Hi.

So, I'm not here to be clever.

You may be disappointed, as some of you have come to expect from me (quite erroneously, I must insist) some pithy, witty writings based upon my life's times. (Not 'lifetimes.' That would be silly. I don't believe in reincarnation.)

However, peeps have been bugging me for ages (i.e. about the past hour) for a blog post.

Very well. I will provide sustenance for the masses, despite my writing deficiencies. I will pour sweet words upon your aching brows (sorry--just got an image of a medieval herbalist dumping alphabet soup over someone's forehead) and anoint the Balm of Blogging(TM) in your wounds.

You luckies, you.

So. Here I am, in Utah, hanging with my folks and my 18-year-old brother, who is soon to leave the nest (the same nest to which I have just returned) for a brighter, better life as a starving college student. (O, good luck, my bro.)

This will mean, of course, that I will be the only child left living at home. This will have been, I believe the third time (possibly the fourth? My memory of college is getting a little hazy--good GAS, I'm old) I have done so, and I have to imagine that my parents (in the privacy of their own room, of course) have started to realize and discuss just why Heathcliff Huxtable got so fed up with his own offspring.

Yes, I am in my parents' basement. Yes, I have no job. Yes, I do play video games. Yes, I am over 30.

Oh. My. Heavens. What have I become?!?

I must retire and weep.

But fear not, hope lieth on the horizon. Yea, it verily risetheth muchly bright morningish. Ly.

In short, I have a phone interview with a local library system on Tuesday. So, kindly keep your fingers crossed for me (but not if it means cutting off your circulation--seriously people, use some common sense!) so that at least I won't babble like a rabid monkey during said interview. Avoiding that would, I believe, raise my chances of getting hired. Slightly.

Righto. Now, I will leave you with a picture of a pig rooting in the mud. And that is all I will show you of my vacation to the Carolinas. Because I don't want to bore you. And pigs are kind of cute. In an ugly sort of way. Also, you cannot tell from the picture just how stinky this pigpen was.


Tata!

Here's a rundown of my last few weeks:

I have recently done a lot of nothing much. And before that, a lot of sitting. (While thousands & thousands of feet up in the air, but still, I was occupying myself with looking out the window and listening to the woman next to me sing along to the Michael Jackson memorial concert. And occasionally peeking into my novel. (For some reason I have a hard time reading on planes.))

And before that, a lot of sitting. (While in a car, then on a beach, then back in the car.)

And before that, a lot of sitting. (While in a car which was meandering through the positively gorgeous Great Smoky Mountains National Park.)

The in-between bits were actually most excellent, with time spent with my fabulously wonderful (or wondrously fabulous?) D.C. friend, learning about the history of the Cherokee, getting sunburned on beaches with ponies and dolphins in the distance, then visiting notable D.C. sites, such as Ford's Theatre and the heartbreaking Holocaust Museum.

And now I play with children and contemplate searching for jobs. But mostly I'm not getting anything much done. I'll buckle down and work on stuff later, I'm sure. Maybe when the little nephews go down for a nap.

Well, I'm off.

I leave Boston today. This evening, to be precise, at approximately the same time a major thunderstorm system is supposed to get up and going. We'll see if I actually leave on time.

I have swept my room and dusted my furniture (and in the process gathered together a pile of dust bunnies that, combined, would probably equal a small child in weight--it's, er, been a long time since I've swept under my bed--eugh) and have packed my bags and am currently stuffed with food that I've been desperately cramming down in a vain attempt to eat up the last of my groceries. Alas.

And now I am waiting for the right time to go down to the T and hop onto the train, hauling my suitcases behind me and hoping against hope that they won't go over the weight limit and that the airlines will accept a backpack as a personal item. 'Cause I don't think I'll have room otherwise.

So, I'll update y'all later. Probably once I'm all through tripping around and have safely ensconced myself in my parents' basement.

I know you'll miss me.

See you on the other side!

