There are no snow days at Colgate University. There are many, many snowy days, and even more days when a bitter, ruthless wind tries to rip off your face every time you go outside. But since the vast majority of students live on campus, classes are only cancelled every fifty years or so when there is some kind of blizzard so very bad that they think students may freeze to death because they won't be able to see their way across the quad. Needless to say, this didn't happen at any point while I was an undergrad, so I spent winters hiking to class through whatever the weather decided to dish out.

In my first semester at Simmons, as the weather started to get colder, we received an email detailing snow cancellation procedures -- how early in the day it would be decided, what number to call, what stations would broadcast the cancellation. It was then that I realized that I might actually get snow days again, now that I was at a school with a large number of commuter students. One hectic Friday morning in December I looked out my window to find a miserable, windy, slushy-snowy mess. I had an assignment due that afternoon and desperately wished I could use my three-hour morning class to finish it. So I turned on WBZ, hoping to hear that school was cancelled.

I understand that there are more efficient ways of checking for cancellations. The Simmons website, for instance. The television, which has the cancellation ticker constantly running on snowy days, so you don't have to wait to hear your school's name. But WBZ was what I listened to as a kid for school cancellations. I'd have the radio on as I was showering in the morning, as I was eating breakfast. Five after the hour, right after the top stories and traffic, Gary LaPierre would start reciting the schools. On a mildly snowy day, he'd be done by ten after, when it was time for the weather. On really bad days it would take until well after the sports at quarter after. He really didn't have much of a break before he had to start it all again at thirty-five past. I would sit and listen anxiously through the B's, hoping that they wouldn't skip straight from Boxboro to Brockton (which could never seem to get its roads cleared no matter how mild the storm.) Sometimes I was out of luck (our school district prided itself on not cancelling school much.) But on some magical days during the blizzardy mid-nineties, I'd hear Gary LaPierre say "Bridgewater" and no one word could make me happier. His voice reciting the cancellations is tied together in my memory with the jingle from a Chock-Full-O-Nuts commercial that they played a lot in those days, and together they always remind me of the thrill of having an entire snowy day before me, with nothing to do but enjoy it.

So that Friday last winter I turned on the radio and listened, anxiously, waiting for the end of the alphabet. "C'mon, Gary, make my day, " I muttered. He didn't. I was disappointed. When I got to school the professor said she was surprised that they hadn't cancelled, and I felt cheated. I ran home afterwards and did my assignment quickly and halfassed before getting on the bus, which took an hour and a half to get me to work in Cambridge, rather than the usual half-hour. At least my boss told me I could leave early once I got a few things done.

Since then I have been hoping that just once before I graduate, I'll hear Gary LaPierre cancel classes and have one more snow day. But last winter didn't snow much, and this fall has been so mild. As this semester concluded I realized I only have a couple more months of opportunity for this to happen.

Then I found out that Gary LaPierre is retiring and his last broadcast is tomorrow.

WTF, Gary? You couldn't have waited a few more months? For me?

All the same... thanks for all the cancellations.

(I still want a snow day before I graduate, even if I have to hear about it from someone else.)

I find myself allowing myself to fall for people a bit too easily these days. Well, not in any serious way, but I used to rarely have crushes on people at all, and now I seem to all the time. I think it's partially because this world out here is so much different from high school and college, where I really got to know someone as a friend before shyly becoming interested. Now that I know so many more people in so much less depth, I start to cling to tiny signals -- a toss of the hair here, a half-smile there, a few moments of banter in between. It's not that I expect these crushes to be fulfilled in any way; they come and go like a breeze, and half the time there's some problem -- they're interested in men, or they're married or engaged. I think it's more that I use them to keep myself on edge just a little, to get me to remember what it's like at the very beginning of falling in love. Because falling in love for real (not these little silly things) is a fix that I can't get enough of, and in dry times like this sometimes it's nice to just notice the ways that people's inner fire shines out through their skin, and to spend just a little bit of time enjoying that warmth.

My faith in my friends varies wildly, and doesn't seem to have any intermediate settings. There are times when I have an almost naive confidence that what was true in the past must be true now, and after sifting through old papers and cards I find a postcard from five years ago and think he SAID that he was always glad to hear from me, it says RIGHT HERE, so IT MUST BE TRUE. And then I go and write a long, heartfelt email to someone who no doubt has his junk mail filters set to send my messages straight to the trash. Being a pack rat is bad that way, because I have all kinds of old letters and other junk which does not accurately reflect the state of my relationships now, but somehow it grabs hold of me, makes me think I've found something I should try to recapture, even if any hope of that is long since gone.

