Would I have to start wearing skinny jeans?

My mom's surgery is tomorrow. The MRI had found another lump, but we finally found out this morning that it's benign, so surgery is as scheduled. It's funny, i don't think I'm thinking about it much, then I'm like, gosh, why won't this headache go away and BOY am I exhausted, and huh, my back's kinda sore and tense... oh... right. Apparently I suppress emotion a lot more than I thought I did.

The fact that I'm not sure how to approach art school and am sick of my job and freaked out about my future in general isn't helping. These things always compound and make each other worse. In general I'm doing ok, but I'm discovering that I really do repress emotions, or at least the long term bad ones that I feel like I don't have any control over. So maybe I'm not actually that happy, I'm just telling myself I am? I don't know. I think I'm fine. Just stressed.

I'm discovering some good music, however (Colin Hay omg love), and reading some good stuff at least. I just finished Contact (awesome), and while I decide what meatier book to dive into next, I'm rereading some favorite short stories. The best part of my life these days is the 20 minutes at the end of the day when I'm curled up on the couch with my book, or in bed pressing snooze for the first time in the morning, when I know I don't quite have to get up yet. It ...may be time for a vacation.

You know, those tangible things with the pages?

I've started another Robin McKinley novel, called Deerskin, and aside from her short story collections and one novel about dragons that I'm not real excited about, I believe it's the last of her books I haven't read yet. I put it off until almost-last because it has some disturbing thematic content (as Monica puts it, "Evil father rapists what?"), but so far it's really, really good, and it might end up being one of my favorites. We'll see, though -- I'm still on page 52, and she hasn't been attacked by her father yet.

While I'm on the topic, another McKinley book I never got around to mentioning when I read it a couple months ago is Sunshine (fabulous summary and review here), which, although I'm not into the whole vampire shtick, I really enjoyed. (This book predates the recent national obsession with vampires, and contains no sparkles.) I'd totally recommend it. She rambles a bit (which seems to be McKinley's style when she's not being careful), but she does a great job of creating a sense of place, and of creating palpable tension between Sunshine's (the main character) growing friendship with the vampire Constantine, and her intense fear and disgust. Also, Sunshine works as a baker in a coffee shop, and those descriptions me want to eat molten chocolate raspberry cinnamonny baked goodness like whoa.

It's an exciting life I lead.

See? SEE??? This is what happens when I don't set a schedule for myself. I never. Blog.

Last night, Kasey came over for a Trek & Pizza Night of Awesome, and it was, as you might imagine from its title ...awesome. She came over at about 6, we got down to watching at about 8, and didn't quit til about 2. That's six solid hours of Trek: 3 TNG episodes, the new movie, and all the new movie's special features. It was hardcore. I then stayed up to finish Robin McKinley's The Outlaws of Sherwood, and I'm not going to say all the Trek's been affecting my brain, but I may or may not have kept picturing Alan-a-Dale in a visor. Catherine, you have so much to look forward to.

I missed church today (which may have had something to do with the whole me staying up til 4 to finish my book after the Trekathon thing ...my priorities not always being entirely what they ought to be), then spent most of the afternoon washing dishes, doing laundry, and cleaning. I've gradually over the last three years turned into someone who keeps her apartment relatively clean and tidy, which is, honestly, quite a shift and something I'm very pleased about. I still don't quite live up to my mom's precedent, but I do consider myself to have taken a step in the right direction -- keeping my home relatively clean is one of those things I consider to be a staple of adulthood. It still takes an imminent houseguest to make me clean my bathroom and I don't own a vacuum cleaner, but, well, babysteps.

Other notable events of the last few days include a massive snowstorm, me almost slipsliding my way into a head-on with a van, a red semi-truck with human skulls on the dashboard hovering disconcertingly below my office window, me finally getting a start on my Christmas shopping, and an inaugural wearing of the new scarf. I feel sort of like a turtle with it on, but it's really pretty, so we're going to try to ignore the whole drowning in yarn sensation and concentrate on the colors. Mmmm, seafoam green.

It's like weekly Christmas, except I get fined if I keep the presents.

I am establishing a new Sunday tradition in the Life of Holly: oversleeping and missing church going to the public library! It sank in recently that the main branch of our city's public library is actually open limited hours on Sunday, so last week when I tragically found myself without anything to read, I scooted myself downtown and came away with the aforementioned Rose Daughter, several cds, and ST:TOS, season one, disk one, on dvd (haven't watched it yet; review pending). It was basically the best Sunday afternoon ever, and this week, I decided, called for a repeat performance. It was, again, everything I hoped it could be.

I was surprised at how perfectly a Sunday library visit fits into my schedule. Weekdays I work roughly 9-6-- not a schedule conducive to library visits. (I hate going in the evenings; being in any location with fluorescent lights after dark reminds me of either studying or hospitals.) Saturdays I'm always busy with something, and it's really just the perfect lazy Sunday afternoon thing to do. It gives me somewhere to go to get out of the apartment, I can pretend I've accomplished something, and I get to stock up on all sorts of entertainment delights for the coming week.

Half the fun of a Sunday afternoon is in keeping things spontaneous, but I can definitely see this becoming a tradition.

In which I do very little

Tonight was another tired, uneventful evening at home. I ate dinner, did laundry, read, and feasted upon the chocolate-capped bourbon balls Kathleen and I made yesterday at our girls' hangout night of awesome that I tried so hard to tell you about in my last post. My roommate's not home, I have a Christmas-scented candle lit, and I'm about to fold some laundry.

I've been making a concerted effort lately not to over-book myself -- I love being social but if I don't get enough time to myself I start to feel drained. Also, I have a need to nest sometimes, and I hate a messy apartment -- which mine invariably becomes if I spend too much time away. Also also -- and this is a big thing -- the first step to me getting back into my art is giving myself time with my sketchbook. This seems like a simple piece of logic, but after years of simply not having the time, getting back in the habit of taking the free time I now do have and using it this way is surprisingly difficult. Or at least it was until recently. Now that I've acknowledged art as such a high priority (I've decided to go to art school, if anyone doesn't know) and have gotten excited about it again, the impulse to pick up my sketch book when I have a free evening is slowly (SLOWLY) returning. Win!

But this evening, after such a late night last night, I just let myself curl up by the lamp and pick away at Rose Daughter without much thought to the future. At least, no future past a hot shower and a warm rice sock to take to bed with me (and maybe another bourbon ball).

Thanks, Bed, you're looking ravishing tonight, too

I am tired. Not getting enough sleep all week, sandy-feeling puffy eyes tired. Time to punch out a quick post (said process made longer by having to push Garfunkel out of my face every three minutes) before brushing my teeth, skipping my shower, and pouring into bed.

Despite the overwhelming tiredness, I had a nice evening. Telling my calorie count just what exactly it could do with itself, I made mac and cheese for dinner (with Colbert and Scrubs for company), then curled up in the semidarkness with my current Robin McKinley novel. Not an altogether bad way to spend an evening when one's too tired to think. Previous ambitious plans involved making an artistic masterpiece of my blog, cleaning, laundry, and some sketching, but that'll wait for another day. Bed's putting the moves on me and call me a hussy but I'm about to accept the invitation.