On bird poo and the threat of machines taking over the world

So, I woke up this morning and had to send a quick email, so I went into the living room where I keep my laptop (long story, but it involves my laptop's apparent refusal to speak at all with our apartment's wireless, thus necessitating plugging it directly into the router via ethernet cable and...actually, I guess that wasn't a really long story at all...) and discovered what appeared to be a smattering of bird poo over the laptop's cover.

Um, what?

Bird poo? On the laptop. Which was inside.

WHAT?

I do not comprehend it. I could not find a bird in our apartment; I can only guess how one got in (through the gap to the side of the window air conditioning unit, perhaps?) and then got out again (the same place, or maybe it simply was made of dark matter and thus didn't even interact with ordinary matter, except, of course, for its poop, which inexplicably was made of ordinary matter?) but somehow it did it. And left its mark so that we would know of its passing through our lives.

Um, yes.

Also, apparently my career is under threat from machines. Who could have guessed?

When I see them letters on the page, I just know I've done something good with my life.

I love the act of writing.

Now some of you may have misunderstood that last sentence. (It is not your fault of course; it's really due to the inherent ambiguity of language, in which words can mean more than one thing, or can have wide variations within one meaning.)

You probably thought I meant 'writing' as in the act of forming words into coherent sentences which then can be heard, read, or otherwise ingested by other persons nearby (or far away), who then decode the structure of the sentence and the definitions of the words in order to come up with some meaning (which the author may or may not have intended).

But I didn't mean that. (Thus, the decoding process failed. Silly you.) Although, I do admit that I enjoy forming sentences for decoding. It's one of my hobbies.

Nevertheless, the 'writing' to which I refer is the act of forming words on a page using a pen, pencil, stylus, paintbrush, or a particularly grubby finger. I love watching letters form in swoops and dashes as my hand moves, just touching the page there to dot the i, lifting the pen there to finish of the r, making a great loop to form the y.

There's something so satisfying about forming letters. And I'm not sure why. Although here is what I suspect:

Forming shapes is fun at any time, but forming shapes that mean something plugs, I believe, into our ancient human tradition of creating words from permanent marks made in clay or on papyrus. I think every time we cross a T or form a bold downward stroke for a D, we're reconnecting with those who first invented writing by tapping cuneiform script into clay, or with the ancient Egyptians, whose written language resembled art more than anything, or the Chinese with their countless characters, or the Greeks, or the Romans, or every other human who has held an instrument in hand and marked something so that their influence could be felt far from their immediate presence. We declare ourselves part of that tradition. Part of this ancient human family.

When I write by hand, I can also feel the passage of time more acutely. Time moves us along the atom-thin knife-edge of now, unstoppable as the future moves from far to near to now to past, all inexorably, and so so swiftly. For the most part, we ignore it, or at least, always facing forward into the immediate future as we are, we tend not to focus on the rushing-pastness of time. We're like passengers on a train (not an original image by any means, but apt) as it rushes endlessly forward. Normally, we peer forward at the track, or sometimes behind us at the things we've already seen. But the act of writing is like turning your head to look out the side window while the world whips past at an unbelievable pace. Forming letters, you see that once was blank page is now covered in marks. Marks you've made. And you're still making them, a stroke here, a dot there, a loop, all in motion, all churning the way from future to past.

Eh. Anyway. I haven't quite captured the sense of this, at least the way I feel it. But that's what writing is like. (The other kind of writing. Codification. You know.)

And why am I going on at length about something so inconsequential (sort of)? Because I have written approximately 15 mailing labels for the boxes I will ship out tomorrow. I wrote them with a sharpie. And I enjoyed it.

And that is all.

So, two weeks, eh?

I'm finally in a contemplative mood, whilst at the same time laden with my laptop 'cross my legs, and thus am currently experiencing the perfect blogging atmosphere. (Well, perhaps 'perfect' would also include a swarthy man dropping blueberries between my slightly parted lips while he somehow simultaneously strums his acoustic guitar while crooning a ballad he wrote just for me, but, that also might prove too mightily distracting for blogging purposes, and...I digress.)