On the other hand, there are times when I think exactly the opposite, that everything is unstable and constantly changing. In times like that I can look at an email from two weeks ago, or a card from a month back, and think but I haven't heard from them in TWO WEEKS. They might not like me anymore. I might have done something horribly wrong or offensive, or they might be bored of me because, let's face it, what's really all that worthwhile about hanging out with me? And then Internal Brain Melodrama will ensue until I get a call or email that reassures me that I haven't screwed up in some subtle and mysterious way. It's totally ridiculous, because I am not friends with the sort of people who would toss me for some slight too small for me to figure out, but that doesn't really stop my brain from running around whimpering and gnashing its teeth like the family beagle in the throes of separation anxiety.

I guess my point is, it's really useful to have a brain with intermediate settings. It's rather helpful for accurately understanding reality. Reality, that fascinating world where things certainly can change between friends over years and years, but not usually in a matter of days for no apparent reason.

I keep talking about my brain lately as though it's somehow separate from myself. I suppose that's a bit odd.

but let's talk about something else, shall we?

I've been thinking a lot about the stuff I own lately. I really do own too much stuff, but I am always trying to somehow cut down on it. The problem is that I am very, very attached to my stuff. I have a fondness for it that borders on animistic. I feel very guilty throwing things out or getting rid of them because some part of me that is still seven is convinced that the object in question must feel pretty sad about being abandoned that way. All the same, due to space constraints I try to send clothes I don't wear very much to Goodwill whenever I buy new ones, and I am still trying to come up with a place to donate the huge pile of stuffed animals (the ones that are still in good enough condition that someone might want them). This is sort of a compromise -- I figure I am getting rid of them, but someone else will love them.

I do seem to shop a lot, for someone who doesn't like objects, but I can't remember the last time I bought something that wasn't strictly functional. (Actually I do -- I got a Dresden Dolls pin at the Amanda Palmer concert, because I do have a habit of putting those on one of my bags.) I try to only buy things that I have a legitimate use for -- food, clothing, craft supplies, CDs. I don't buy knicknacks anymore -- I try to pretend that I don't own any at all, but I actually have a bunch that just collect dust at my parents' house where I can pretend like I don't own them. I think it was actually the level of knicknack clutter from my childhood that made me decide that I didn't want that sort of thing in my life anymore. When I went to college I left most of it at home, and I felt very freed from all the snow globes and ceramic ponies and porcelain dolls.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately because the attitude I've developed about these things contrasts pretty sharply with the attitude of one of my roommates -- the Roommate Who Has Too Much Stuff. She came home one night last week and showed me a small snow globe with a snowman in it. "Isn't it cute?" she said. "It was only a dollar." "Yes, cute," I said, but I was thinking, That serves no purpose. There's nothing unique or special about it. You just paid a dollar so that your home could be cluttered by another useless, unremarkable object, because you couldn't resist the bargain. Of course, she probably thinks some of the things I own are ridiculous -- the cow mouse, or the orange velvet chair. I suppose being completely baffled by each other's habits is just part of being roommates, sometimes.

My preoccupation with not buying many things has resulted in some strange shopping habits. These days, when I need to buy or replace some useful object, I spend ages trying to decide on just the right one. When the scroll wheel on my old mouse broke, I kept searching for the perfect mouse to replace it. Now it's a new shoulder bag, and I am searching the internet obsessively trying to find just the right thing. It's as though, since I don't buy many things, I need to try to get as much self-expression as I can out of the useful items I do buy. So I make my way through stores asking myself what bookbag really defines me as a person? (Is that a line from Fight Club?) It's entirely possible that this is not a particularly healthy attitude either, but at least it means I spend more time considering my purchases and less time laying down the credit card and bringing things home.

I was on the upswing, and I was hoping that would last until perhaps mid-January, but it didn't. This is because I do not cope well with even the smallest of changes in my world and my plans. Just a few words, and suddenly I'm shaking a bit with anger and the part of my brain that is very, very bored of this sighs and sits back and watches the rollercoaster take another plunge through the magical worlds of rage, insecurity, sadness, and loneliness.

Fortunately I no longer deal with my personal idiocies by flying off the handle. Instead I decided to go for a run.

