second semester

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    okay

    so

    It's Thursday today and I've been back on campus since Monday and classes started on Tuesday

    and I have my second session of history class tomorrow and my first time in writing class tomorrow

    and there was no second Bible class today because Professor Mine Enemy is out of town and there will be no philosophy class next Tuesday because Dr Mac will be out of town

    So the thing is that I have almost no homework to do over the weekend

    like at all

    I just need to read some poetry stuff for Intro to Lit and read the first 28 chapters of the book of Job for Bible and read a couple historical documents for history if I want to, and I might have something to do for writing class but I won't know 'til tomorrow

    I am like freaking out right now, what do I do with myself all weekend

     (maybe I should....get ahead in my work?)


    (woah)

we're a bit close, yes

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    Last day of vacation! I must pack tonight and tomorrow afternoon fly back to SoCal, where classes will start on Tuesday. This last stretch of break would have been better without an ugly cold knocking me flat, but at least I was on my own bed once again (laid out on the kitchen floor every night for lack of space in the apartment, the plastic mattress-protecting case betraying itself underneath the sheets every time I moved).

    Here is a short and incomplete list of things I have done with my mother lately, both from our time in Oregon and in Idaho.

•  watched movies (including two Thin Man movies, Lawrence of Arabia, and Tangled) and television shows (Sherlock Holmes starring our beloved Jeremy Brett, BBC Sherlock, Dorothy L Sayers Mysteries: Have His Carcase starring you, and Pride and Prejudice 1995, most of these with my father involved as well)
• had heartfelt Talks while snuggling
• shopped for clothes
• shopped for groceries
• shopped for shoes (because regrettable things have happened to my sneakers at college)
• played Scrabble
• made lovely collages on our new folders for school (while playing Scrabble)
• gone to church (both at our church in Oregon and at the church my parents have liked best in their Idaho town so far, which I was very interested to see, it's nondenominational and not very liturgical at all but is very entertaining and seems to be full of quality folks)
• taken dogs on walks (in Oregon, while Best Friend and family were gone for Christmas weekend and I had the care of my dog which they're fostering and their own dog)
• shopped for more clothes
• baked cookies
• baked more cookies
• looked at silly pictures of Dr Mac on Facebook (well, I made her sit with me)
• talked and talked and talked about everything

    And a short and incomplete list of things I have done independently of my mother:

• read books or parts of books (Persuasion by Jane Austen, and also A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett because I was sick and couldn't handle much)
• hung out with my Auntlet and also, too briefly, Friend Bethany
• slept in forever every day
• drawn nice, ugly pictures with my new highlighters

    And things my mother has done independently of me:

• mended my pants
• ???

    There was also a great deal of going over to my grandmother's place in her old folks' home to eat while it was Christmas and my parents and sister were staying with her and my uncles had come to visit for Christmas. And my parents and I went to see my aunt in the hills and her tween children and her horses and assorted animals. And also went to the beach (Oregon Coast!), where it was gloriously freezing and windy and homey.

    Now back to work until the summer, I suppose.

let us not speak of his pants

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    So my family who drove over to Oregon for Christmas (where I was staying with Best Friend) drove me back to their apartment in Idaho today

    and

    it's

    friggin'

    cold

    But now I'm nestled into the couch with a blanket on my legs like an old lady and I've got milk chocolate chips and I'm gonna watch the latest Doctor Who Christmas Special

    so life is good.

    For the moment.

    Also Best Friend and Best Friend's Awesome Younger Sister and I watched Labyrinth yesterday, they'd never seen it before and I hadn't seen it since I was a little girl (when it freaked me out maaaajorly)

    because oh my gosh David Bowie

    Just...David Bowie

    and the singing when he sang

    let me die

reunion

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    Merry Christmas from myself and my dog.

    Now for a nap, I think.

pears and freedom are delicious

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    Two things.

    One, sometimes it is necessary to eat at pear at midnight because sometimes midnight may be the hour of that pear's perfected ripeness, the fleeting peak between crunch and squish. As if one bought a rock at the supermarket and kept it in a basket in the kitchen for days, and one carefully watched over it until at last, late one night, a light came from it and it magically hatched into one's own true love (who could never have possibly fit inside it but hey magic). And one's own true love said, "My darling, you and I must spend this hour together and you must end me at the close of it, or else I shall turn into a slimy frog and die within a few days, rotting before your eyes, never having loved. You would not do that to me." So of course one would spend the hour together with one's own love, sitting on the carpet, holding hands and resting against each other and gazing at the lights on the Christmas tree, dreaming up hopes not subject to reason, before the time ended and one ate him and devoured his flesh right down to the bones, delicately wiped one's lips with a napkin and tossed his spine into the compost bin, silently thanking him for the time spent together. Isn't it the better way?