So, hey. 'Sup.

I'm leaving Boston two weeks from today.

I'm taking a quick jaunt down to DC to go on a wee little road trip to the Carolinas with a marvelously wonderful friend of mine, and also to visit interesting places in our nation's capital. Like, um, the Holocaust Museum. Feeling a little weird about that now, but I'd still like to go...

And then I'm leaving the East. I'm vamoosing, sayonara-ing, signing off, shipping out, returning home from distant lands. I'm headed back to Utah, where the grass is (not as) green and the air is (thank HEAVEN) much drier, and the ground rises in these wonderful, tall, pointy things we like to call mountains.

Now that I have my diploma firmly in hand (seriously--I carry it around with me everywhere--I have a pocket sewed into my pant-leg for easy storage, although I'm thinking about comissioning someone to create a nice, round leather sheath that I can strap across my back like one of those sword-weilding-folk, enabling me to whip out that fancily-lettered piece of paper at the slightest provocation, like someone asking, "Can you tell me where--" "HAH!" I will reply, whipping my diploma from my back, "I am a LIBRARIAN. I can help you find ANYTHING.")

Er. Yes. Now that I have my diploma, and now that I also do NOT have more student loan money rolling into my bank account periodically, and now that my rent and grocery bills must rely on the meager earnings I am able to glean from my part-timing work, I have found it prudent to relocate myself to where the rent and my grocery bills will be non-existent. Namely: my parents' basement.

So, I will be thirty, with an advanced degree, and living across from my folks' laundry room.

And I've gotta say, I'm pretty much okay with that. Ask me again in four months or so, when I still don't have a job, and the student loan folks are getting that red-eyed, pointy-teeth look, but right now, I'm kind of happy about snuggling myself back into the nest. For a few months at least.

Something gross and something cool.

Two things to report today.

First of all, my body did something totally disgusting this morning. It was gross. It was absolute yecha sicko icky. And, naturally, it was also sort of cool. And definitely a bit of a relief. (I've been waiting for it to happen for ages, but why now of all times? Could my ear have been sweating?) But it was still pretty dang gross.

So I'm not going to tell you what it was. You'll just have to imagine. Given the clues above. Um.

Yes.

But that wasn't the cool thing. That was the gross thing. This second thing was the cool thing.

Second thing: I found an utterly cool website today. A website that harbors pictures of unusual furniture. Which I find myself wanting to buy. Very very much.

Having a room full of this furniture would be a bit like living inside of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Except without the magic stuff. Which, I guess makes it marginally less awesome than it would be if the furniture were somehow infused with the ability to fly, or turn your best friend into an ottoman.

Now THAT would be cool.

Dead Bug Carcasses

Dead bug carcasses.

Eugh!

DEAD BUG A-CARCASSES!

I really, really, really, do not like me them dead bug carcasses, particularly when they're on my stuff, my stuff which I haven't touched for two years, and is thus covered in dust and gunk and dead bug carcasses.

I feel all dusty. And my boxes are far, far too heavy for me ever to lift up off the floor, let alone carry them downstairs, let alone load them onto whatever truck/van/SUV I manage to rent or otherwise wrangle into personal use so I can cart stuff to the post office and pay a great deal of money to have those same very heavy boxes shipped to my parents' house out westwards.

In short, I have reached the despair stage of moving.

So I'm taking a break to check my email. And blog. And complain. Hope you don't mind too much. It'll give me the strength to go back and pack up all the rest of the boxes I've got.

When your church building burns down...do as the Romans do?

Those of you who remain glued to your newsfeeds from Boston may already be aware of this little tidbit of info, but the church building where I meet (yep--that one right across from the Longfellow House in Cambridge) burned to the ground this morning.

Yeah. Take a minute. Let it sink in.

Totally. Burned. To. The. Ground.