Usually I just walk, and when I'm upset I could walk to the ends of the earth and back, never getting tired, just walking to slow down my brain and all the unfortunate conclusions that it's pretty sure it can logically reach while plunging through the magical worlds of rage, insecurity, sadness, and loneliness. But a couple weeks ago I found myself getting off the subway in a torrential downpour, and since I was wearing the wool jacket that smells funny when it's wet and takes ages to dry, I decided to make a run for my apartment. My mp3 player was playing Bad Religion's "Can't Stop It" and I found my feet racing along to the beat, ridiculously fast, and suddenly I understood what it's like when runners find their rhythm, how many times their feet can move with every breath, how effortless it all is. I made it to my door only a little out of breath, and without that ridiculous ache in my chest that makes me think I ought to have been diagnosed with asthma at some point (though more likely I'm just out of shape.) And that was how I discovered running.

So today I got out of my apartment as quickly as I could, with my mp3 player on and fast music playing, and tried it. It didn't work this time, though, and before I'd gone a couple blocks my lungs were burning like they always do and I had to slow down to my stubborn, endless walk. I alternated then, walking until I felt a little better, running until I couldn't anymore, then walking again. It only made me angrier though, at people for disappointing me, at my mind for being such a spaz, and at my body for being too incompetent to run a decent distance. Now my chest still aches, and at this point I can't figure out for which reason anymore.

It's weird how going a few days without posting seems like a long time now. But now the semester is finally over, and I am exhausted but not quite dead. I'm going to miss a couple of my classes -- not the work really, but my classmates and professors. Now I have a really long list of break-and-holiday things to do, but it's nice because they are things that I can bustle around and do, not things that I have to sit in front of the computer and ponder.

I also found out yesterday that both my roommates are going to be out of town for two weeks starting next Wednesday. At first I was thrilled, then I was a little disappointed, but now I think I'm thrilled again. This just goes to show my ambivalence about both living with people and living alone. Sometimes I'm grumpy about my roommates when they're here, but at least having them around keeps me from being lonely. On the other hand, I'm quite pleased that I'll have the place to myself when I'm entertaining friends over New Year's. And when I started to feel disappointed about the roommates leaving, I tried to remind myself of why it was ridiculous to be disappointed by thinking about all the things I can do when they're not here. I've even made a list:

-turn up the music and sing loudly
-entertain guests without worrying about whether I'm disturbing anyone or kicking people out of the living room
-cook intricate things without everyone else trying to cook at the same time and leaving dishes about
-set up my bookbinding on the dining room table
-hang out in the living room without having to make awkward conversation

Okay, it is not a long list, but I am going to try to do a lot of all those things.

I was mentioning the upcoming roommate exodus to one of my co-workers, and she said "Two weeks! That's a lot of pants-free time." I'm not really into running around pantsless regardless of the circumstances, but that's not the point. The point is that I could.

I haven't had much contact with or interest in babies over the course of my life, and before last year I'd only held one once or twice, ever. These days I am still fairly unimpressed by strangers' babies, and I still don't think I possess anything remotely resembling a "biological clock." Nevertheless I have gotten to know one particular baby over the past year, and, all crotchetiness aside, when I look down and see her smiling and babbling and raising her arms to be picked up, she totally owns me.

I caught the second to last red line train out of Alewife tonight (which, incidentally, is a bit nervewracking, because if I missed the last train going through Harvard or even Porter or Davis I'd be able to walk home, but Alewife? I would have no idea where to go.) That got me to the not-quite-last green line C train out of Park Street. I was a little disappointed not to have caught the very last train because I didn't get to see the Meeting of the Last Trains that happens at Park Street just before the subway closes for the night.

I hadn't ever really thought about how they shut the lines down, but Cynthia and I were there once after I picked her up from the airport. We had picked up the last C train at Government Center, but at Park Street, the next stop, the train just stopped with its doors open for fifteen minutes. We weren't sure what was going on, but eventually all the other trains showed up, all the different lines going west, and further across the tracks, the eastbound trains, all just sitting in station with their doors open. I realized that all the trains were stopping and waiting so that the last passengers of the night could make the connections they needed to, and I could imagine the last two red line trains downstairs, sitting and waiting in the same way. Eventually the MBTA personnel in the station gave a bustle and a shout, there was a clang as the gates to the station were closed, the doors shut on all the trains, and they began to move off all at once. It felt as though the subway had just had some great planetary alignment, a moment of order in the apparent randomness of trains coming and going all day, a brief unison before they all continued on their erratic circuits. Then the the last trains and the last people traveled on to the outskirts of the city to sleep, to start it all again the next day.