     Two, I was thinking about catching up on a television show I hadn't watched since I went to college but then I thought "no of course I can't I don't have time" then I remembered that I'm on vacation and have absolutely no homework to do and no classes to go to
    HA

home home home

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    DWURR I AM FINALLY HOME

    This is a very very good thing.

    So that paper I mentioned before kept me awake 'til past 4:30am, after which I briefly reminded my teeth and toothbrush of each other's existence and then fell into bed with most of my clothes on and slept 'til about 8am on Thursday, when I woke up, changed clothes, and remembered that even though I had planned to study for my public speaking final before I took it, I had loaned my textbook to a classmate the night before and had not yet gotten it back. Then I just sat there blinking and wavering until just before 9am, when it was time to take said final which I hadn't studied for at all beyond initially reading the chapters when they were assigned. Guesswork, piffle, and a pinch of BS got me through the exam, leaving me an hour to pack and print my boarding passes and find directions to the airport because my ride hadn't been there more than once, which sounds like it should have been enough time but was not.

    We got on the road only a tiny bit late (Upperclassman Laurelinda was driving me) and made it to the airport fine, and I got through security just fine and the flight to Salt Lake City was fine and my layover in Salt Lake City was fine, although my next flight was slightly delayed. Boarding the plane to Portland, I found that some guy had stolen my assigned window-seat and had actually brought a pillow to sleep on against the window. This, as I was exhausted from a largely sleepless and stressful week and it was then about 5:30 in the evening and I had eaten literally nothing but two packets of complimentary airplane cookies all day, was rather much, and only the desire to get home and not be taken in by security stopped me from committing murder. I like windows. I was looking forward to that window. Do not get between myself and windows.

    So Best Friend's mother picked me up from the Portland airport and drove me the distance of several towns back to home, as she had been in Portland that day anyway. (I'm staying with Best Friend and family while I'm in Oregon and my parents are driving over to spend Christmas in Oregon and then they're taking me back with them to Idaho before I fly back down to California, so they couldn't have picked me up.)

    My dog was very, very excited to see me when I walked in Best Friend's door.

My father, seeing this picture on facebook, referred to him as a "blur of happiness."

    That night I slept 13 hours straight, followed by 12 hours last night. I like sleep.

    Yesterday (Friday) was lovely. Best Friend had errands to run downtown so we biked to do them and I got to see several of my favorite old haunts again, and eat doughnuts from a little local grocery place, and have my favorite hot chocolate from my favorite cafe downtown (the one I've grown up around and which I used to work for). And we had a simple and lovely home-cooked dinner (ahhhh aaa cafeteria food is ok but aaaaaa) and then at 6pm BF's mom and I went to see BF test for her yellow belt in Taekwondo. Then sometime that evening I watched a stupid and enjoyable movie from the 1930s starring William Powell (but not Myrna Loy) and went to bed.

    Today (Saturday) has also been lovely thus far, after sleeping forever, showering forever, being taken out by my grandparents (on my mother's side) for ice cream (chocolate-peanut butter for me, at a local ice cream/diner place with a 1950s theme which I've also grown up around), after which they drove me at my request by my old house (which we moved out of last August when I went to school and my family moved to Idaho for school, and which I had spent my entire life in up 'til then) and then drove me home. Then I took my dog on a walk and reveled in the exercise and the white sky and the fog and the cold air. Forgot to wear gloves and my right hand nearly fell off, it was awesome.

    THEN I BLOGGED

    HA

Best Friend's poodle Lucy was also happy to see me.

With disgusting results.

oh that face of hers.

   

it's like christmas eve for christmas break

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    can't
    write
    paper
    so little sleep
    two hardest exams this morning, now out of words
    just need to write short paper and then take an easy exam in the morning
    and then
    i can fly away
    far, far, farafararararfarar awaaaaayyyy
    tomorrow afternoon
    and it's so close
    but i can't wriiiiiiiite
    blaaaaaaaaah