Well, MOSTLY totally. I mean, the steeple was still up by the time I left (about 4 hours after the fire started) and the walls were still intact (although the windows were not). But what I could see of the interior was a blackened, gutted mess. The roof is now more or less completely gone. If you're into the whole ghoulish watching-stuff-burn-up sort of thing, (don't worry or feel guilty about it--I'm sure pretty much all of you will click this link) you can view NUMEROUS pictures of the event in this guy's Picasa album.

Details? We were gathered together in the chapel, listening to the second speaker of a Stake Conference session that was broadcast to our building from Salt Lake, when the fire alarm went off. Everybody started looking at each other, (some, like me, rolling their eyes), and a few church leaders dashed off to see what the problem was, but I'm pretty sure most of us thought it had been caused by something over-cooking in the kitchen, or someone (possibly under the age of 5) pulling the alarm. Then, the presiding member of the Stake Presidency came up to the pulpit and asked us all to exit quietly. People shuffled out in a rather nonchalant manner, until we finally got outside and could see flames licking the underside of the eaves. By the time we got out to the grassy area in front of our chapel, we could see smoke starting to billow from the roof on the other side of the building.

Several firetrucks arrived as people continued to exit the building. (Everyone got out fine, by the way.) Within a few minutes, flames started shooting up from the roof, and the smoke changed from overcast-grey to nearly black. When the roof over the chapel collapsed, a general cry of dismay went up, particularly when the floor-to-ceiling windows in the chapel gave us a glimpse of the inferno inside.

It took a long time for most of the fire to be put out. As I said, I stayed for about four hours after the alarm went off the first time, and the roof around the steeple was still smoking when I left.

At one point, the fire had been contained enough to allow the firefighters to get into the institute library, so most of the members who were still around (a lot of us) plus many, many kind people from congregations who met near our building (including a group of Quakers who went around offering us snacks, juice and water), formed a long 'Book Brigade' that just made my librarian heart sing. We passed books in stacks from hand to hand from our building to another nearby building's basement, where they were organized, put on shelves, and triaged (as necessary) by a couple of ward members who had some expertise in treating water-damaged books.

So, I'm feeling pretty much flummoxed. And stunned. And really sad (even though I'm hiding it with a slightly snarky tone while blogging--it's simply my way of dealing with the trauma). I mean, that was the building I've attended the whole time I've been in Boston. And a lot of members have memories of it that go back way further than mine. I think even President Packer had spent time in the area as a...mission president, I think?

But, everyone is okay. Which is really the most important thing. And the books (or at least some of them) are okay, which is the second most important thing.

Or so says the librarian.

I guess I just have one of those faces?

So, everyone seems to be asking me for directions lately.

Okay, I don't mean 'everyone' everyone. It would take more time than I have in my lifetime to answer the way-finding requests of the 6+billion folks out there. (Although I'm sure they all deserve assistance. Except for you, Jerome.)

I guess technically it's only happened about 3 times in the past month or so. Which isn't that many, I suppose. Except that somehow it seems like a lot when compared with the amount of times (I imagine) that guy with the goatee, shaved head and tattoos curled around his arms gets asked for directions. Or even you. Do YOU get asked for directions that often? Probably not!

Because, you see, you don't have one of those faces. Apparently, I DO.

You know, one of those faces that just exude rosy-cheeked approachability and friendliness, the kind of face that smiles at your little dog as it poops on the sidewalk, or at your child as he/she tugs on your pants and whines for that bunch of broccoli strategically placed in the checkout line. The kind of face from which sparkles of glitter fall, which beams pure cherubic light, which says to your a-wearied soul (not in words but in visual images and possibly scent, which count more than words anyway), "My friend, we have been parted from one another for a long time. I know you do not remember me, but I remember you fondly. I burped you as a baby, kissed your forehead after pulling you from a bully-induced dumpster dive, sang soft melodies in your ear to help you to sleep on that crowded train (and you thought it was your neighbor's iPod, you silly). Now come. Come, ask me aught and I will provide it if it be within the power of these two poor hands of mine, or possibly my brain. Come, friend. Please ask."