I meant to tell you last night about one of my new friends from this semester, but the post got sidetracked somehow.

She's both a classmate and one of my new co-workers, and she's terrifically pleasant and fun to work with. What I have come to love about her, though, is that she's angry in the same ways I am. We discovered this one night when we were walking to the subway and a biker whizzed right past us on the sidewalk. We started commiserating about how rude some of the bikers around here are, how they switch back and forth between the roads and the sidewalks with nary a warning to the drivers and pedestrians involved, how they shoot through crosswalks unexpectedly and nearly run people down, how they all seem to think that they should get to be the one biker that can bike through Harvard Yard, despite all the signs that say no biking, with the end result that there are endless obnoxious bikers barreling down the narrow footpaths. She told me she'd cussed out a biker the week before for nearly running her over, and I said "Hey, I've done that too!"

Since then we've talked about many more things that make us angry -- rude people on the subway, a snobbish Seven Sisters alum who can't be bothered to help work on group projects, incompetent professors, the disgusting Healey campaign. We can laugh at ourselves for getting so worked up about things, but it's also nice to chat with someone who understands: it's not that we randomly get mad all the time, it's that people persistently do maddening things. How can we help it? It's as though it's a point of honor to not let these things pass as though they don't matter, to spend the energy being upset because people should be upset about these things, because people should care.* In another time we might have been knights, chivalrous, using our swords to stand up for what is right, proving that people shouldn't get away with things just because they can. In another universe we might have been superheroes, the kind that can never let any injustice pass, but will suit up and fly to the rescue wherever any little affront has taken place. As it is we are only disgruntled women in the city, wishing that people would be decent on a daily basis. But the thought is there, at least.

*It's not that I actually believe that people who don't get worked up about things don't care. It's just that that's how I've always dealt with it, and I don't think I'd want to be any other way.

(I was embarrassed to realize that the original version of this post had eight instances of the word "just," so it has been edited to remove many of them.)

I have to tell you how much less lonely I feel this semester since I'm doing things right this time around. The problem with the program I'm in is that people get their degrees at so many different paces and spend so little of their time actually at school that you really have to make new friends every semester, because you may not see the old ones much anymore once the classes you had together end. I made some friends in my first semester, but only one really carried over to the next semester. And at the beginning of last spring semester I was too much of a basket case to take much notice of the people around me for a few months, at which time it was a bit late to say "hi, so what was your name again? Sorry, I've been in Mentally Troubled Land for the past eight weeks." I suppose an introduction like that would be more likely to cause people to back away slowly, anyway.

But this semester I jumped in right away, being friendly and talking to people, and especially in my Cataloging class where we work in groups all the time, I've actually made several new friends. I understand that people are generally supposed to have the friend-making skills worked out by, say, kindergarten, but for some reason it doesn't always come easily to me. It's not as though I can't do it, more that if I don't think about doing it, it doesn't happen. Some people make friends as naturally as breathing, but when I enter a classroom I have to tell myself, There's A. Say hi. Chat a little bit. Once I get started I don't have to think about it, but there's definitely some manual crank-turning in my brain that has to happen to get things rolling.

I'm incredibly conscious of this at work, too. Work is one of the places I feel most awkward (unlike school, which is one of the places I feel most comfortable), and at my old job I became aware too late that I had been unnaturally quiet for a lot of my time there and that some people had stopped trying to have conversations with me. Once that happened it became hard to change, though I took some opportunities to try to come out of my shell a bit. I don't think they disliked me; perhaps they just found me inexplicable. Anyway, when I started my new job this semester I was careful to do that right too: to greet people when I came in each day, to chat with people while working, to agree to go hang out later. I am hoping that if I pay attention and work at it, eventually the me that comes out at school and among friends will be able to shine a bit there too, because soon I will be out of school, and if work is all I have, I'd better be doing it right, all the time.

Flustered pretty much describes my state of mind for most of today.

Case 1: Why it is bad to work in a highly secure building.

My bus arrived at work twenty minutes early today, and I was left thinking, gosh, what should I do with all this time? Perhaps I can sit down somewhere and do some of the homework in my bag. I'll just sit down in the main part of the library for a little while and do some classification exercises. As I was walking towards the library I reached into my back pocket where I keep my access card only to realize that my access card was not in my pocket at all, but actually on my dresser at home, a half-hour bus ride away.

Well crap.

