’m sure you’ll do fine on the applications…”^ I don’t want to hear it; I’m not fishing for reassurance, I’m not complaining, I’m not despairing, I’m only making a realistic assessment based on the knowledge I have of the application process and my applications–both of which I am more familiar with than you are, I think, unless you are an admissions officer who has already looked at my application, in which case how the heck did you find this blog and what can I pay you to pretend you never saw it? I’ll put Harbor Sweets out on the table…

^You may have noticed I turned off comments for this post? Guess why…

***When the shop closes…

****Yes, I’m referring to Spatulism. Where have you been…?

*****Hard to know how long…I was pretty drowsy…

******I haven’t been keeping up with my couch-napping lately. This afternoon seemed like a fine time to make up for my recent lack of attention to this very important hobby.

Fried eggs, cheddar, and salsa on toast…

Okay, so I am procrastinating by writing a blog entry. Recognition that you have a problem is the first step…(If you take the first step about seven hundred ninety-three thousand four hundred eighty-six times, is that progress?)

I did not ski today. (::sob::) My own fault. Stayed up too late* last night with a book, so couldn’t get up early enough to get out on the mountain early enough to get back inside early enough and with enough energy left to work on MFA apps, two of which are due tomorrow.

On the bright side: the story I’ve been revising today (writing sample for applications) is better than I remembered. Yay. And I’ve thought of some good ways to improve it…if I have time.

Lots of comments on that last entry, huh? Guess wallowing brings out chattiness in people =).

*3:45 am, but I was wired and shaky from driving in nasty snow, I needed to calm down! And once I picked up the book and calmed down I was loooooost…

In many ways…

…I grew up very fast. Zat is mostly goot. But in some other ways, I grew up very little. I am like a little kid in that when I am happy I am very playful.* This includes interactions with both genders. Does this make me a humongous flirt? (I begin to believe it may.) And if I am one, does that make me a kind of crappy person? And also, am I really so self-absorbed that I have been dwelling on this question for nearly an hour?**

Ugh. I hate that I am now self-conscious about being playful. Playful is fun. Not, “Gee, am I flirting with this person and do I want them to take it that way or not?” Playful is not pre-meditated. Every time I feel playful, I don’t want to think, “What is this person’s reaction going to be, and do I want them to have that reaction?”*** Ugh ugh ugh. Yuck. Ugh. Why does being twenty-two mean that I am now responsible for other people’s reactions to my behavior?

Thinking about that made me very tired and quite a bit less happy than I was earlier this evening.

Also: regarding holidays of the Spatula God. I have begun to petition him for answers to this question. Consider said answers forthcoming.

*Hence, for example, me running upstairs to get Jessie’s^ coat because she’s cold and I want to make her happy and then throwing it downstairs on top of her head, playfully, not realizing that of course it will mess up her hair and her reaction will be less than positive.

^My one and only beloved sister

**…Yes.

***Okay, sure, I will be more careful in the future regarding Jessie’s hair. But otherwise…

Speaking of “addicted” behavior…

I’m at Panera. This is my first of their chai lattes since before Thanksgiving–! But, er, I don’t know if there’s any way to justify spending nearly four dollars on a warm drink.* Saying you** haven’t done so for a few weeks doesn’t seem very convincing.

Belatedly: Happy Chanukah. Well, Chanukah is not over, but our big celebration was last night. I got to be the host, being the nearest thing to a practicing Jew in the house. Okay, I’m not very near one, but I hate to think that these little girls won’t ever get to celebrate Chanukah as little girls, so I did my best: latkes, even homemade blintzes, some stickers and stamps on the Chanukah theme, and also Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins.

Better get back to work! (I’m on my dinner break.) Darn, looks like I’ll be late!

*Why, yes, I do work in the cafe side of Borders. Until after Christmas, at least. You may wonder how I sleep at night. Unless you recall that I’m insomniac anyway, so a guilty conscience is hardly going to affect things. And I have nothing against charming other people into spending absurd quantities of money on warm beverages.

**You see how I just used a nice general “you” instead of a self-accusative “I”? I’m good at distancing myself from unpleasant associations like that.