And they do. They ask.

They say, "Excuse me, but could you tell me where the town hall is?" Or sometimes, "Pardon me, but do I need to use this machine to pay for my train fare?" And occasionally, "Alas, dear friend, I am soul-torn and weary. Have you any balm for this wounded heart of mine?"

This is why I'm going to make a great librarian. Knowing the collection? Piffle. Running programs? Pshaw. Having the face of an apparently eminently approachable stranger? Invaluable.

(This, I believe, is the speech I should have given during my phone interview this morning. I totally think it could have landed me the job. Experience or no experience. I gots the face, baby.)

Five reasons why I am (surprisingly) not bitter today:

First of all, let me confess that it still really, really bugs me to be sitting next to some (loudly) kissy couple who are somehow both sitting on the other's lap while waiting for the T in some underground station or other, where the sounds of smacking lips and giggles reverberate with a strange persistence unexplained by science.

Maybe that means I'm still bitter? Not sure.

BUT, I'm not bugged by Valentine's Day today. Not even a little. And let me tell you why:

1. There is not anyone I'm currently pining over. Somehow, I think being single on Valentine's Day becomes about ten times more difficult when there's someone you desperately want, who for some inexplicable reason doesn't want you. I am more than happy not to be in that state right now (and I hope never to be in it again), so the most angst I could muster up today would likely be in the form of a faint nebulous longing, or perhaps general irritation. Nothing big, like heart-wrenching, soul-tearing, cry-into-one's-pillow yearning. Nope. Not this year.

2. I have a brownie mix and two pints of Ben & Jerry's in the freezer. (Er, just the Ben & Jerry's is in the freezer. Not the brownie mix. That would be weird.) 'Nuff said.

3. I don't have to pretend to be social when I don't want to be. If I want to stay in to read a book or cross-stitch or watch Master and Commander or Superman Returns or Persuasion, (and I often do), I can. No one is pushing me to go out into the freezing cold wind (although 'freezing cold' doesn't quite seem to convey the lacerating nature of Boston's winter air currents) to go to a movie I didn't really want to see anyway. Although, I guess this could be a bad thing as well as a good thing. But right now, I'm seeing it as a good thing.

4. I get really tense in crowded situations. Which would make dining out tonight (usually pretty much a must on V-day for any couple in which the male part does not cook) an opportunity for jittery nerves which would slowly and irrevocably evolve into a full-blown panic attack.

5. I like me. I like me right now. Which means that I like me on Valentine's Day as well as on a day that isn't Valentine's Day. Which means that I'm not going to stop liking me and start being unhappy just because it is Valentine's Day. I like that I'm going to be a professional librarian (cross fingers, please!) within the next few months. I like that I like books and dogs and PBS and that I have brown eyes.

So frankly, Mr. St. Valentine's Day demon, you're going to try a heck of a lot harder to get me to feel bad today. Like maybe make my refrigerator break so my ice cream all melts and I can't consume it while reading a delightful novel after all. (Not that I want to give you any ideas or anything. So you can just ignore that last bit, okay?)

Daydreaming

Some people may daydream about kissing (although, come to think of it, I daydream about that, too). Some daydream about playing with dogs or being high-powered executives. Or being high-powered executives who play with dogs (well, I don't know--they might daydream about that).

Me? I daydream about a little place to myself, a little apartment or condo or cottage or yurt (if I happen to move to Mongolia) to call my very own. (Or rather, the landlord's or bank's very own, which I just happen to be leasing/paying off for a while.)

Yes. I daydream about buying towels and shower curtains and decorating the place with framed prints of botanical drawings and/or my cross-stitch projects, of purchasing sculptures of Chinese dragons and statues of Anubis to place on end tables and shelves, of having floor rugs and a couch I purchased myself and--joy of joys--a refrigerator I don't have to share with anyone else.

And maybe a dog. That too.