I demonstrated my vastly improved coping mechanisms to myself by going from "GOD Amanda, you're the most incompetent adult human being EVER," to "Okay, what are my options," in twenty seconds flat. I needed the card in question to get into the building AND to get into my department within the building. Last week I had fortunately put my department phone number into my cell phone, so to get into my part of the building I could, in theory, call my co-workers and ask someone to come get the door for me. Embarrassing, but it would work. However, I was pretty sure they didn't hold enough clout with They Who Guard the Entrance to get me into the building itself. I figured there was nothing for it but to go to the Library Privileges office and plead my case.

"Hi, I, um, work here, but I've unfortunately left my ID card in Brookline."

The man sighed a little, asked for my name, and reached for a temporary card. Dur, Amanda, you can't possibly be the only person to ever forget your access card, I thought. After a few minutes of paperwork I was on my way into the building. One door down, one to go.

I really, really didn't want to call the lab and ask to be let in, so I lurked by the door, rummaging through my bag as though at any moment I would find my ID card and let myself in. After a few minutes of this charade I began to wonder if there were security cameras in the hallway that would be recording my odd behavior. Then it crossed my mind that since it was lunchtime, some of my co-workers might be in the cafeteria, and I could go find them and ask if they'd let me in. (How is this less embarrassing than calling the lab? I don't know. I'm very weird about phones.) But I didn't see anyone I knew in the cafeteria, so I went back to the door and rummaged unconvincingly through my bag some more. Fortunately, a few minutes later someone came out the door. She held the door to let me in as I smiled gratefully. I had killed most of my twenty minutes with the combination of paperwork and unsubtle lurking.

When I got downstairs to the lab I found one of my co-workers lamenting that he had somehow lost his car keys (and didn't have a backup set), and I thought, See? Everyone misplaces things now and then.

Case 2: The lurkers.

After work I went to grab dinner at an IHOP, figuring it wasn't worth it to go all the way home before heading out to the suburbs for a co-worker's birthday gathering. I thought IHOP would be a nice well-lit place to eat and settle down with some classification homework. The IHOP was brand new and when I got there, completely empty. I was seated and provided with water and a menu within thirty seconds of arrival.

As I was debating the merits of crepes versus omelettes, I became aware that the poor waitress, having nothing else to do but tend to me, was standing on the other side of the partition of my booth, near the kitchen door, glancing oh-so-furtively at me to see if I was still reading the menu. I tried to ignore this and kept my eyes glued to the page, trying to determine which items came with hash browns. I figured this must be some kind of cosmic justice, to chastise me for my ridiculous and unnecessary lurking earlier in the day.

Despite my deliberate attention to the menu, the waitress came around the corner to ask if I was ready yet. "A few more minutes, please," I told her. She retreated to the other side of the booth again. When I was ready I looked up and took a sip of water. Instantly she was back. I got my order less than five minutes later. During this whole process a police officer had come in and been seated, so the waitress' attention was at least somewhat divided. However, no sooner did I have my meal in front of me than a busboy began peering around the corner to see if there were any plates to be cleared.

Mind you, I'm not saying that I have any complaints about the service, exactly. It's just that it's hard to have a leisurely meal when you are being watched. All the time. I ate my food as quickly as I could and went to the Dunkin Donuts down the street to do homework. It was good to be ignored.

I'm glad I enjoyed that sensation while it lasted, because an hour later as I settled down on the train to the suburbs and got out my homework, I became aware again that I was being watched. "Excuse me," said a girl behind and across the aisle from me, "but is that Kafka you're reading?"

It was not. For my classification homework I am given a collection of copies of the title pages of books along with their subject headings. Based on this information I am supposed to assign Library of Congress classification numbers to the items in question. I won't bore you with details. My title page packet at that moment was open to a copy of the title page of Kafka's Metamorphosis. I tried to figure out how to explain this as briefly as possible.

"No, that's just the title page. I'm doing a homework assignment where I have to assign classification numbers to books is all." I assumed this would lead to a disappointed "oh," and she would go back to whatever she was doing before.

"Oh wow." I assumed this was the sarcastic and/or pitying "oh wow" that I sometimes get when I mention the content of my courses to non-librarian-types. "Yes, it's... riveting," I said, grimacing at it slightly.

