just in case anybody drops by here...

...i can now be found at my new home

Three down

zero to go.


I'm going to play in the snow.


: )

I am in love

with Sufjan Stevens.

This man is a brilliant poet and a musical genius. He has composed a beautiful lyric about the serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Jr. His song titles alone often stand as self-contained verse. My personal favorite of this ilk is "Out of Egypt, Into the Great Laugh of Mankind, and I Shake the Dirt from My Sandals As I Run", though "To the Workers of the Rock River Valley Region, I Have an Idea Concerning Your Predicament, and It Involves an Inner Tube, Bath Mats, and 21 Able-bodied Men" has its merit as well. He plays the banjo, musically, without twang. He also plays the oboe, and well. He paints intricately beautiful musical landscapes ranging from a delightfully cacophonous hometown marching band to a pleasantly chaotic swirling flurry of delicate snowflakes on a magically bright winter day. And as if that weren't enough, here is a direct quote extracted from his recently-released Christmas album: "your mom's goin' to the country."

"Twenty minutes late is early,"

I remarked several months ago, in all seriousness, after turning in a term paper which I had not quite finished by the "deadline." (When attached to "line", "dead" for me carries more the meaning of "guide". It is a venomous creed.) It has stuck, more or less, as my more or less (un)official motto.

Just under five hours is practically the same as twenty minutes.

...right?

(2 down, 1 to go)

When I am stressed,

I inhale marshmallows.

I am stressed.

Because I am sure you are dying to know...

...and I want to brag about a minor accomplishment which is actually not so minor for me, and which should not be celebrated but I really want it to be, I give you an update on the paper status:

Papers due in the next 5 days, one of which must be submitted within the next 25 hours: still 0.5 down, 1.5 to go

Papers due eight months ago, which taunted me constantly during that entire period: ZERO!!!!!!

It was by far the longest paper I have ever written, so long that the staple didn't go through all the pages. Maybe I just have a weak stapler, I don't know. Anyway, it is really nice to no longer have that hanging over my head. I mean, you get a lot of weird looks when there is an as-yet-formless-term-paper-sort-of-in-progress-but-mostly-just-ignored-and-avoided floating above your head wherever you go. I think I might kind of miss its reflection in the mirror, though. Meh, I'll get over it. Three cheers for a girl who is (not entirely) powerless in the face of a paper without a due date. Now on to the papers which do have due dates, which are very soon. Maybe once I am done with those I will write a real post. This one is fake.

Update

Papers that were due this week which are now due next week: 0 down, 1 to go

Papers still due this week, though one day later: 0.5 down, 0.5 to go

Papers due eight months ago, but still acceptable: 0.5 down, 0.5 to go


Unfortunately, 0.5 + 0.5 here does not equal a single (1) completed paper.
But my chances of surviving the week have skyrocketed. (I'll get out the parachute just in case. I have been reading Altazor...)

Keeping in mind...

...that everything I do (especially school-related tasks) tends to take me at least twice as long as I anticipate, do I:

a) schedule twice as much time as my first instinct tells me to plan for, or

b) try to beat the system by scheduling half as much (or less!?) time to complete the same activities

?

holiday greens

Tonight Cupido stopped by after work. He smelled like pine trees. I love that smell.

When he came in, he handed me something in a plastic sandwich bag. Naiad and I had been watching a movie, so the lights were off and I couldn't see what it was. I soon determined that it was a plant specimen and, remembering that he had promised to bring me flowers, removed it from the bag and, though thinking that this wasn't exactly what I expected, searched in vain for a blossom or a bud. I couldn't quite make sense of it.

Honestly, I cannot remember ever seeing real mistletoe before.

That probably didn't go exactly how he had planned.

as a side note...

...and a shameless plagiarization,

Papers due next week: 0.5 down, 1.5 to go

Papers due eight months ago: 0.1 down, 0.9 to go