It's not that I don't like my roommates--I do. Actually, I like them a lot; they're fantastic gals, uniformly pleasant, who don't intrude too much and who give just enough support when one's dad is in the hospital having heart surgery.

But, I think I'm getting to the point where I'm ready to be on my own, to move away from the student atmosphere, to establish a life for myself.

Ready to grow up, I mean.

Which just begs the question: if I do get a dog, which breed should it be?

A breath of awesomeness

Okay, so it's time to arise from the dust (a little) and post about something that doesn't have to do with ill health. (Although, I must mention that my dad's doing better, and that you all are awesome for helping with your prayers and good vibrations, etc. Thanks, yo.)

Also, I don't know if it's just librarian/book folks who will think the following vid is awesome, but...I don't care. Because I think it's awesome, and I want to save it for posterity (i.e. Future Me).

Be forewarned: it's nearly 17 minutes, so if you don't have time for Tomie dePaola with a paintbrush in his teeth, then wait until you do. Seriously. It's worth it.


BOOK BY BOOK: the making of a monkey man from Jarrett Krosoczka on Vimeo.

Update

Everybody, you are all wonderful.

Thank you for your prayers and support.

My dad is doing better now; he's been able to stand up for short stretches, and he's in less pain. They've been able to remove the balloon pump, and they may also take out his drainage tubes later on today. (They've been rubbing against his lungs when he breathes, which has been one of the main sources of his pain since the surgery, so having them out will be a big relief for him.)

Again, thank you for your prayers. I'll keep you updated as he continues along the road to recovery.

(And I'm so glad I can write that he IS on the road to recovery. I've been very frightened.)

Love to you all.

Asking for help, here.

Hey, guys. I know it's kind of lame for me to be silent for ages and then post again just so I can ask for help...

But heck--I'm doing it.

I'm not sure if my family will be happy with me for talking about this or not, but I think the potential for extra help may outweigh the need to keep family troubles private.

My dad had a heart attack a couple of days ago. He went in for bypass surgery this morning, and ended up having 5 bypasses done. He's in pain, and his heart is pretty damaged.

And I'm concerned (read: really worried).

I've been praying all day, mostly because I can't think of anything else I can do. (I hate being so far away right now.) However, I do believe in the power of combined prayer. So, if you're willing and able and have the inclination and so on,

Please pray for him?

His name's Jeff.

Thanks, all.

Look, I won't trash your traditions if you don't trash mine.

Every family has its holiday traditions.

Every family.

And I know that in some families holiday traditions consist of who is able to belch the loudest during the commercial breaks of the Rose Bowl. Still others celebrate holidays by dredging up all the old family dirty laundry that's been comfortably buried in piles of other dirty laundry for years and years and is now crawling with mildew (yes, mildew would crawl in this situation) and possibly young families of mice.

Others carol, tell tales of the histories of their people, light candles, swap embarrassing and heart-warming stories about the childhood exploits of blushing siblings, take road trips, watch movies, put together puzzles, do enormous amounts of baking, visit neighbors and elderly relatives and soup kitchens and heck, maybe even animal shelters.

My family does a lot of that too.

But our most persistent holiday tradition?

We get sick. Very, very sick.

And this year we played out our ol' familiar tradition in style.

The sickness can come from any direction, really, and it doesn't have to be any kind of sickness in particular, just something that knocks the majority of us down for at least a day or two, just enough to significantly reduce the amount of quality family time we're able to spend together during the holiday season (that is, if you don't count competing over who gets the highest recorded fever as 'quality family time').

This year, my older sister and her family got sick first. They all started experiencing some significant abdominal distress a couple of days after my youngest sister's wedding (the last of the girls to marry--other than me--hah!) but thought it had moved through and on by the time they came to my parents' house on Christmas Eve.

So they came, and we played and laughed and watched movies and ate cake and caroled around the piano and told embarrassing (and sometimes heart-warming) stories about each other. And it was great. We even thought we had escaped a general family sickness, since my older sister's family appeared unlikely to pass it on, and although my mom had been quite sick with a flu-like cold during my sister's wedding, (extremely unfortunate, but she fought through it like a trooper), the cold didn't appear to be spreading.