"Oh, you don't like it?" she said. She was serious, she did think it was interesting. She was continuing the conversation! (In case you are from the South or Midwest United States or somewhere else where people are friendly, and this doesn't strike you as weird, I should explain that strangers do not talk to each other in Boston. Talking to strangers is only normal if (a) you are panhandling, (b) you have bumped into someone and are apologizing, (c) you are admiring someone's dog, (d) you are asking for a Sox score, or (e) you are asking for directions. Not only does this interaction not fall into any of those categories, she was acting incredibly interested in a subject area that no one, but no one, is supposed to be interested in. Even I'm not interested in it most days, and I'm studying it.)

"Um, it's a bit tedious," I said.

"So how do you do it?" she asked.

"Well, basically, there are these volumes of books which say what subjects go under what numbers, and you go through the books and find the subject you are looking for." I'm really not good at being put on the spot to explain things, especially things I never expected anyone to ask me about.

"Oh, okay."

I turned around and started trying to do my work again, although this is harder to do knowing that a stranger is watching you with fascination. Before I had turned the page she spoke up again.

"But, don't you have to renumber everything every time you get a new book?"

I explained how use of decimals allows you to insert new subject areas in between old ones without renumbering. Then she asked me if the numbers didn't get awfully long, and I explained that they did sometimes but that some libraries classify with lower levels of detail depending on their needs. Then I turned back to my homework and kept my eyes glued to the page, which I seemed to be doing an awful lot today.

I packed up my bag when I found out that my stop was next, and was about to take out my cell phone and use it to look very busy when she saw her chance and piped up once more.

"Have you ever seen Read or Die?"

"Um, what?" I asked, trying to determine if this was some kind of deranged threat.

"It's a TV show. About superhero librarians. It's only three episodes. You should see it sometime."

"Ah. Good to know." I smiled as pleasantly as possible and moved towards the exit.

It's possible I'm just not a very nice person, but most of the time I really, really want strangers to just leave me alone.

Case 3: Why it is important to scope out commuter rail stations in advance of trying to catch trains at them.

Oddly enough I did not feel flustered while out with my co-worker and her friends, who I didn't know at all. We ate ice cream and chatted and I nearly forgot about all the lurking and flusteredness involved in my day. Too soon I had to leave and catch a train back to Boston. After a brisk walk I was on the platform where I had arrived, a couple minutes before the train was to arrive. (I'm using the term "platform" loosely here -- it was just an area of pavement where you waited to board the train, not raised up at all, so you had to climb stairs to get on the train.)

As I stood there I glanced at signs to make sure I was in the right place. The sign next to me said "Outbound." The sign across the tracks from me said "Outbound." I assumed there was an "Inbound" sign somewhere in the near vicinity, because there was only one track. When there is only one track you board the train in the same place for both inbound and outbound trains, like in my hometown. I counted the tracks again. One. I read the sign across from me. Outbound. I read the sign next to me. Outbound. I walked down the platform a bit to look for something that said Inbound. Then I stopped as the gates on the nearby cross-street started ringing and lowering, and I saw the train's headlight coming down the track.

The train's headlight shined on me. I smiled hopefully at it. It stared impassively at me.

It was not slowing to anything like a complete stop.

My slow-moving brain started to move significantly faster. The train stops at this station. The train is not stopping *here*, therefore I am in the wrong place. The train is slowing down, so it is stopping... up there. On the other side of this cross-street. Where that parking lot is. Oh, and all those signs that say "Inbound." I began running alongside the train, up against the crossing gates, across the cross-street, over the gravel alongside the tracks, to the upsettingly long inbound platform.

My now fast-moving brain took the opportunity to go from "GOD Amanda, you're the most incompetent adult human being EVER," to "Okay, what are my options," in only ten seconds this time. The next train was at 11:30 pm, two hours away. It was very cold out. The ice cream shop where my co-worker and her friends were would be closed in half an hour. I wondered whether I had enough homework left in my bag to occupy me for that length of time, whether the light in the parking lot would be bright enough to be useful, and whether there were many sketchy characters who lurked at train stations in this particular suburb. I figured there probably would be, since I wasn't having very good luck with lurkers today.

I made it to the platform, but the door where people were entering the train was still far away. The last of the people got on, and the conductor moved to the door. I kept running, waving my arm desperately in a combination of "Hi!" "Wait!" and "Pleease, I'm really pitiful and asthmatic!"

The conductor glanced in my direction. He stepped away from the door again.

"Thank you," I gasped as I climbed the steps. I collapsed in a corner seat and leaned my head against the wall. I don't think my heart rate slowed down until we reached Boston.


Well, that was unnecessarily long. How was your day? Extra points for using the words "flustered" or "lurk."