This is why my onset of nausea after eating Christmas dinner was somewhat distressing. But even more distressing was vomiting bits of turkey and mashed potatoes out of my nose a few hours later. And hearing everyone else vomit their assorted semi-digested eatings later that evening, in the middle of the night, and into the morning and afternoon of the day after Christmas, including my two-and-a-half-year and six-month-old nephews. (In fact, probably the worst part was hearing my six-month-old nephew crying because he was hungry, but couldn't eat because A: if he did eat, he was likely to throw up and B: my sister hadn't eaten anything for about 18 hours, and thus didn't have any mammary-produced sustenance with which to feed him.)

We're all feeling pretty okay now. A cleansing of the entire system (the entire system, I assure you) and plenty of ginger ale, juice popsicles and an assortment of bananas and toast has brought most of us back to about 90% of normal. And my sister and brother-in-law (parents of the two nephews) who had intended to stay with us only a few days have now spent many more days with us, due to being all sick and unable to get up and stuff, so that's been a boon of sorts.

And you know, I've been thinking. In all honesty, I'd take the 'puking and/or feverish colds every holiday season' over 'family fights and not speaking to each other every holiday season' any day.

So, I guess if we have to pick one terrible family tradition, this one isn't the worst. Maybe, when it comes to holidays, something that 'isn't the worst' might be pretty good after all.

Merry Christmas, everyone. And a happy, HEALTHY, new year.

Nevermind?

So, as happy as I am with the love-fest in the comments section, I really didn't mean that last post to be a combination talk about how badly I'm doing right now and request for comfort. It was more of a discussion of where I've been this past semester. It was hard, but I'm really doing fine at the moment. (Somehow, having the stress of schoolwork removed by the cessation of the semester has made the sun sparkle off the concrete of Boston just that much more.)

Seriously. It's good. I'm good. We're all good.

Also, I am feeling particularly great because:

A. I leave for home in approximately 24 hours.

B. I cleaned the apartment today, which is always satisfying (?).

C. I got straight 'A's this past semester.

Yeah. Seriously. I'm pretty dang okay with that.

A little hefty bit

Let me be frank: this semester has been dang hard. It's been hard scholastic-wise, social-wise, personal-state-of-self-wise, hair-wise, glasses-wise, pretty much every conceivable -wise possible.

Well, actually, that isn't true. I've had no difficulties with, say, species identity. I'm pretty sure I'm Homo sapiens. Also, my fingers have given me little trouble over the past few months. And hey, my continual acquisition of books has gone swimmingly.

But other things have been hard. When I say that the semester has been difficult scholastic-wise, I don't want to imply that I haven't enjoyed it; it's been one of the most enjoyable semesters I've had here. In fact, I feel that during this semester I finally got into the meat of what I hope to do as a professional librarian: reference work with children, preferably ages birth (yes, we do provide library services to babies) through 8th grade or so. I learned about programming for children, during which time I got to both construct a box of resources for a themed story time and later use someone else's box to perform a story time in class. It was, frankly, extremely awesome. Particularly the whole reading-picture-books-and-singing-songs in graduate school thing. I learned about children's literature, including how to write reviews and analyze the library's current collection to better meet the needs of the community. I spent hours and hours and even more hours getting familiar with reference source after reference source. It was intense, but oh-so-informative.

I guess that's the point: this semester's schoolwork was pretty heavy, but I feel like I learned more, or at least more valuable, pertinent-to-me information than I'd learned in any previous semester.

So, school was actually pretty good. Stressful, HECK YES, but good.

Let me just breeze through a few of these others before I get to the real meat of this: my hair is currently way too long and frazzled at the end. I needs a trim. This equals hardship for my poor self. My poor straggly-haired self.