Right now my apartment smells like pine needles and apple crisp. Which is really the perfect way for an apartment to smell at this time of year.

I'm feeling much much less crotchety about Christmas than usual this year. I don't know why, but it's kind of nice. A couple weeks ago I just hit some sort of mental turning point, and I've been on the upswing ever since. I hope I will be for a while.

My dad sent me an email last night to say that he already had the Christmas tree up at home. This is quite an accomplishment for the very first weekend of December. It reminded me that I had to figure out where to get a tree this year.

(I hate fake trees; there doesn't seem to be any point in going to the trouble to put up the tree if it's not going to smell evergreeny and have water under it for the various pets to drink out of. But maybe that's just me.)

Last year I was spared the trouble of figuring this out because my roommate Sarah and her mom (who has a car) went out to get the tree, who knows where. This year, though, none of us have cars, or relatives with cars in the immediate vicinity, so I figured we were on our own. One of the current roommates is Jewish, so she would be highly unlikely to participate in the acquisition of trees. The other one has unfortunate taste in just about everything, so I figured I should head off any problems by getting a tree soon so that I don't come home one day to find some pink plastic monstrosity gracing our living room.

I thought that I remembered last year seeing trees being sold in a parking lot not far from here, so I went over to see what was there. Nothing was there. The parking lot was full of parked cars. I'm not sure specifically when I thought I saw trees being sold there, so maybe it was a weird dream or something. At any rate, that plan was foiled. So, at a loss for any better ideas, I was forced to do something I generally avoid -- asking people.

DUM dum dum.

Okay, it really wasn't that bad.

I went to the florists down the street, guessing that since they deal in cut plants they may know of places that deal with much larger cut plants. One of them informed me that all the way down the end of Harvard Ave. there were Christmas trees for sale, right next to the U-Save Auto Rental. I knew where that was. A little over a mile away. So I went.

The criteria for a good Christmas tree have changed a lot in my family over the years. When we were little we pretty much got the tallest tree that could fit in our living room. Once we had the dog we started getting smaller trees that could stand on the coffee table, in order to keep the presents off the ground and (hopefully) away from the beagle, who became something of a gift-wrap fiend. Now that I am on my own, it seems that the most important characteristic of a tree is that it is small enough that I can carry it a fair distance.

I examined trees by grabbing their trunks and lifting them. Some trees that looked about the same size seemed to have a significant weight difference for some reason. I found one that seemed very full but still light, and made a note of it while I went to look at other ones. Then some more people came looking around and they started looking at the light little tree I had spotted. HEY! I said in my head. Get away from my tree! That's when I knew for sure I wanted that one. As though sensing my psychic belligerence, they moved away to look at something else. I bought the tree and had it wrapped up to carry home.

"Are you hoofing it?" the man asked as he tightened the twine around the branches. When I nodded he asked how far I was going. "Oh, just up Harvard St. a ways," I said, not wanting to admit that I was going all the way to Brookline -- almost expecting him to laugh at the idea of me going that far with a tree, or to coax me to call a friend for a ride (which, of course, I couldn't do anyway.) He just nodded. "It's a pretty light tree. You'll be fine." Yes, I would.

Hauling the tree home, I felt vaguely cave-man-esque, as though I were dragging my kill home from the hunt. In a household of vegetarians, bringing back a tree seemed somehow appropriate.

I feel accomplished now, in a way that I only do when I've done some sort of physical work. Bringing home a Christmas tree is another thing I can add to the list of things I can do with my own hands, without anyone's help.

You know what keeps you awake like nothing else, though? Completely FUBARing your website and spending forty-five minutes believing that you may have lost all the posts from the last month FOREVAR. It is all fixed now, and as far as I can tell nothing is missing, but that adrenaline rush will keep me going until 2 or 3 am, easily.

In much better news, the archives page -- featuring my compromise between converting old posts to the new template and keeping the old templates -- is now up and running. I have not had a chance to test out all the links yet and my brain is so fried that I'm sure one or another is likely to be broken or wrong or something. So if tonight you are bored and/or can't sleep and think the best way to entertain yourself would be reading through my archives, do let me know if you notice anything awry.

The goal is to add a list of best-of entries to the archives page at some point or another, but that's probably a project for when the semester's over.

Getting through today is going to require caffeine. Perhaps lots of it.

Yes, I know it is Saturday. You should be able to doze off on a Saturday if you want, even if there are papers to write. I firmly believe this.

However, a sequence of events over the past several days has led to me being completely unable to be tired between midnight and 6 am. This is going to be a problem next week if I don't fix it today.