Glasses: lost a screw. One of the lens frames is now held together with a fashionable piece of copper wire. I dare you to try to spot it without knowing about it beforehand. (And now you know about it! So you lose! Automatically! Dang, I'm sly.)

Personal-state-of-self. Dude. I consumed a ton of cookies tonight. I ordered Chinese food and pizza and I'm down to one pair of jeans that fits properly. Which makes me feel that I stink as a human being.

Which kind of leads me to the point of this whole post, the subject that I'm kind of reluctant to discuss, mostly because it reveals my really real deep inner flaws in a way that makes me intensely uncomfortable.

You see, this last semester, I also withdrew a lot from human contact.

It's not as bad at the moment, so I know have to write about this in a looking-back sort of way, rather than an I'm-in-this-right-now sort of way, so I don't know if I can fully recapture all the things that've been going on in my internal parts these past few months. Frankly, I could probably recapture it best at about 3:00 in the morning, with the occasional murmur of a single car passing outside my window making me feel, somehow, not less alone, but more so.

But, my roommates are home, and in and out of the room, being friendly (which is great) so let's see if I can grasp on to this slippery feeling that settled on me like a film of soap this past semester...

I have a feeling that my withdrawal from human contact has stemmed, to a large degree, from my growing dissatisfaction with myself. It's manifested itself in different ways: I can recall, for instance, sitting in church and feeling so unable to deal with people and the crowds and the press and the noise and the pressure that I had to escape outside in a near panic. I think I couldn't stand being around other people because, in part, I couldn't stand myself, or rather, I couldn't stand how I was sure other people viewed me.

So, I got out. And I kept getting out. And I kept not connecting with people, and I kept shutting the door to my room when I got home and I kept not really talking to people in class and.

And I just drew myself in and encrusted myself with as much armor-thick I-don't-care-ness as I could muster.

So, I had only myself to deal with. And, reluctantly, rarely, other people. When they absolutely refused not to be admitted. Which some did refuse, thank goodness.

And yeah, my relationship with God suffered too, mostly because I didn't take time for anyone besides my own brain. And, as crazy and entertaining as my brain can be, it can't provide insight into tremendously difficult life problems or answers to questions about the nature of the universe and our place in it (although it can come up with hecka-awesome dreams).

And. Good grief. NONE OF THIS explains really what I've been feeling or thinking or anything. And it's already too long by about 458%.

I guess, suffice it to say, I've had the door to my room closed far too often and for far too long. And I'm starting to reemerge back into the world, but it's hard. And I feel vulnerable and shaky, particularly because I'm still not entirely happy with myself, and because I'm afraid that other people can see the flaws in me that I can see in myself and that they scorn me for it.

But, you know, I'll still get up tomorrow morning. I'll still put on my skirt and those ugly brown shoes that are nonetheless comfortable and I'll wrap that blue scarf around my neck and button my slightly-too-tight coat over my bulgy self and I'll sit in church and listen to people talk and maybe even make a comment or two. If I'm feeling particularly daring. And it's even possible I'll feel the spirit. I hope so, because that's why I keep doing it.

And maybe, this week, and this next semester, maybe I can work on some of the things that have lately made me so unhappy about myself.

Maybe I can start to leave the door to my room open. Just a little bit more.

Resurgence

Shall I post about why I haven't blogged in over a month?

Shall I write about this past semester and its joys, worries, hardships and my unaccountable desire to reread Asimov's entire Foundation series?

Shall I spend time profusely apologizing for being ineffably boring and neglectful by not providing my faithful readership with new and fascinating, periodically updated reading material?

I probably will. Soonish. But, having turned in my last assignment this morning, I believe I'm scheduled for a recovery period. Which means sleeping. Lots.

I voted.

Have you?

Also, I have to admit that walking up to the local polling place (in a High School gymnasium), I felt a sudden surge of love for democracy. I thought of all the millions of individuals converging on centers like this to make their voices heard, and I just thought to myself, "DANG, I love this country."

So. Hurrah for democracy, and hurrah for America!