On Thursday night I stayed up until nearly 4am doing an assignment. The assignment wasn't due yet, but it is a group project and I had promised my partner that I would have my bit done by the end of Thursday. Using the term "end of Thursday" loosely, I did keep my word. Anyway, since everything I have left to do is due at roughly the same time, one has to get ahead on some things anyway.

On Friday I didn't have work or class or anything, so I slept until sweet wonderful 11 am. Then I ran errands, I made copies at school, I was all set to begin working on another assignment, and then sometime around 7pm I became incredibly sleepy. I have very little nap-resisting willpower unless I am at some kind of formal event or in a public place or something. Especially since I had such fun times with insomnia this summer, these days when my body tells me that it would like to shut down with no complaints at all, I am much more inclined to say "Yes please that would be lovely," than put up any kind of fight about the matter. Even if it is a Very Bad Idea.

So I slept for two hours, after which I felt incredibly alert. Then I compounded the problem by drinking a soda while watching tv with my roommate. When I reached for the soda nothing in my brain said "Amanda, that has caffeine, do not do that if you ever want to sleep again, stupidhead." Something in my brain did say, "Oooh, corn syrup + carbonation = delicious." I can only conclude that the logical portions of my brain were still groggy while the GIR-esque portions were working quite well.

After a couple more hours the inability to sleep was getting quite annoying, especially since the tv was starting to show commercials about Meeting Hot Girls in your area, the universal sign that you ought to be either out at a bar or asleep. Fortunately I had the 24-hour supermarket to entertain me. Now that I've gone there a couple of times in the middle of the night, I think I'm going to deliberately do my shopping like this more often. I truly hate crowded supermarkets on weekends, full of people who block your way while deeply pondering what pasta to get. (Let it be known, however, that I am a total hypocrite about this, because last night I did the very same thing in front of the frozen vegetables, trying to decide which particular combination of mixed vegetables I wanted. But it didn't matter because no one else was there anyway.)

I got home a little after 2 am, and did some random housekeeping things around my room and then tried really really hard to sleep. It didn't work terribly well, and I feel like I remember every hour of the night. But somehow I dozed off for a bit and somehow I did manage to get up at 9:30 this morning. Today I have vowed that I will not sleep at all until midnight so that I will not be completely ridiculously nocturnal next week.

Unfortunately I feel incredibly sleepy as I write this, and the sun going down isn't helping matters, so it may be time to make a coffee run.

It's the end of NaBloPoMo. Even though I wasn't a participant, the event really inspired me both to get my blog running again and to learn how to post regularly again after an accidental hiatus of a few months. It taught me a bit about my writing process -- after a couple of years of being incredibly perfectionistic about what I posted here, I let myself just open the browser and write, and posted despite nagging feelings of "This is stupid" and "This isn't good enough." I hope I can continue to allow myself that same sort of freedom in the future. If I don't like a post, as long as I manage to come up with more it'll scroll off the page before long and I won't have to look at it again. And I like them more often than I don't like them.

The month has also given me the opportunity to read a lot of blogs I hadn't read before. My linklist has been incredibly short since probably 2002, mostly likely because I've spent less and less time going out and reading new things. As old friends quit blogging, the list just got shorter and shorter until now I'm pretty much down to a little group of five- and six- year bloggers like myself. I've felt very whiney about how small the blogging world seems to be these days, but that's only because I haven't gone out and explored it.

My laziness in that regard didn't change too much this month -- I can still only browse new sites for so long before my brain starts to feel gooey and unhappy -- but fortunately Crushing Krisis has gone above and beyond the NaBloPoMo call of duty by reading every single participating blog and linking the best of them. Which, of course, allows me to lazily read some of the ones that he deems good and add them to my own list. (Mind you, I haven't even finished doing that yet, because the reviews were coming in so fast by the end of the month that I was unable or unwilling to keep up.) Turns out the blog world is much bigger if you just take a look around a little, and despite my recent grumpiness that political and mommy bloggers have pretty much usurped the medium, there are plenty of non-mommy personal bloggers still out there too, which is heartening.

My usual criteria for adding someone's link is that I am reading them often enough that I keep going to someone else's website for their link on a regular basis. That's true of several things I've read this month, so I'll probably be adding to the old linklist soon.

I hope I'll keep up the regular posting for a while now. I like it much better than the highly sporadic essay-length posts I've been doing for the past couple of years.

earlier -- later